A Shout Out to the SF Public Library

My very first week here I left the DMV with my brand new California driver's license and went immediately to the San Francisco Public Library.  I signed all three boys and myself up for a library card and began taking advantage of their family pass program.  For those of you unfamiliar with it, the San Francisco Public Library has come up with this amazing program where they let families check out a pass to area attractions.  The bottom line:  we get to go to awesome museums and attractions for FREE!!!!!!  These passes include:

Aquarium of the Bay

Asian Art Museum

California Academy of Sciences

California Historical Society

Cartoon Art Museum

Children's Creativity Museum

Coit Tower

Conservatory of Flowers

Contemporary Jewish Museum

Exploratorium

Haas-Lilienthal House

Japanese Tea Garden

S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien

Museum of the African Diaspora

Museum of Craft & Folk Art

SF Museum of Modern Art

San Francisco Zoo

And 8 Community Pools (Balboa , Coffman, Garfield, Hamilton, MLK, North Beach, Rossi and Sava)



How it works is each branch of the San Francisco Public Library gets one family pass a week to each of these places.  For example, I go to the North Beach branch and I want to take the boys to the Coit Tower. The Coit Tower family pass became available today at the North Beach branch.  I went to the library this morning and checked out the Coit Tower family pass.  Now, no one else can check out the pass from the North Beach branch until next Friday and I have one week to use the pass with the boys. Each pass is good for up to two adults and four children and can only be used by San Francisco residents.

We have been taking advantage of this amazing deal for the last month.  Because we have four library cards, we can get four family passes a week.  During the summer we can hit up four places a week no problem but now that school has started we are probably going to limit ourselves to one or two a week. A lot of these places close by four or five in the afternoon and that doesn't leave us enough time to go during the week.  A word of advice, some of these passes are in demand so find out what day they become available (you can use the online catalog by typing in "family pass" and selecting your branch from the drop down menu) and be at the library 10 minutes before they open. . . . maybe even 15!