OT-Library cards-When does your town or citty

[Colleen27]

My kids are 10 and 12 and go to the library without me all the time (local branch on bikes and main city library on the tram). When I worked as a librarian in New Hampshire we were located next door to an elementary school. Kids as young as kindergarten walked over after school to wait for a parent to pick them up and often wanted to check things out while they waited. We also used to have kids come in with their friends (friends' parents driving) and want to check things out. In Michigan I babysat a friends' son 3 days a week. We went to the library story hour in his town on Wednesdays (my son was the same age) and his mom always sent his card so he could check out a book and I would not have to be responsible for it on my card. There are plenty of reasons for younger kids to have their own cards. My favourite reason though is that they tend to be very proud of that card and want to use it and then want to read what they borrow

Yep. Mine go all the time without me now. We lived a block from the library in our old town and about 3 blocks from the library here, so my older two go without me pretty often. Plus in our county, your library card is your computer logon; you insert the card into a reader and all the parental control settings are loaded for that specific user. So the kids needed their own cards pretty early on if only to play the educational games or go on Starfall or Playhouse Disney in the kids' room while I look around.