coming up soon

We have a library board meeting coming up soon. I need to figure out exactly what is the best way to point out some issues I have with some of the numbers we were given at our last meeting.

The pay for our library staff is not horrific, but when the starting wage is less than that of a school crossing guard it raises some red flags. Especially when they ask for a 4 year degree for many of the library jobs. These aren't the MLS jobs, these are the assistant jobs. Our library is less staffed than many of the surrounding libraries in our area and in the state and our stats are higher than those same libraries.

The town just signed  a new 3 year deal with the management company, so not that my comment will do anything, but I feel that it needs to be said.

I think they are underpaid and the town and the management company both know it.

Hmmm, need to noodle this one a bit.

Other things coming up soon, the leadership meeting at work that will have me in the office on a Saturday. I'm intrigued to see some of these folks in action and to hear the spin, but I hate losing my Saturday off. I'm also interested to sit in on this committee I've been assigned to monitor and guide.

Okay, it is Wednesday. The week is moving along and a nice clip. Speaking of clip...the boy got a really nice haircut for camp. He doesn't look quite so shaggy anymore!!

Enjoy the day.

rammer jammer

As my daughter posted on facebook last night: "That stadium looked like a big bowl of lucky charms. The leprechauns were drowning in the Tide. After all, lucky charms is the breakfast of champions." The fat lady sang early for the Irish and the Tide rolled to another championship. Speaking of rolling, my Hoosiers rolled to an easy win over Penn State. Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoosiers!

Got to love those teams in crimson.

In other news, when I stopped in the library last week, I spent some time talking to the director about the future expansion of the library. They are at the point where it is now a 'one book in one book out' policy for the collection. Ugh.  The Friends have saved about $80K towards the expansion. That will grow to the promised $100K in the next 18 months. Then the Town can approach folks to match those funds and the project can, I hope, get underway. Sort of neat to be on the Library Board for this project. Although, if hubby's firm were to try and get the work, I'd have to recuse myself from any votes.

I didn't do any reading last night, too much football to watch! I did make it outside on my lunch break yesterday and took a quick 15 minute power walk. We are going to have some nice weather for the next several days. It was so sunny and mild yesterday and today should bring more of the same.

Off into Tuesday we go! Wonder what kind of tee shirt the oldest will procure to celebrate her 'first' National Championship??

Getting the word out

It has always been a challenge to get the word out about the cool programs and resources at the library. When I was on staff we launched newspaper columns to promote activities and new 'things.'  They let the column fade away after I left, but it has now been resurrected due to the efforts of the awesome adult reference librarian they hired a year ago.

They promote in house as much as possible, but most people don't read signs let alone flyers. It is a challenge.

The board did a bit of brainstorming last night on how to get the word out about all the new digital resources the library has to offer. Beyond ebooks, they have audio books available for download, movies you can stream, children's books you can download, magazines etc. The director has done a great job of compiling some amazing resources for a facility of our size with the shoe string budget she is given.

We did have some ideas for her including target emails to teachers, utilizing the electronic newsletters that go out into the community from the Friends and even the Farmer's Market.

It was a good meeting, but a long one. And, I was voted in as secretary. Honorary position as I don't have to do much beyond read the meeting transcript and make sure it is complete. My kind of job. Ha Ha.

library column

Now that I'm on the library board, I get regular emails from the director when she has 'news' to share. The latest update involved the resurrection of a library column in our local weekly newspaper.  Long ago, I wrote one for our daily paper; the column ran biweekly in special insert devoted to our town. After that newspaper discontinued the insert, I moved the column to the weekly local paper, and published there for a year.

Then I left the library's staff. I wrote a few more articles on behalf of the library, but eventually the Friends consumed every spare moment I had, and my writing efforts and time were devoted to their projects.

Yesterday the director send the board a note that the head adult reference librarian is going to write a column. Yippee! I was so pleased to see this concept get another chance. Our library has such wonderful programs and events for readers of all ages. It will be wonderful to have that information out in the community on a regular basis.

library board

I had my library board orientation yesterday. The director and I sat down and for 90 minutes we went over what the library has done in the last 6 years and what they hope to achieve in the next several years. Of course our local school issue plays into some of those goals for the future. A lot of unanswered questions there, but some exciting possibilities as well. While the director and I haven't always seen eye to eye on some issues, she has never been afraid to try new things and to think outside of the box when it comes to what the library's mission might be. She truly wants our library to be a 'hub' in our community and works very hard at providing all our citizens with a variety of programs and resources.

