18 Branches Serving Kent County
All branches of the Kent District Library will be open normal operating hours on Friday, July 3, but will be closed Saturday, July 4 for Independence Day. (Please note that the Service Center administration building will be closed on Friday, July 3.) For additional 2009 holiday closing information, please view our holiday closings page.
Thank you to everyone who participated in our June survey. We appreciate your feedback.
But there can only be one winner of the $25 Schuler Books & Music gift card (as selected by random.org):
Congratulations to Mary Eastland from our East Grand Rapids branch!
If you’ve visited a KDL branch lately, then you probably know that the library is busier than ever. In 2008, nearly 6 million items were checked out, 160,000 people attended library programs, and over 3.4 million people visited our branches. To help accommodate this growth, some of our municipalities have even initiated new building projects.
However, one unfortunate trend is that as library use continues to grow, property tax revenue has not. Taxable value, while once growing at 5% or more annually, has now flattened to a near no-growth position. Other impacts on KDL revenue, including tax tribunal judgments, tax captures, and shrinking revenues for state aid and penal fines, have also significantly reduced library funding.
In order to maintain the high level of library service our customers have come to expect, it is our goal to proactively manage these financial challenges while staying mindful of the long-term implications. By leveraging technology, streamlining processes, reducing and reallocating library staff positions, sharing organizational resources, and aggressively pursuing ways to generate revenue outside of our traditional funding base, we plan to meet that goal.
We are working hard to make the most of your tax dollars as we move forward. However, we encourage you to show your support during these difficult times in a number of ways, including advocacy, constructive feedback, and consideration of a donation to the KDL Fund. We sincerely appreciate all that our community has helped us to achieve and look forward to a bright future together.
Thank you!
Join KDL as we partner with the DeVos Performance Hall in conjunction with the Reach Out and Read initiative for an exciting evening with The Wiggles on August 13 at 3:00 and 6:30 p.m. Bring your entire family and get ready to laugh and move to the music as The Wiggles “Go Bananas” on stage.
We’re excited to announce that KDL will be giving away a family 4-pack of tickets at each of our 18 branch locations. Stop by any KDL branch between July 13 and August 8 to register.
Ticket prices are $17.00, $24.00 and $32.00. Tickets are available at the Van Andel Arena box office or through Ticketmaster.
The Wiggles are the worlds’ number one preschool band and have performed over 300 shows to more than 1.5 million fans in the U.S. alone. You don’t want to miss this!
Unless you are a language expert, someday you will run across a website or document that is in a language you don’t understand. Fortunately for the digital age, there are free tools available to help. My personal favorite is Babel Fish from Yahoo. (If you have never heard of a Babel Fish, read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.) Babel Fish will translate typed in text or an entire web page. You just need to provide the text or web page link, choose the original language and then what language it needs to be translated into. Of course Babel Fish isn’t the only one available. Google also has a translation tool which operates similarly to Yahoo’s. Just keep in mind that a computer is making the translation so it might not be textbook perfect!
If you use a different translation tool, please feel free to leave a comment below!
Here is an example of a sentence, “Thank you for using the Kent District Library’s blog!”, translated from English to:
Dutch - Dank u voor het gebruiken van het District Library’ van Kent; s blog!
Spanish - Gracias por usar el districto Library’ de Kent; ¡blog de s!
Japanese - ケント地区Library’を使用するためにありがとう; sのブログ!
Did you know your Mac can read to you?
Yep! If you are running Mac OS X Tiger or Leopard, simply…
This will work with most selected (i.e. highlighted) text in text-based files — including web pages, email messages, spreadsheets, calendar entries, PDFs, text documents, Finder windows, and even iTunes.
Don’t like the default voice your Mac uses? You can choose your favorite voice from the 24 human-sounding and novelty voices in Leopard and slightly less number in Tiger. (In Leopard, to see the complete list, click the “Show More Voices” option at the bottom of the pull-down System Voice menu.) Click the Play button to get a sample of each voice. You can also ask your Mac to speak more slowly or quickly by adjusting the Speaking Rate slider. If you don’t care for any of the free voices that come with your Mac, or want one that speaks something besides English, you might also checkout one of these system voices.
So now sit back, rest your eyes, and let your computer read you the next KDL Computer Tips blog post or your latest email message.
If you are a 
Twitter user and follow more than a few Twitterers, you’ve probably found that it can be a daunting task to keep up with all those Tweets! One simple tool to keep you organized is TweetDeck. 
Just download TweetDeck to your computer and sign on with your Twitter account. Set up as many columns as you like (such as News, Friends, Family, Celebrities, etc.), and then begin to organize the Twitters that you follow. Choose the Twitters you’d like to put in each column. You can put a Twitterer in multiple columns if you wish. Now you can see at a glance all of your family tweets in one column, all of the news tweets in another, and all of your co-workers in the next. It makes it so easy to prioritize which ones to read first, and which can be left for when you have more time!
Other ways to organize Twitter include PeopleBrowsr, Seesmic, Nambu, and Eventbox.
Have you cancelled magazine and newspaper subscriptions to reduce household costs or clutter? Did you know that you can still read many of your favorite publications online through KDL’s databases? (A valid Kent District Library card is required to access these services.)
Available magazines include the following:
The following newspapers are also available:
The database interface will allow you to browse articles from current and past issues, as well as search for specific keywords.
Don’t forget — All of these publications and many more are also available in print form to read and checkout at your local KDL branch. See our Magazines & Periodicals page for a complete listing of available titles and branch holdings.
If you don’t tend to go to different KDL branch libraries, you might not know that several subscribe to MacWorld Magazine. If you’ve had to let your subscription lapse, or want to see what the print version of MacWorld contains, head to the Cascade Twp., Kentwood, or Wyoming branch libraries. All issues, except the most recent (newest) issue, can be checked out for 1 week. The KDL library system also subscribes to the Gale Computer Database with millions of articles from journals, popular computer magazines, and trade magazines, including MacUser, MacWeek and MacWorld. This database is available in the library at public computers or from home with a KDL library card.
Are there any other Mac/Apple magazines (in print or online) that you read regularly? I’m also a fan of MacLife!
Help KDL collect one of the most basic necessities for toddlers in Kent County: diapers.
The Kent District Library has teamed up with the Great Start Parent Coalition and ACCESS Food Pantries to help families with young children in need. Between Monday, June 22 and Friday, August 14, seven KDL branches will have collection boxes available for diapers to be donated to families in need.
Unopened packages of disposable diapers in any size can be dropped off at these KDL branch locations: Cascade Township, East Grand Rapids, Gaines Township, Grandville, Kentwood, Plainfield Township and Wyoming.
The goal of this county-wide diaper drive is to collect 25,000 diapers for young children in Kent County. Please help us make a difference for the youngest citizens of our community!