Northeast Regional Library

Greetings from the Free Library of Philadelphia.  I hope you and your staff are faring okay in these challenging times.  I am writing to let your school community know that the Northeast Regional Library staff is at work and available to help students in a variety of ways.  I think it might be useful for your students to highlight Northeast Regional Library and our services in an upcoming announcement to students.

Our books and library materials are available for borrowing today.  Students can stop in the library on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon to browse and borrow.  They must wear a mask and limit their visit to 30 minutes.  They can also schedule to pick-up library material at our front door on any weekday.  They can place a hold on an item in our catalog at catalog.freelibrary.org or simply call 215-685-0522 and speak to a librarian to request material and schedule a pick-up.  We can get material from any library in the City for them.

Students can get help for free with their schoolwork by going to freelibrary.org, clicking on “Homework Help”, and logging into Tutor.com with their library card number.  They are able to chat with a live tutor at almost any time of the day.  If they need a library card number they can click “Get A Library Card” and a virtual card will be emailed to them.  Of course, they can call us at 215-685-0522 and we would be happy to guide them to getting access to their online account and any service on our website.  If students had overdue fines in the past, they are gone!  In an effort to make library materials more accessible, the Free Library no longer charges overdue fines.  Anyone can borrow books, DVDs, CDs, and more.

Students are encouraged to use our collection of dozens of online research databases for their research assignments, and to explore our media databases of streaming audiobooks, e-books, graphic novels, music, and film.  There are also many online programs and events for teens on our online calendar.  The Free Library Blog ( www.freelibrary.org/blog/ ) highlights new material daily.

Please let me know if there are other ways the Free Library can support learning this year.  Librarians can be guests in your virtual classrooms to give research advice, recommend books, or even act as a teacher’s aide.  We know what a difficult year this must be for teachers and we are willing to think outside the box about ways we can help.

Please consider announcing library services to your school community.  Our up-to-date available services at Northeast Regional Library are always listed at www.freelibrary.org/locations/northeast-regional-library .