Free all the gals!

Just had a call in the Hotline from a lady who kept saying "Free Gal". When I said Freegal, she was a little embarrassed that she had been saying it wrong. I told her I like "Free Gal," and she should keep calling it that, in honor of Women's History Month.
Lily, librarian

Today I had an opportunity to tell a customer about the new Freegal software. He was thrilled that he could download free music from the library!
Sheena, library manager

Freegal is a cool new service whereby library card holders can download 3 free songs per week through our web site and keep them forever. There are approximately a million-billion songs available (okay, not that many, but a lot, all right? Enough to fill all of the iPods across the land), and it's pretty easy to do, if you have a computer with an Internet connection. (And if you don't, you can use a library computer.)

Our library's CEO, Gary Shaffer, has explained (rightly, I think) that we added Freegal as a way to bring people to the library (virtually, if not physically), to surprise and delight folks who might not have thought of libraries recently, and then surprise and delight them even more when they see what else we have to offer -- language-learning programs better than the Rosetta Stone (it's called Mango Languages, and it's awesome), Lego-building contests for kids, eBooks, kite-flying workshops, astronomy presentations followed by stargazing, and, of course, my favorite: discussions about all kinds of interesting books and ideas... to name just a few recent events at our libraries.

(Seriously, take a look at my library's event guide when you get a chance. It's pretty amazing -- I only wish I could go to half of them.)

But I can't help thinking that the woman who called the AskUs Hotline (the library's short-answer reference service and main phone number for the entire library system: 918-549-READ[7323]) was doubly surprised and delighted at Lily's quick wit in the moment (not to mention her kindness in the face of the lady's mispronunciation). She completely overturned the hoary stereotype of the humorless librarian in one neat little phrase. AND she supported the sisterhood's long history of fighting for equal rights, to boot.

That's one cool gal.