Our Community Highlights: The Champaign Public Library
Terri Reifsteck, Vice President of Marketing & Community Engagement, keeps very busy between her family, her friends, and her role at Visit Champaign County. We can all relate: everyday life gets busy and before you know it the day is done and you feel like you're finally getting a chance to relax! For Terri, one of her favorite places to seek joy in the community is the Champaign Public Library. Bringing books home from the library to read is fun, but it's visiting the library itself that brings Terri a lot of comfort in her weekly routine.
With 99 books in her "finished" category on Goodreads for 2021, Terri estimates nearly 90% of those are Champaign Public Library books. The resource of having a robust library goes beyond simply finding and reading books. Between the Main Library near Downtown Champaign and the Douglass Branch Library at the south edge of Douglass Park, the Champaign Public Library is a hub of escape for people who want to learn, grow, and explore new information and stories. There's meeting rooms, a café at the Main Library, and even expanded services in the age of COVID-19 like YouTube classes and curbside pickup.
Terri prefers reading physical books, and the library helps to keep her from filling her home with books she might only read once. It's also a community experience that helps her feel connected to fellow bookworms around her. When there's a quiet weekend coming up on her schedule, which doesn't happen as often as she might like, she makes sure to stop into the library to pick up a few reads to fill her free time. It's also the little things that the Library offers in terms of joy that make all the difference. A recent example: Halloween sound effects playing from the drive-up return. For those that love digital books, the Champaign Public Library also offers a robust e-library for reading on tablets and e-readers.
Any day is a good day to read in Terri's mind, and the Champaign Public Library helps her to always involve her passion for reading in her busy life. It's a service that brings her joy in our community and countless others. If you don't have a library card, then be sure to stop by one of the branches for a free card, or check out online sign-up options.
Show us what brings you joy in our community by tagging us in a photo on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and using the hashtag #OurCommunity. Likewise, feel free to upload the photo to our website here.