Services
Among PLCH's collections are books, audiobooks, downloadable digital audio and e-books, magazines, newspapers, CDs, videos, DVDs, CD-ROMs, sheet music, slides, microfilm, microfiche, and Braille. It offers free internet and free Wi-Fi, in addition to over 15,500 free programs each year for patrons. In 2005, its staff answered 1.7 million reference questions by phone, fax, e-mail, post, and in person. The Main Branch is a selective federal depository library.
The library's website provides access to the library catalog, the KnowItNow24x7 online chat reference service, nearly 150 commercial research databases, bestseller lists, staff reading recommendations, and other information resources.
Special needs services provided by PLCH include "talking books" and Braille to the visually impaired, blind, and physically handicapped in 33 Ohio counties; its outreach services include books-by-mail, foreign language materials and bilingual programs, and passport application; its literacy services include GED classes and GED practice testing.
PLCH holds one of the largest genealogical collections in the United States. Online postings include Cincinnati and Norwood, Ohio city directories, Sanborn maps, and yearbooks as well as books relating to local history.
Read more about this topic: Public Library Of Cincinnati And Hamilton County
Famous quotes containing the word services:
“Men will say that in supporting their wives, in furnishing them with houses and food and clothes, they are giving the women as much money as they could ever hope to earn by any other profession. I grant it; but between the independent wage-earner and the one who is given his keep for his services is the difference between the free-born and the chattel.”
—Elizabeth M. Gilmer (1861–1951)
“True love ennobles and dignifies the material labors of life; and homely services rendered for love’s sake have in them a poetry that is immortal.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
“Working women today are trying to achieve in the work world what men have achieved all along—but men have always had the help of a woman at home who took care of all the other details of living! Today the working woman is also that woman at home, and without support services in the workplace and a respect for the work women do within and outside the home, the attempt to do both is taking its toll—on women, on men, and on our children.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)