Most towns in America--even the small towns--have a local public library, or have an agreement with another town to use their library.
In America, we value learning, we value intelligence--we strongly think of ourselves as a merit based society and in some ways--although not all ways--we are, perhaps more so than other places. In America, you don't need to be the scion of a wealthy family or have aristocratic roots to rise to the top.
So America has libraries, funded with startup funds from wealthy philanthropists--the Carnegie-Mellons, the Rockefellers, the Getty family and others. Right up until this day--many small town libraries in America use computers that came courtesy of the Gates Foundation. Libraries are an American tradition.
However, what you may not be used to is that in America, if you live in the town and can prove you do with a driver's license or ID or some other form of proof of address--usually they will accept a utility bill for instance--then the library is generally free for you to use--you pay nothing except a tiny fee if you check out a book and return it late.
Libraries in the modern American age are kind of community centers, but they still absolutely lend books. Some libraries have special collections--for instance, my small town library for many years had a special collection on the topic of baseball--and they lend DVDs. Furthermore, if you don't have internet service at home, typically the library will.
If you get stuck on how to find something or you need a book not in the library's collection, ask the librarians--that's what they're there for. Likewise if you are looking for a specific fact or statistic and don't know who to ask--and its not the sort of thing you could reliably Google--librarians are trained at library science, which involves the organization and cataloguing of human knowledge and information. They live for those kinds of questions.
To find the library where you live, simply Google "[your town name]" and the words "public library" together without quotes and see what comes up. To check out books and use the facilities to their fullest extent you'll need a library card but not usually to sit and read--often libraries have a selection of local and national newspapers and magazines.
(the magazines they stock are what their user base wants--as determined by empirical data, which is why not all libraries stock all the same magazines.)
All right? For answers about libraries and other issues in American culture or corporate culture or to book me for an English as a Second Language or accent reduction lesson, give me a call at (732) 807-5424 or hit me up on Skype at david.berlin.esl or check out my American Idiom of the Day Twitter Feed or check out David Berlin ESL's Accent Reduction Training website. Okay? Okay.
'Til next time...
SEE YA!
