I was so pleased to meet Pang Yang from the St Paul Public Library at the 2014 Border to Border Broadband conference when we talked about libraries and technology. It was a chance for attendees (and me) to learn about all the digital programming and digital training that the St Paul Library is doing. A sneak preview! The Pioneer Press’ Julio Ojeda-Zapata broke the story this week…

St. Paul Public Library cardholders can now be active and engaged without stepping inside a library branch for years, or ever — and library officials are fine with that.

In recent years, the library has rolled out an expanding number of digital services available to its users on the Internet.

Patrons can borrow e-books through OverDrive and Cloud Library, download audio content via Freegal and OneClickDigital, read digital magazines using Zinio, take programming classes via Treehouse, learn a new language by using Transparent Language Online, practice for student and professional tests via Learning Express Library, and more — all for free and from home or work.

The St. Paul Library this week rolled out its latest digital offering: Complimentary access to Lynda.com, a self-learning site with hundreds of courses and thousands of videos that focus on software training, business-skill building among other things.

I haven’t tried all of these tools – but I can tell you that Lynda is worth a look. And it’s an example of the role a library can play in any community. We’re not just for books anymore! The library is the perfect storm for digital inclusion – there are knowledgeable librarians who are used to helping patrons, they are used to sharing subscriptions hardware (if you want to call a book oldl school hardware) and people come to the library to access information