Banned Book Week is just wrapping up, and I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk about the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is part of the First Amendment of the US constitution. Don't worry, I won't get all fourth grade social studies on you, suffice it to say it is a big deal for the whole 'democracy' and 'American way' thing. However, freedom of speech is meaningless without the freedom to receive information and that is where libraries play a part. Individuals must be able to seek information about any subject without fear of judgment, criticism or scrutiny of others. This sort of leads us from the freedom of speech into the right to privacy. Your reading habits and research interests are private matters that you alone can decide to share with others. I don't get to walk in to the grocery store and yell out for all to hear that the book you ordered on alternative therapies for sexually transmitted diseases came in. Let's face it, that would not only be rude, but unprofessional. Believe it or not these principles hold true for the youth as well as you over 21 types. Librarians have always encouraged parents to be involved in their children's use of the library, to talk with them about what they're reading, and help them choose appropriate materials. But sometimes children and youths must deal with serious issues – like abuse, alcoholic parents, or health questions -- and they need good information. We want them to be comfortable getting that information in the library. So, on our application for a library card (you have a library card, right?) there is a privacy statement phrased as a yes or no question. A NO means you waive aspects of your right to privacy and we can say the title of the items you want or have checked out in situations where others might hear, like your answering machine. (But still not at the grocery store). A YES means we won't, and we also won't tell your mom when she calls and asks what you have been reading.

Well, there is just so much to talk about this week! Did you see our new "Honor" paperback rack? No library card needed, no barcodes, no limits... we just sort hope you bring it back. Hence the name "honor" because you are on your honor to return them. If you haven't seen it yet you can take a look when you are at the "Meet the Director" reception. 5 pm -7 pm Thursday, October 9th. Yup, come by and meet Bev Allen (we'll have cookies too!) As the end of the year approaches I wanted to remind you of the many opportunities to rack up the charitable giving points with your public library in mind. Yes, you can receive a tax deduction by giving to the library. So what do you get a library?... hmm, handbags and hockey pucks don't seem appropriate... magazine subscriptions on the other hand that might be the ticket. See we are going to be cutting back on our magazine subscriptions this coming year. So if you want to, you can stop by the back room and see the list of magazines that are on our chopping block. Then if you are inspired you can pick up the cost of one of them for us. You don't have to have an excuse (or even a reason) to stop by the back room however. And I want to extend an invitation to you, if you cannot make it to the director's reception come on back any time and talk to her (or me!) You may, however, want to do it soon, you see I just started reading a new book. It is called "Evil Genius" by Catherine Jinks. Bwahahaha

So I presented at the Association for Rural and Small Libraries conference in Sacramento California this past week. I gave two presentations and two 'table talks'. I went to many other presentations and speeches. Soaked in as much information as my little head could handle!! Just about when my head was about to pop, the conference ended and I hustled myself back to the good old John C. Fremont Library. When I came in the back door the first thing I saw was the self check machines. Last month I had seen a notice that the library in Fort Collins was upgrading their check out system and they would like to pass on to a worthy library their still running older system. I jumped on it. With the help of Gypsy on the telephone, and Nancy Lindsey in an automobile, we were able to secure a self check system and security system worth about $30,000. (I'll pause here while you let that huge number soak in) Yes, used the 'street value' so to speak of the equipment is $30,000. 'Why?', you ask, 'What does it do?' Well, it will allow us to put the DVDs and CDs back on the shelf in their boxes. This will save us (and you) the pain of finding the disc to put in the case when you check it out. It will allow you to swipe your card and scan the materials you want without going to the front desk. (Don't worry we will still be there to help you). Now that we have all the stuff, it will take a bit to prepare before you see it out and in use...if you want a preview, just stop by the back room and ask!

