Library Card

Once upon a time, receiving a library card was a rite of passage, a moment that children looked forward to as part of their transition to independence. Having a card in your own name meant selecting books without the help of your mother and getting closer to the day when your choices were no longer limited to the children's section. Unfortunately, the library card has lost some of its childhood appeal in the 1990s, said Bob Vatalo, headmaster of Media/Providence Friends School.

If the suspicious looking guy in the trenchcoat who was lurking around your local library is gone, you have the FBI to thank. It has called most of its agents off the job. FBI Director William S. Sessions has ordered his troops out of the book stacks and card catalogs where they ostensibly were looking for Soviet spies. There is one exception. FBI agents will still frequent specialized libraries in New York City, which the bureau says are favorite hangouts of "hostile agents," also known in FBI parlance as "co-optees.

The state legislature has allotted only half the money requested by Gov. Thornburgh to implement the statewide library card known as Access Pennsylvania. The state ran a pilot project with federal money last year in which people with library cards in one-third of the state's counties could borrow books from any of the 143 participating library systems. Many of the libraries in Delaware and Montgomery Counties were included. Philadelphia was not. Neither was Pittsburgh. The pilot program was deemed a huge success by librarians and patrons.

You had to be 6 years old - or 5 1/2, as long as you were in first grade. This was my very first encounter with city government; the rule seemed reasonable to me. I could do it because I was going to be in first grade. I could get a library card. It was a way to get books, five at a time, and bring them home to read - for free. It was September 1953, 50 years ago. In the days before the beginning of school, I nagged my parents about taking me to the library on the first day I was "legal" in the eyes of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

The future is bearing down on the Indian Valley Public Library. The 78,000-volume library is putting its card catalog online and making it accessible to library patrons with a modem and computer at home. The library is trying to raise the $100,000 it still needs to get the computer system in place by the end of the year. The Indian Valley facility says it is the largest library in Montgomery County that is not yet automated. Some county libraries computerized their card catalogs in the late 1980s.

IT'S TIME, once again, to examine how Democratic state Rep. Mark Cohen is spending your money. Cohen, you may remember, once charged more than $100,000 to the state in expenses for one month. This time, the Inquirer catches him charging the state $28,200 for books and magazines. Hey, Mark, ever hear of a library card?

Are you a mature adult curious about those newfangled digital reading tablets? The Free Library of Philadelphia has a deal for you. Nook e-readers preloaded with best sellers and classics are available for two-week loans to library-card holders age 50 and up who owe no fines and can produce a photo ID that matches the name and address on their library card. Better yet, the library will teach you how to use the device - or any Kindle, iPad, Android or Sony e-reader you own or receive as a holiday present.

Delaware County library patrons will be able to directly download audio books using an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, officials announced Friday. About 300 titles, both adult and children's books, are available for a 14-day checkout period. Users first need to download free Overdrive software available at the Apple App Store. After the software is installed, users then need to visit the online site www.delcolibraries.org and click on "download audiobooks. " A library card from one of the 26 libraries is needed.

The Delaware County library system has received a grant of $170,130 from the William Penn Foundation of Philadelphia to support a three-year program aimed at encouraging disadvantaged youngsters to read. The program, "Look at Me! I'm Reading," is slated to begin in the fall, targeted at children ages 1 through 7. It will involve the public libraries in Collingdale, Chester, Darby Borough, Lansdowne, Folcroft, Prospect Park, Sharon Hill, Tinicum Township, Upper Darby (the municipal and Primos branches)

What's the most important item in your stock of job-hunting tools? It's not the resume, Einstein. Nor that awesome network of very important people you've cultivated with such care. And it's certainly not that cliche - your amazing self. Would you believe it's the lowly library card? "It's the most important thing in a job search," said management consultant Marc Dorio, author of the new The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting the Job You Want (Alpha Books, $24.95). Why?

Are you a mature adult curious about those newfangled digital reading tablets? The Free Library of Philadelphia has a deal for you. Nook e-readers preloaded with best sellers and classics are available for two-week loans to library-card holders age 50 and up who owe no fines and can produce a photo ID that matches the name and address on their library card. Better yet, the library will teach you how to use the device - or any Kindle, iPad, Android or Sony e-reader you own or receive as a holiday present.

