Dads, time to meet your new best friend. I know this guy who knows everything and, on the freak chance you can stump him, he knows another guy who really knows everything. Not only is he a genius, but he loans out his tools left and right. He does want them back in three weeks, but he’ll even extend the loan to six or nine weeks. Ask about his DVD collection and the guy limits you to a week, but nobody’s perfect. The guy I’m talking about is your local Public Library. If you have a question, the answer is most likely waiting for you inside. If it isn’t, they can find it.

What if I don’t want to read a book?

First, however, let’s tackle the most likely reason you’re thinking this guy might not be for you. Your inner complainer/naysayer/skeptic may be speaking up, saying something like, “I don’t have the time to read a book.” I’m not telling you to go to the library to find books. No, I’m telling you to go to the library to find ideas, knowledge, and inspiration. You don’t have to read an entire book to get what you need.

A good book will have an index at the back. You can go there and potentially find the exact page where the information you require is waiting for you, and almost all nonfiction books will have a table of contents that you can go through and find the relevant chapters.

Bonus: When you do find a good book, chances are you will be interested in the books to the immediate left and right. Thank you, Dewey Decimal System.

Now that we have that out of the way, let me give you a few examples of how you can use the library.

3 ways to use the library

  1. Fun project ideas. You will find, amongst the knitting and scrapbooking books, a few you might not expect, and if you or your child wants to knit or scrapbook, you are more than set. Do not knock it until you try it. I knitted a pretty cool winter hat one fall that both looked good and kept my head warm.

A book like Dude Crafts, by Mike Warren, has cool projects like a Swedish torch. What is a Swedish torch, you ask. Let me explain in a mathematical formula: chainsaw + stump = cool fire. This fire is good for cooking, smores, or simply staring at and sighing, like our fathers did at the end of a long family camping trip.

Made by Dad, written by Scott Redfield, has 67 blueprints of cool projects. The remote release zip line is a good one for any child that has plastic dolls or action figures. And these are just two books I found in less than five minutes during my last trip to the library.

2. Parenting advice. This is where the index or table of contents help out. There are a lot of parenting books out there. Scan one. Read chunks. If a chunk you read is bad, move on. There are plenty more books available. If the chunk you read is good, well, you might be on to something. Read the chapters that seem important to you; skip the rest. The library won’t mind.

3. Your own interests. Remember way back when you were a kid how you used to love books? Devouring books on the planets, World War Two, a particular mouse on a motorcycle, or some other topic? Remember when you lost all sense of time when you built, baked, crafted, fixed, created or otherwise spent your time engrossed in project? It might be time to dip back in. It’s gotta be better than doom scrolling or vegging out for the third hour of the night (all parents deserve an hour or two for doing nothing if they can get it, but three hours wasted, that’s probably overkill and counterproductive).

Six good reasons to go

That was three things you could do. Here’s six reasons why it makes sense to go:

1 . You need a break from work or parenting. 20 minutes can seem like a long break while you are exploring the shelves. Even a quick visit that yields even one surprise can go a long way to changing your mood. Libraries are quiet. You can walk around all you want. If you don’t feel like searching the racks, you can sit in a nice chair and read one of their magazines or newspapers.

2. You will be modeling a lifetime relationship to reading that your children need to see. It doesn’t matter what you’re reading. When your child sees you reading, he or she is learning that adults read for pleasure, to explore interests, and/or to find information. Reading is done because it’s valuable in and of itself, not because the teacher assigned it.

3. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel or come up with all the ideas yourself. When it comes to living on this planet, we can tap into 1,000 years of wisdom and culture captured in print. Thanks, Mr. Gutenberg!

4. Your library is better than the internet. Your library has less distractions. A book has no open tabs; a magazine won’t notify you that someone you don’t really care about needs to talk to you right now.

5. Books go deeper. Books take longer to produce, unless it’s an AI cash grab, so authors typically do more research than your average blogger. How many of the articles you read online are longer than a page? How many are less than 140 characters? Short attention span theater, anyone?

6. The library gets you up and moving. Even if you request your books online, you will leave the house eventually and walk into the library to get your books. Movement is a good thing. Getting outside is a good thing. Walking around is a good thing. Face it, going to the library is a good thing.

This is one friend who always has time for you in his schedule, though you better check his schedule before you go because he’s not usually an early riser and he takes his holidays seriously. When he’s open, he really delivers. After you get to know him, you may even want to introduce him to your child.