(Actually the title this week should be "Kieran's notes from the road") I am in Durango today. I was asked by the Colorado State Library in conjunction with Colorado Association of Libraries to come to the Durango Days Library Conference. I am giving a presentation on the wonderful things we do at the John C. Fremont Library. I was able to car pool from Fremont County to Durango with our regional Colorado Library Consultant, Judy Van Acker. Part of the deal of carpooling with her was stopping at six libraries on the way down for a visit. It was really wonderful to see a variety of small and middle sized libraries. I looked at each with the thought in the back of my head of 'What do they do here that would work for us?' Sometimes figuring out what works and what doesn't involves experimentation. Seeing the process others use can help refine our process. Cotopaxi, Saguache, Center, Del Norte, South Fork,and Pagosa Springs. Whooo! Each library had a personality and a special feature that made it stand out. Pagosa Springs has a tween area (separate from the teen area and the children's area) called Meagan's Room that is sponsored by a family whose eleven year old daughter died. In memory of their daughter, the family purchases all the books (based on the recommendations of the tweens). We wiped tears from our eyes as we left Meagan's Room. It is a very beautiful and generous memorial. The Saguache library had a parlor. Seriously it looked like grandma's living room! Way comfy chairs, stereo, end tables and a player piano. As tired as I was of sitting in the car I didn't want to get up from the golden overstuffed chair. What a nice way to sit and enjoy a book in the library! Well, I need to get ready for the presentation Judy and I are giving...gonna knock their socks off! See you next week in the back room.

Director's corner

Last Saturday, many of you stopped by the library's booth at Pioneer Days.  I really enjoyed meeting more of you -- AND signing you up for library cards.  I remember asking one young man if he wanted a library card, and his eyes began to glaze over until I mentioned that he could check out VIDEO GAMES!  It was fun to see his eyes light up at that, and needless to say, he signed up on the spot!  So, if you think of a library as just a place to check out books, I'm here to tell you that we're all up to date in Florence - we have video games, dvd's, cd's, free in-house internet access and wifi inside & out.  Library cards are FREE, too - so stop by today and get yours if you're not already in the fold. And while you're in the library, stop by my office and say hello!

I utterly and totally got lost in a few books this week. It's been awhile since I fell so deep into a book that even sleep couldn't make me stop turning the pages. The first was a near future techno SciFi young adult novel called Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. I couldn't stop until I knew what happened. The other was less of a 'what happens next' novel and more of a 'slide around in your head and make you think' book. Growing up Haunted: A Memoir is the second memoir by Jennifer Finney Boylan. The first one, She's Not There, was hysterical! This second book has a much more serious tone. She is a very good writer regardless. Sometimes, with so many books that cross my path, it is hard to decide what to read, what to taste from the smörgåsbord of reading materials. In library speak we call choosing a book 'Reader's Advisory'. Yup, it is the process of figuring out what to read next. I actually have a small sheet on my desk with a five step 'question matrix' to help guide someone to a book (or at least a section). Librarians are an obsessive lot! I know sometimes it is almost scary to try a new genre or a new author. It is also easy to overlook the classics. When you have already heard the plot line, heck, you probably saw the movie, and you know grandpa wrote a book report on it in the eighth grade, it can be hard to pick up and read. I also pick books by their covers. I know, I know, it is practically a sin, judging a book by its cover. (Really, I only do it for books – not people!) To get out of my own little ruts, I do on occasion 'reader advisory' myself a book.  But sometimes I just cruise the aisle browsing for the one that will keep me up all night. If you would like a little reader's advisory, come on by and ask any of us. And please stop by and say hey to me in the back room, and if you are interested in an opportunity to serve your community and library, our board of trustees needs another invigorated community member. Just drop off a letter of intent to be on the Board, I promise it won't be boring!

]]> http://jcflibrary.wordpress.com/?p=120 Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:43:24 +0000 jcflibrary http://jcflibrary.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/library-log-9408/ Notes from the back room:

The other day I went to a town hall meeting sponsored by the Colorado State Library, the Colorado Association of Libraries, and the Colorado Library Consortium. The theme was "The Future of Libraries". The big three library organizations in our state teamed up to hold 12 of these town halls all around the state. They explained their organizations' roles in library land and asked us what it should look like in the future - what their priorities should be. A lot of the discussion amongst the participants focused on how libraries can provide what the community wants, how to involve the community in the library, and how to be active in creating a culture of learning throughout the community. The thing I noticed was how often the word community was used! I have a fundamental belief in the importance of social systems to help individuals better themselves and the library is a prime place for that. The community has to be the driving force for the library to succeed. [no – I am not trying to make you volunteer (but if you want to...)] There was also discussion as to what a librarian should know in order to pull all of this off. Technology was mentioned as a tool, but mostly with a bit of trepidation. Tech training is a big one for a lot of libraries. How do we show all these great resources to library users if we can't right click with ease and confidence? Our library has been asked to share our technical proficiency with other libraries and we have gleaned skills from others along the way. For the most part we are keeping afloat in the tsunami of information and web based content. I feel we are also doing well within the community as a resource and as something that Florence can be proud of. But, your opinion is more valuable than you may expect. So, come by the library and tell us what you think. You can give a big howdy to our new director Bev Allen, and grab a cup of coffee while you tell us what you see in the future of our library.

