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100 Things To Do In Holland Before You Die: #37 - Expand Your Mind And Your Digital Experience At Herrick District Library

Part of the whole ethos of the book "100 Things To Do In Holland Michigan" is about highlighting the culture and community that we have in Holland, Michigan. As such, the book is divided up into sections: Food And Drink; Music And Entertainment; Sports And Recreation; Culture And History; and Shopping And Fashion. It's followed up with suggested inteneraries and activities by season. As I was entering a transitional phase in my lil' ol' blog here, a serendipitous discovery at Barns & Noble one idle Saturday led me to the actual book itself. I took advice from the book, and went to a local store to actually purchase it.

As it pertains to Action Item #37  Expand Your Mind And Your Digital Experience At Herrick District Library, that's literally how I started this very blog.  I was unemployed and trying desperately hard to maintain some semblance of a normal schedule with my time.  Basically, I'd wake up at my normal schedule (up at 6:30, shower, coffee, breakfast), and hit the home office by 8am - same as I'd do at any office job.  From 8am to noon, almost every day, I'd be doing resume shit, unemployment shit, basically anything that required me to be at an "office" or at a computer.  In the afternoons, I'd take interviews, hit the bricks to do in-person networking, or whatever I had to do to get out of the house and shake the stink off.  I ended up at Herrick District Library flipping through the "local interest" section and everything sorta fell into place.

Some of my favorite "idle activities" to do at previous employers (don't lie, you have an idle/bored activity that you do when you're trying to look like you're working too) was the research of it all - I loved perusing county property records and looking up information.  I've been known to spend time scrolling Google Earth while measuring distances from, say, the nearest water body to the property I was working on.  Basically, I love fact-finding, and thought I'd indulge myself in doing that while I was out of work.  It was a completely natural fit to stick my nose in all the resources available at Herrick District Library.

Specific things that I've accessed at HDL include property records (for the Cedar Swamp Village) article linked above, old yearbooks when I was researching the Melon Heads article (I almost certainly looked through Pope Leo's yearbook), some census and genealogical information for personal/family research, and even seminars and presentations on resume writing and establishing an online presence through a blog.

 It's more important than ever to keep your local library in business by supporting them whenever possible, and showing 'em a little love when and where possible.

 

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