I was quite excited to learn that our investment in Overdrive will be increased next fiscal year. She is taking a small percentage from each department's acquisitions budget and allocating it to e-books. Yippee! She also shared stats with me from Overdrive regarding circulation. Interesting stuff.

We will have our first board meeting this spring in order to accept donations from not only the Friends but also some other local civic groups. We will also be changing some policies at that time on books claimed to be lost. Fun stuff!

So, it was a good meeting. Today is my Friday, yet again. Wow. The week went really fast and with the kids having tomorrow off due to a teacher 'in service' day, I need to make a plan to not only get my normal chores done, but to also have some fun with them along the way.

Enjoy your weekend when it does arrive.

the board

So......years ago the Friends had a very able and dynamic representative on our Town Library Board. However, after many years of dedicated service as a Friends officer and a Library Board member, this lovely lady decided to retire.

And we went for almost 3 years without representation on this governing body.

We will now have a voice: mine.

Yep, I applied and was appointed to the Town's Library Board.  This could be a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire......but, I don't think it will be.  Although my first order of business is going to GUILT the other board members into joining the Friends. Not a single one is a member and I seriously doubt they even know what we do each year: like donate thousands of hours and thousands of dollars.

I'm on a mission. Again.  Life is GOOD!

what you leave behind

I've started my second year as president of the Friends group. I'm already thinking about my transition out of the group. I guess some might think those thoughts are a bit premature, but I feel a very keen responsibility to the person coming after me.

The president before me came in and hadn't been very active with our group. She struggled a bit at first getting to know the routine, but as we had seasoned 'managers' in place, they steered her along and she soon hit her stride. She was an experienced 'president' because she had been at the helm of several other groups in our town through the years.

This is my first presidential role, but I came into this position straight from managing the bookstore and I knew all the players, their personalities and the role I was taking on when I said yes to the nominating committee.

But the role of president and the responsibilities have never been written down or defined. I'm going to attempt to do that. I want to write down what I've done and why I did it. Whether the next person decides to follow that model or adjust it or ditch it will be up to him/her.

Part of this process will be to streamline our website and our media presence. I'm working right now with our website person to get our very beautiful site down to two generic pages. She wants to move on and as of now, no one in the group has the skill or interest in this aspect of our group like she does. 

The bottom line is I want to hand the reins over with a clean conscience. I want to give the next person as much guidance and direction as I can manage.

I love this group and I love our mission and I want the group to continue to flourish after I leave it.

movie night and money

I think I have hubby convinced to head out to the movies tonight. I really want to see 'The King's Speech' and it has finally arrived at our local cineplex.  No, it isn't some 3-D action adventure thriller, but I think we will enjoy it...or at least I know I will!

Today is our executive board meeting for the Friends followed by our lunch out at the local 'watering' hole.  Not that we will imbibe much beyond ice tea, but the option is there if needed.

I've been working on estimating budget numbers for our group as well as compiling the stats for the annual report.  We gave approximately $9,000 less to the library this past year. For the past four years we have contributed over $31,000, and this year we were at $22,000.  We have, however, saved almost $45,000 for the future expansion of the library. Our goal on that effort is $100,000 and we are almost half way there. That is exciting news.

The Library has their request in for 2011 and is asking for about $16,000. This won't be a problem, although we may have to make that donation in two sums, one before summer and one after.

But, all those numbers won't mean much if we don't get book donations.  We are down, just like last year, in the volume donated to us. Not good. I hope warmer weather and the spring cleaning urge can help us in a few weeks to fill the bins, boxes and shelves.

Movies, money and books...my Friday trifecta.  Enjoy the weekend.

Anne's book club in a bag program

Shortly before Christmas I went to Barnes and Noble and picked up four boxes of new books. Inside the boxes were 120 paperback copies of 12 different titles. Today I'm going to set up Anne's Book Club in a Bag program for our library. Each bag will hold ten copies of a single title, discussion questions, a brief bio about Anne and a list of the books available through this program. The library will roll this out to the public in February, but in the meantime, our Friends book club is enjoying having this many copies of a title available for their members.

I have a list of things to do in order to promote the program. I have a press release to write and basically a 'media' kit to put together. But, today is all about filling the bags.