There have been many changes around the library as of late. One thing that has changed is the look of the front desk. You may notice when you first walk in it's hard to see us behind the desk, and yes we are there (most of the time). This new addition does have a practical purpose even though it looks more like a way for us to hide. We are using this to store our ever growing media collection of DVD's, CD's, and Video Games. Another new addition to the library is new signs. These signs will help you find the section of books you are looking for. I think they are quite spiffy and if we do any rearranging (which is inevitable) they can easily be rearranged, also. The newest thing we have at the library is our newly upgraded ILS (integrated library system) Koha 3.0! I must say though, with any upgrade there are always a few new bugs to work out, but over all this transition is going a lot smoother. At least I think so, our IT guru, Jesse, might just disagree with that observation. In all we are constantly adding new things to make both our job as librarians easier and more productive and most importantly, trying to make your experience more enjoyable! Come in and check out all these new things and all of the old!

Notes from the back room:

An old friend of mine was visiting this week. She is from Belgium. We met on the Walk Across America for Mother Earth in 1992. We talked of old times and the lives and deaths of common friends. We also talked of the way things are in Belgium comparative to here. And, well, because I can't help myself, we also talked about libraries...(you knew that subject was coming right?!) There are some things that are the same everywhere and libraries have similar practices and procedures even in Belgium. Books, movies, music all for check out, along with a reference librarian who answers bizarre and mundane questions with the same aplomb. As straight forward as it looks there are subtleties. It was about this time last year when the Dutch librarians visited our little John C. Fremont Library. (You probably remember me going on and on about it... so I will spare you the repetitive details) They made a movie and a book (coming to our library very soon) about 'best practices' and libraries that break out of the mold so to speak. Yeah, we're in it. As strange as it sounds, our little library has managed to pull off a bunch of really cool 'cutting edge' stuff. I know 'cutting edge' in a library is probably pretty tame to normal people, but for us library types its practically like speaking loudly in the reference area! So mid-month this September I will be speaking in Durango to a group of librarians. I will be talking about the 'best practices' of our library. I have it pretty easy because this library practically speaks for its self! And I get to hang with a whole gang of librarians! It's funny, the stereotype of librarians over in Belgium is similar to the one here. You know the stereotype I mean...frumpy lady with her hair in a bun and glasses...very serious... probably saying shhh, oh and don't forget the 'practical shoes'. The funny thing is how few librarians I have met that fit the stereotype (Ok, there is that one...)

So part of the first step, or second step (I don't know, they're getting a little jumbled- there's only 23 to sort through o.0) is to talk about Lifelong Learning. Apparently there are seven steps and I should identify the easiest and the hardest for me to complete...

Uh.

I guess the easiest for me is using technology to my advantage and also just exploring. The hardest for me is having an end or a goal in sight. I don't really have a structured approach to general learning. I don't make flow charts or graph things out. In fact, a reason that I choose wordpress over blogger is that they chart things out for me.

Also, I'm a bit overstimulated so since I live by the rule of, I only like to put on the internet things that I like to see... I promise that the next post will have a picture or a youtube video or something. Something that ::pops::

