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Follow us on a cross-state library road trip with #MILibrary

Paula Friedrich
/
Michigan Radio
We rode along in the Ypsilanti Public Library's bookmobile. Those shelves are built into a custom-made bus. We'll see what else Michigan libraires are up to this Thursday.
The answer to "How far is Port Huron from Grand Rapids?" in 0.75 seconds flat.

A few decades ago, if you wanted to know how far Port Huron is from Grand Rapids, you'd have had to look it up in a book. And that book would have probably come from the library. Today, Google will tell you the answer (180.9 miles) in less than a second.

So where does that leave libraries, with their stores of atlases, story books, encyclopedias and dictionaries?

That's what we're exploring when we hit the road on tomorrow to do some reporting for an upcoming online feature.

Follow us on Instagram to track our journey across the state. We'll see a library that still uses an old-fashioned card catalog and others that are setting up video editing suites next to their shelves.

Share your own photos and tell us why you visit your local library with the hashtag #MILibrary.

Stay tuned next week for the full feature.

-Paula Friedrich and Carolyn Gearig, Michigan Radio Newsroom

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