The store, which she worked in every Thursday morning, has now grossed over $100,000 since we opened the door. Amazing. The amount of effort from our volunteers and the sheer number of books we have handled to earn that money boggles my mind.

Anne would have been so excited to hear that number and so proud.

library spending

I got an email yesterday from the library director asking for a large chunk of money. Interestingly enough, the amount requested is almost exactly what the book sale earned. I'm sure she had a ballpark number given to her by someone. Ugh.

Of course that puts me in the 'lovely' position of having to stall on her request. Several of the members would like to use the money for putting together book club reading bags for the Friends book club as well as other area clubs.  Some of these folks also see a need to refurbish the foyer of the library. It is looking very dated and in some cases extremely worn out.

Is this the time we push our wishes ahead of the director's?  I indicated to her I was gathering information on some possible projects and her response set my teeth on edge.  She does not want any projects taken on that might cause work for the staff. Okay. Really? 

I did learn the requested funds are for more history books.  Of course this will amuse the membership as the Library withdraws books at such a rapid clip we can't keep up with getting those titles out of the way at times.  Interesting times ahead. Dangerous waters. Lovely.

Library excitement...along with some football.

I keep seeing these posts about 'the boys of fall' all over facebook.  Yep, lots of serious football fans out there and they are more than ready for the college and pro seasons to begin.  Of course I'm more partial to the 'girls of fall' as my two are well into their soccer season, the true football, at this point.  They won their game last night in an easy match as their other JV cohorts did in a separate match across the county. So, lots of happy young ladies today as victory was sweet for all of them.

The Friends meeting went very well yesterday and was attended by close to 30 people. Always good to have a full house.  We gave money to the library for a new Ellison die cut machine, a last minute request as their machine became broken to the point where it was not fixable any more.  We also supported a new effort to purchase family passes to three area art museums which will now be available for 'check out' to our patrons. With these passes families can visit these institutions for FREE.  How neat is that?!  I'm excited to be able to take all of us on a field trip to these venues and avoid the admission charges.

We also finished donating our big gift to the library for their basic needs in this new fiscal year.  The hope is that the director can get all of these monies accepted by the library board this month and be able to spend the money before month end.  The library board is horrible at meeting on a regular basis and if things weren't in place now, it would be January before she had another opportunity to present the donations to them. Unreal.

As I drove home yesterday I realized I need to get busy on an article for the local paper outlining all of the Friends efforts to date.  I hope to have the article published before our big fall book sale and thus cover a variety of exciting things in one piece.

meetings

In my previous life, I attended many a 'business' meeting. While these meetings had set start and stop times, the published schedule was rarely followed and often the discussion portion would spiral out of control. Yesterday's Friends meeting ran a bit long, something I fully expected due to the nature of our agenda and the fact that the donation of our funds was involved.  People perk right up when donating money is discussed and several questions were asked and comments were made.

Being 'president' is interesting as I feel  I am there to steer the conversations and make sure that the forum is open and conducive to freely flowing conversations. I try to not inject my personal opinion and just provide facts.  In one situation my silence was required after a member made a comment regarding one of the topics. Not easy for me to do, but in that case I decided silence was the best course as she hadn't asked a question and instead stated her opinion.  No real need for a response from me, but it was a bit awkward.

The money topic was tabled and will be removed from the table for further discussion and the vote next month. By then everyone present will have had the opportunity to discuss, mull, ponder and vent about the issues. 

I was tired when I got home. The meeting ran 75 minutes and while not contentious, it was intense in many ways as most meetings are that involve money.

hashing it out

I'm off to the Library today to sit in on a meeting to review our most recent book sale. The sale manager does this after every sale. She invites those interested parties who worked a lot on the sale to offer opinions, suggestions and comments regarding how things went, what we might change or do in a better way.

Each sale is different. We obviously have different inventory to sell as all of our stock comes from community donations. The weather is different and it is pretty understandable how that can impact our bottom line. We set things up in different ways depending on how many books in certain categories we have gathered over the months. Different folks show up to work. Some stay and work sale after sale, others come and go.

But the one thing that runs through all of the sales is that a whole lot of folks give a whole lot of time to raise money for the Library. This is truly a labor of love and those of us that sit down today to hash it out need to remember that being a volunteer for a cause you really believe in is a wonderful thing.

what is on the calendar

I need to start making my lists. Now that the start of a new school year is just days away, I need to get back to work on my big 'fall' event; handing over the reins of the bookstore to the two ladies who will step into the manager's role.