I am sitting here in the famed back room listening to Willson & McKee play beautiful music out in the library. Man oh man can she rock on the hammered dulcimer! I wish you all were here! I really appreciate the programs held here at the library, and not just because I work here. Honestly I believe our programming is one of the better things we have going on here (other than my charming sense of style and taste in the back room of course). I read an interesting article the other morning about the difference between books and TV. Usually, books are presented as an antidote to a TV-controlled populace. But now a new neuroscience study has revealed that books control people's emotions in exactly the same way television does. A group of researchers in the U.S. and the Netherlands peered into people's brains using fMRI machines while those people were doing a series of three tasks: reading about something disgusting, watching images of something disgusting, and actually tasting something disgusting. All three modalities of disgust share a common neural substrate. Effective connectivity of this shared region makes observing, imagining and experiencing an emotion feel so different. So, basically the emotional connection you made to a book, occupies the same brain space as the emotional connection you made to your favorite character in As the World Turns. They feel different, but appear the same to the fMRI (whatever that is). I hear a resounding, 'Who cares?' Yeah, well other than the neuroscientist, probably not many people...oh except I think it is kinda cool. I mean I really do get attached to characters in books. It is one of the reasons I like reading series. The same characters comes back. I read 27 Alexander Kent novels because it comforted me that Captain Bolitho would be there again, saving the day and hurrying home to his wife. But since I am not much of a TV watcher I never did understand why folks would watch the same movie over and over again. Now I sort of get it. It fills the same place in their heads. Either way the library is the place to be. Rather than owning and finding shelf space for all of the exploits of Captain Bolitho, I just get them from the public library. And if you want to see Star Wars IV for the 568th time, well, we have it here for you. So come by the library and get what you need to fill your substrate. And while you are here, check in with Gypsy about becoming a volunteer or a lowly paid, semi-professional, substitute librarian. Oh and pop in the back room!

I've been over hearing lots of patrons talk about the great services we provide to our community. So, I've decided to talk about a few of these services we provide here at the library. One of the ones many of our patrons take advantage of is the ILL (Inter-Library Loan) system. We use the ILL system to request books that we don't have in our collection, from other libraries from all over Colorado. It is a great resource and it usually only takes a week for the items requested to get to our library. Another one of the services I'm involved in is the Homebound Program, which is a program for those in the community who for whatever reason are unable to make it out of their homes to come in to the library. So, instead of them coming to us we (meaning me) go to them. I love being involved with this program cause it gets me out from behind the circulation desk and it lets us provide service to those in our community who love to read, but would otherwise be unable to make it to the library. If you or someone you know, might be interested in this program let me know. This program runs year round, rain or shine and its easy to sign up for. You can give me (Robin) a call at 784-4649 ext. 1 or feel free to stop in. We also offer many other services from copies, lamination, free classes, great presentations, and lots of other wonderful services. Please stop in and take advantage of all our services.

Notes from the back room :

Some great new books have been rolling in the door this month. It is so so hard watching all the neat new titles go by my desk and not having the time to read them all. My tastes tend to run towards science fiction, but every so often I need a good laugh. David Sedaris' new book "When you are engulfed in Flames" had me laughing so hard I almost fell off my chair. "Breaking Dawn" by Stephanie Meyer is another in the teen vampire Twilight Saga that just came out. There were so many folks in line for it we decided to buy two copies. Which reminds me, I was going to mention how the whole getting in line for a book thing works. (In the library business we call it 'being on hold' for a book.) If you see an item in our catalog that you want, you hit the big button that says, "I want this". Pretty straight forward, ain't it. You do need to have a library card from our library in order to put a book on hold. Picky picky picky aren't we. Anyway, it is fairly easy, no bloodletting involved. The other way to get something you really want is to just keep coming by in hopes it will be there when you are...and if that is your strategy, you best stop by the back room and say howdy. I also wanted to mention a slight change in the look and feel of our website. When we unchain her from the front desk, Robin is also our web guru. She wanted to make it easier for you all to see the upcoming programs that Gypsy is putting on. Check it out!

Fairly soon now, the kids will be headed back to school. For some of the younger ones it will be for the first time. If the little one in your life hasn't gotten to know the joys of library membership, now is your chance. Sign 'em up for a library card. Cid, our children's librarian, has ordered in some fantastic books. (I like the ones that rhyme the best). Reading a story to a child is a first step in creating a literate, life-long learner. You know, I really believe that libraries are about content, people and communities. Any place can be a warehouse of books, but it takes a bit more to be a library. Being vibrant and active in the community is essential. Heck, books, DVDs, music and art are just a beginning! Our library has taken that to heart and really gone forward in providing services, programs and potential. The other day I had the pleasure of meeting Bev Allen. The Board of Trustees has hired Bev as the new director of the John C. Fremont Library. She will be starting in September. There will be a 'Meet and Greet the Director' reception mid-September (I'll keep you posted on the time and date) If you want to be a part of what we do here, feel free to volunteer – just talk with Gypsy! Stop by and say hey to me if you get the chance....I'm the one they have locked in the back room.