I was one of those kids who lived for the bedtime story. Having grown up during a time when television actually "signed off" for the evening, I looked forward with eager anticipation for the story my mother would read to me and my big brother Reese every night. And Mom was a gifted storyteller. When she read, she added voices and sound effects that really brought the stories to life. As we got older, Mom got books that had voice parts Reese and I would fight over representing the characters in each tale.

If the Joan Rivers of 1980 could look at herself in 2010, she might describe Rivers 8.0 as a dirty-mouthed septuagenarian who resembles a female impersonator "doing" Joan Rivers. Two years ago Billy Sammeth, the comedian's erstwhile manager, observed that "people now see her as a plastic-surgery addict who's past her sell-by date. " That was then. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is now, testament to the enduring resilience and indefatigable wit of its subject. Age cannot wither her, nor Botox stale her infinite hilarity.

Delaware County library patrons will be able to directly download audio books using an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, officials announced Friday. About 300 titles, both adult and children's books, are available for a 14-day checkout period. Users first need to download free Overdrive software available at the Apple App Store. After the software is installed, users then need to visit the online site www.delcolibraries.org and click on "download audiobooks. " A library card from one of the 26 libraries is needed.

Now more than ever city residents need help in a failing economy, and libraries are a critical community resource for poor people of all ages, supporters told City Council yesterday. Staffing cuts earlier this year mean that 53 branches - all except the Central Library - will open five days a week beginning July 1. Most are open six days now. That has serious consequences, particularly for the children who rely on the library for summer and after-school programs, and for adults, who increasingly need Internet access to find jobs and contact employers, the Coalition to Save the Libraries warned Council members at a rare Saturday budget hearing.

Sitting at a table inside the Fumo Family Library yesterday afternoon, Anthony Suber grinned with sweet relief. A Common Pleas Court judge had just ordered Mayor Nutter to halt the closing of 11 city libraries, including Suber's branch in South Philadelphia. The shuttering had seemed so certain that a sign taped on the door announced it would take effect at 5 p.m. today. Suber also frequents his old neighborhood in Kingsessing, which also was to lose its library. He offered that branch, a place he has relied on since elementary school, as a testament to the importance of community libraries.

The library saved me. Not to sound too melodramatic, but it's true. There's no telling where I'd be without the Berkeley Public Library, South Berkeley branch. I fit the profile of so many city kids: Loves to read. Loves to write. Comes from modest means. Needs a place to focus. The solution? The library. My neighborhood branch allowed me to check out books free, not to mention gave my mother peace of mind - all within walking distance. So naturally, when I heard that Mayor Nutter had decided to close 11 libraries in response to the city's budget crisis, I couldn't help but think: There has got to be a better way. "Look, I'm a city kid, too," the mayor told me yesterday, attempting to make his case for a decision that has been grounds for citywide protests.

After the Chester County library system's eight-month national search for a new executive director, a native son has answered the call. Downingtown-bred John Venditta, associate director of the Western Maryland Regional Library, will start June 2. He succeeds Cecy Keller, who left last year. After 25 years away, he said, he is "really excited to come back. " "The citizens of Chester County love their libraries, and they have huge expectations for their libraries," added Venditta, 52. He said he had helped libraries "implement digital services and used technology as a tool for communication" with patrons and other libraries.

Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie told us "there is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library. " Libraries have always been central to our lives. After 41 years as a librarian, people ask me if libraries are still relevant in the age of the Internet. They forget the Internet - for all its power - is just the latest, fastest way to access information invented so far. It is a tool made even more powerful by librarians. Libraries and librarians are the original information brokers.

How appropriate that the donor of a $15 million challenge grant toward the proposed redesign and expansion of the city's Central Library on Logan Square chooses to remain anonymous. After all, the Free Library of Philadelphia is an Everyman kind of place, open to all. The only ticket required is a (free) library card - and you can browse even without that. The mystery donor's generous bequest is a big boost to an important but admittedly struggling project. It furthers the prospects for a savvy plan to enlarge the library's signature 1927 Beaux Arts building.