A Lean In Circle is a group of professional business women who meet monthly to learn and grow together. The meeting I attend is held at my local Boca Raton branch of the Palm Beach County Library. This month’s meeting was facilitated by one of their amazing research librarians and a member of our circle, Stacy Alesi.

Now, I’ve always been a library person. My first and second grade elementary school teacher, Miss Pearlstein at PS 63 in New York became the school’s librarian when I hit third grade. So after teaching me to read, she was promoted alongside me and fed me books like I was a hungry bird. And to this day when I see a book out of place in the stacks, I think of kindly Mrs. Ruth Brown, the librarian in my hometown public library. She would never stand for that!

For those of you who remember “The Library Song” (published in 1967 and popular in TV public service announcements through the seventies) you are also old enough to remember card catalogues and the World Book Encyclopedia. “Looking something up” was a lot more time consuming and tedious than Googling or asking Siri. But it taught us to use our brains, develop reasoning skills and hone our curiosity. I’d ask my dad “Who was Aaron Burr?” or “What’s the difference between a flutist and a flautist?” His answer oft times was, “Look it up.”

“Look it up” was not a lazy man’s flip retort to get out of sharing his historical or musical knowledge with me, but a push by a very smart parent to learn on my own. These skills sharpened my mind, gave me the ability to solve problems and be self-sufficient. And they served me well way past my years in school.

As a marketing professional I have to be resourceful. When I was in sales it was imperative that I find quality leads. I’d research trade journals and business directories, follow personnel announcements in the newspapers and learn to ask questions to get the answers I needed. Those skills were invaluable when I worked in public relations as I needed to find the best person to pitch my story and get my point across succinctly. In advertising and marketing I need to find the best platforms to serve my clients’ strategies by investigating their competition, researching the best vehicles for exposure and calculate potential ROI. Of course, Google now makes it a whole lot faster but you still have to know what questions to ask in order to find the solutions.

Which leads me back to the library…

At our meeting, Stacy demonstrated the wonderful resources available on the library’s website.There are dozens of links to a diverse selection of premium sources such as Lexus Nexus, Chilton Library (auto repair manuals), AtoZ business databases and Consumer Reports. They are all free subscriptions with my library card. (Sorry Lynda.com, I’m no longer paying you $25 a month but putting my tax dollars to good use!)

Other South Florida library systems also offer this reference portal. My bet is there are plenty of libraries outside of Florida that do as well. Go exploring and “check out” a digital reference book. It really is the greatest!

There’s a place for you and a place for me,
it’s the local public library.
They have books and things that they lend for free
It’s the latest, it’s the greatest, it’s the library.

Educational, informational,
entertainment that’s sensational.
It’s a way of life, it’s for you and me
It’s the latest, it’s the greatest, it’s the library.

They have histories, they have mysteries
And for mothers, books of recipes
See a movie show, hear a symphony
It’s the latest, it’s the greatest, it’s the library

Click to hear the melody