Today I saw what our library is all about. When I came in our expert squad of book covering volunteers (the 'cover girls') were busy working and laughing, the book club was discussing their latest read and the teen group was getting ready for a special presentation about henna body art. Our library is quite a busy little hub of activities and learning! I love to see the community involvement! Speaking of involvement....what kind of audio books on CD do you want? We have been slowly trying to improve that section and want to make sure we purchase what you are interested in hearing. Fiction? Non-fiction? A good old who-done-it? A trek into outer space? The person to talk to about all things audio is Natalia at the front desk. And as long as we are talking about talking books, the cassettes are on their way out. If you are still an audio cassette fan, please come by and see if we have anything you would like to keep. (We need the shelf space.) Oh, and no, we don't carry 8 track tapes. Music-wise we just got in an order of everything from Elvis Presley to Kimya Dawson, from The Clash to Bonnie Raitt (and everything in between). The library can be a good way to discover music you don't normally listen to but might really end up liking. I just got finished listening to Abigail Washburn's new album. She was a bluegrass kind of girl, until she went to China. She found melodies in traditional Chinese music that were very similar to American bluegrass. Talk about an interesting fusion! It challenges traditional notions of country and culture for sure. Bella Fleck plays the banjo on the album, and I must say I was blown away. So, stop by and give the library a listen! And come by the back room and we can talk music.

The back room crew (Jesse and I) left the back room today and went about 10 feet east into the director's office. Practically a field trip. We needed the speaker phone for an interview with the MaintainIT Project. (And next week we are doing a 30 minute presentation via the Internet) The MaintainIT Project is a three-year project of TechSoup, a nonprofit with extensive experience helping libraries use technology effectively, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They gather stories from public libraries on how they support public computers and publish their tips and techniques in Cookbooks and articles, so librarians can learn from each other and not reinvent the wheel over and over again. "So what would such an organization want with the back room crew?", you ask. Well, they want more from Jesse than me, but basically they think the computer reservation system he built is neat-o. They think, as a whole library, the decisions we have made with the open source ILS and such, can be a model to other small libraries trying to provide high quality for a small price. Yeah, they think our library is cool. I think our library is pretty darn cool too. What they didn't ask – and what I think is paramount to any good library – is what the community thinks, how you think we are doing in meeting the needs of information and technological dissemination to the community. Last year more than half of all Americans visited a library at least once, according to a new report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. So, theoretically half of you have been here (ok what is up with the other half of you!), some of you probably have something to say. Come by the back room and let us know what you think.

I love the idea of having a weblog for the library, sounds like it would be fun and informative for the library patrons! (and possibly myself! ;)

Attention all Colorado History buffs: Please come in and visit our "New and Improved" Colorado History Section here at the library. As you may have read, it's inventory time around here. For us that means peeking into every nook and cranny and finding every single book we have, making sure it's properly labeled and cataloged, and placing it in its correct spot. I'm sure that's sounds perfectly boring to some of you, but for me it's actually a lot of fun. Last week I attacked the Colorado Section, which was scattered around in several places and unfortunately falling apart at the seams. Not anymore. This section has been dusted off, spruced up, expanded, and is now just waiting for you Colorado enthusiasts to literally come and it check out. We went ahead and took most of those annoying "for library use only" labels off of most of the books and now those books are just waiting for you to come on in and take them home. So next time you find yourself with some spare time, I hope you will stop by the Colorado History section and read up on some of the fascinating little towns, rocks, flowers, trails, and people that make up our Beautiful State. Who knows, you just might even discover an interesting place that you can actually afford to drive to.

