Smart Cards

A SMART THING TO DO if you are in the nation's capital is to stop by the Library of Congress and apply for a free Reader Identification Card which takes five minutes to process but must be renewed in person every two years. Even if you do not intend to do your research in the library, the card will also allow you to access and download material from the vast digital resources of HathiTrust from your home computer if you do not belong to any of its other partner institutions.

And the New York Public Library (together with Brooklyn Public Library and Queens Library) now gives its cardholders free admission (for two or four people!) to more than thirty museums and cultural institutions throughout the city with its Culture Pass program. (The Museum of Natural History is not there yet, but the list is still growing.) How's that as a perk from a library card?