It can be a delicate thing to hand something like that off. I've been so tied into the whole endeavor and now I will attempt to step back, be of assistance when asked, but let them bring their vision and ideas to the project.

I have a meeting planned with them for this month and then a general 'all store volunteer' meeting planned for September.

In the meantime, there is always the regular work to do. I have two meetings tomorrow; one to discuss space issues and constraints involving the donation process. The other is our regular monthly meeting for the Friends. I hope the warmer temps predicted for tomorrow don't impact our discussions.

The bookstore has thrived over the summer months, so much so that we are in desperate need for donations, specifically paperback romances. I put a call out on facebook for that genre of book, so hopefully we will see a few trickle into the library.

I know spring is Mother Nature's time of renewal, but Fall seems to be the renewal time for me this year. Ending and beginnings in store for the weeks ahead.

summer reading

In between me nagging my daughters to read their assigned books for their honors English classes, I have managed to do a lot of reading this summer. I've almost completed the Flower Shop Mystery series and cracked open the latest title to be published, "Evil in Carnations" yesterday. I think I will move on to the Cleo Coyle Coffeeshop series when I get a chance. I'm also eagerly awaiting the new Janet Evanovich book, "Finger Lickin' Fifteen." I think some bookstore buddies and I have come up with a plan to allow several of us to read the book on only one 'check-out.' Evil laughter should ensue now........I love a good plan!

The bookstore is thriving this summer. We joined forces with the Young Adult department and are the source of their summer reading prizes. We've given away almost 100 books to YA readers. They read for ten hours and they get a coupon for a free book. The ironic thing is most of the books they can choose from were discards from the library's YA section.

Beyond the freebies, sales are UP. Yeah. I was a tad bit concerned when our weekly totals dropped during April and May. We've rebounded and are back to our old sales numbers. Good thing for all concerned. Folks are reading and we are making money.

The head children's librarian told me yesterday they signed up 1400 kids so far for the reading programs, children's and YA. That is a good number, but I can't remember if it is equal to what they've done in the past. Will have to investigate further next time I see her and she isn't swamped with wee ones looking for just that one certain book.

Today we are off to the high school to sell snack foods to the summer school students and raise money for the soccer boosters. Then the girls and I may see a movie, I'm thinking Sandy Bullock's new one, "The Proposal." Looks cute and most definitely a chick flick.

Our water leak was a minor fix and was resolved in less than an hour yesterday afternoon. The Town responded nicely and the plumber arrived on time and quickly had the problem corrected. Keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have any other 'joy of home ownership issues to resolve over the next several months.

progress

After I got home from taking Abbey to her orthodontist appointment and delivering her to school, I made a cup of tea and fired up the laptop. I managed to finish inputting all the genealogy information I had culled last spring. Now comes the fun part...putting together the binders. You see, I'm giving this information to my mom, brother and maternal grandmother for Christmas. So the next few weeks will be spent printing, sorting, plastic sleeving and binding.

I still have hopes of finiding a Revolutionary War vet in those branches, but haven't discovered anything so far. I need to keep digging. The problem is when I begin to work on this project, three or four hours whiz by and then the day is gone. It consumes me.

But first, I'm off to the library for sorting day. Then I'm debating about going to Starbucks with the crew. I seem to get cornered when I go there and a session of Q&A ensues. Not sure if I'm up to that today....the whole laptop fiasco is starting to wear thin.

Gray skies all around us today. I'd give a major whoop if the sun decides to break through. Three gray days in a row is more than enough. Makes me feel like I'm back in the Hoosier State when we'd have three months of gray skies and I'd slowly start to lose my marbles!!

up next

Stayed up way too late on Election Day to see the results coming in for our local race. Glad to say the mayoral candidate hubby and I supported won on the first vote...we could of had a runoff as three men were on the ballot.

I have to say, watching Obama's speech in Grant Park was spine tingling. I love Chicago, perhaps because that is the big city I was raised around and spent many weekends over the years visiting. Just neat to see the Windy City getting positive national attention on such a huge scale.

Lots of library stuff this week. I haven't been doing a very good job of balancing all the library, bookstore and home work.

No writing and in fact, no reading this week either. Hard to believe it is Thursday already!