Notes from the back room:

(Thanks Jamie!) With Independence Day here I thought I would talk a little about the First Amendment. (I know civics class was a long time ago for most of us) So its the one that says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Yup. The part I want to talk about is the freedom of speech. The American revolution was in part sparked as a response to the tyrannies of England. In England at the time, people were losing civil liberties – and sometimes, their lives -- for daring to speak any opinion at all that contradicted the religious majority. Authors were forbidden from writing anything unless the bishop and the King's office first granted permission, a practice called the "imprimateur." James Madison said, during the introduction of the Bill of Rights, that the greatest danger to liberty is to be found "in the body of the people, operating by the majority against the minority." In other words if we only have the freedom to agree with the majority, we don't have any freedom at all. Many patriots died to secure that freedom. The hard part about the freedom of speech is realizing that it applies to everyone, even your lousy cousin Ed who doesn't have the common sense of a rock. That makes keeping the public library stocked with just what you agree with slightly complicated. You might think the Monty Roberts method of horse training is sick and twisted and no way, shape or form would the library need a book about gentle horse breaking. But your neighbor might disagree. Because while you have the right to free expression, so does everybody else. The library tries hard to have a fair and balanced collection. We recognize your right to pick and choose from our collection what is right for you and your family. So come on in and pick out a good one.

Robin's Observations from the front desk:

On Tuesday, June 24th at10 a.m., the Summer Reading program had some special guests from the Pueblo Zoo. Many of these special guests had six and even 8 legs! The Entomologist, Mary, from the zoo, brought these creepy crawlies and gave a wonderful talk on what makes an bug a bug and also about all the animals found in Phylum Arthropoda (meaning Jointed Feet/Limbs). The creatures she brought with her made this Zoologist turned librarian, very excited to be helping out! I had the pleasure of talking to the kids about the Giant Vinegaroon (if you don't know what this creature is stop by and I can tell you all the details.) Mary also brought with her some hissing cockroaches (EWWW!!!), a centipede (cool, but wouldn't want a bite from one, no sir!), a millipede which Karen talked about (Lucky!), an Emperor Scorpion (it fluoresces under a black light; sooooo Cool!), and a Tarantula which Gypsy and her son Doug talked about (he's a bug fanatic!). I have to say seeing the varied reactions from the kids were more than worth it! From the occasional ewww, to the "Oh, look it's moving," and the "What's that?" that tends to come with an expression of intrigue, excitement, and a ting of disgust all at the same time. I have to say I'm very much enjoying the summer reading program as both a staff member and, as always, a kid at heart!

With tomorrow being the first day of summer, though it has felt like it for a few days now, we have cranked up the coolers. So, if you need a place to escape the heat of the summer sun come on into the library. For those of you who are planning on attending the Florence Farmer's market every Thursday and happen to have your little ones with you why not head over and visit Cid who will be having story hour at 10:30 a.m. Also, for those of you who missed the sign up for summer reading you can still bring the kids to the programs every Tuesday at 10 a.m. To stay up to date with all the great summer happenings at the Library visit our website www.florencecolibrary.org!

Notes from the Back Room:

So I was reading an article about libraries – I know, I know don't I have a life outside the library...well, I like libraries what can I say. Anyway, I was reading about libraries and children and I read this quote, "Libraries are community centers now, not mausoleums. In this neighborhood, these kids need a place to go." "Great!", I was thinking, "that is kind of like our library." I often think of our library as being like a community center, with a slightly different focus than other kinds of community centers. And as far as kids go, we find that the library is definitely a destination especially in the summer. Which brings me to the hard part about the library and kids... the unattended child. Yup. Now, of course we want folks to come to the library, and yes, by golly, we want, desperately want, kids to come use the library. Some kids do fine navigating the world by themselves. We try to offer plenty of supervised activities with summer reading and such, we cannot watch every unattended child all day. Our parenting section has books in it, not people. As a community we have to realize this is the real world, not the set of "Leave it to Beaver". According to the latest Ofcom study: 49% of children ages 8-17 have an online profile, 59% of 8 to 17-year-olds use social networks to make new friends, and 33% of parents and 43% of children say they set no rules for their children's use of social networks. I know, computers and the Internet aren't something Mr. & Mrs. Cleaver had to worry about. Yes, the computers at the library are filtered. Yes, we enforce time limits. As parents we need to check up on our childern's Internet lives and we cannot rely on the average stranger to guide our children to safety.

On June 10^th, the Summer Reading program kicked off! For someone who has never experienced the craziness of the program before, I was definitely shocked! I was recruited to help handout tickets, keep track of attendance, act as crossing guard, and be a ticket number caller. I must say I was completely amazed at the attendance. We had 119 children come!!! In a way this isn’t so surprising considering we had around 140 to 160 kids sign up. This in itself is truly amazing. For the first program we had the Incredible Mr. E perform a magic show for the kids. Yet, it wasn’t just a magic show; it was tied into the summer reading program theme of BUGS! Mr. E also provided great buggy facts for the kids plus a lot of plugs for reading books. To top it off he also gave all of the kids a free magic trick! The kids really enjoyed it but the adults also seemed to enjoy themselves. I have to say I sure did! Afterwards, we all walked across the street to the Middle School and treated all of the children to a snack. While they were enjoying their snack, Cid and I handed out some prizes. It was an enjoyable day for all and I can’t wait for next week’s program of a Beekeeper!!!

I visited a few library weblogs and I see the advantages of them but also some disadvantages.  It looks like Burbank began their blog pretty recently, September 07.  There has been alot of work done to it, stuff posted and multiple categories developed.  It appears that several people contribute to it, one person seems to post everything on a given page so they must have their areas of responsibility.  The main blog page is a listing of upcoming community events that have been posted by many different people--maybe the event holders?

This blog is aimed at the general public, library users, adults and children.  It has been kept up well, it is up to date and has been posted to pretty regularly, although the pictures in the Flickr picture link are from Summer 07--time to update those, I think. 

I like the fact that the blog is informative and people can respond to it.  At this time, however, I could find only one comment made to any of the postings.  Blogging's draw seems to be that it is a website designed to be interactive, which is great.  I guess the question is how long should the time and energy be spent inputting information if there are no comments being made.  In that case, should the librarians just stick with the website?  As to that, I was disappointed that there was no clear link to the blog from the Burbank Public Library website, I found it by accident under the heading "news and reviews."  If they really want the blog to take off, I'd suggest a clear direct link from the website. 

library patron? no., originally uploaded by aaron schmidt.

Apparently the following Youtube video shows the librarian's uniform more closely. :) It is very Star "Trekish!"

I was recently talking with some friends of mine about public space – you know, common areas we all use. We started talking about a lecture on the Internet site "TED" (Technology, Entertainment, Design.) by James Howard Kunstler. He believes public spaces should be inspired centers of civic life and the physical manifestation of the common good. While I don't agree with half of what the guy said – I must admit to being more of a rural dweller than a city type, his points about common space got me thinking about our community and our library. A variety of folks use our library. Children, teens, knitters, computer users, folks with reference questions, book clubs – you name it, we all use the same 4000 square feet together. As librarians we shush teens and knitters as best we can, but let's face it, this is not your great grandma's quiet library. We have a lot going on. This summer we will have a lot more going on. Summer reading program is not a quiet event. So how does a quiet seeker use the library, you might ask? How does the library meet your needs? Well first off I am going to recommend the schedule of events. Gypsy, the assistant director, makes these nice calendars every month that tell you who is doing what and when. They make handy guides to the possible comings and goings here. We also try and arrange the space in sections. Teen area way way way in the back, the adult area way up front. We put tables and chairs in the all the small nooks to provide private space in our public building. Time of day makes a difference too. There are times when this library is so quiet, a pin dropping is deafening! How you use the library and what you need is important to us. So, as always, come by the back room and let me know what you think, I won't shush you.

Notes from the back room: Boy oh boy is June going to be exciting! We are doing inventory! Yeah, ok so that isn't really exciting, can't say I didn't try. By doing inventory we are hoping to find misplaced and lost books and get everything ship shape for the year. In case the inventory thing didn't get you all excited, June is also the kick off to the Summer Reading Programs. Every Tuesday, June 10^th until July 15^th , at 10:00 am there will be an exciting program at the library for the kids. The children's theme is BUGS! The Teen Summer Reading Program will be on Thursdays, June 12^th through July 17^th from 1:00 until 2:30 pm. The teen theme is METAMORPHOSIS! Get ready for a creepy crawly summer! We are also going to try something a little new with something that is a little old. Our old card catalog doesn't serve a practical purpose here anymore and we sort of need the space, so we thought we would give it to the person who writes the best essay on the card catalog and what they would do with it if they had it. Essays will be due in to the library by 6:55 p.m. Wednesday, July 16th. Each essay must be accompanied by a $5.00 entry fee donation. Any questions (or if you want to see the old card catalog) come by the back room!