Posts by Cari
Read On! Late for LEGOs
Photo by Zhen Hu on Unsplash
I was late submitting my article for this week. So late, in fact that Terry had to email me to make sure I hadn’t disappeared from Pryor. While, the first part of January has been unusually busy for me, mostly with meetings, I can’t honestly use that as an excuse for my tardiness. In all honesty, I was late submitting my article because I was busy building LEGO sets.\
Haley, our Research and Genealogy Librarian, mentioned a few weeks ago that she’d like to do a LEGO display in our large display case located in her department. Not only do they make a cool display, January 28th is International LEGO Day! We all happily agreed to bring our various LEGO sets to put in the display.
Most of these LEGO sets had to be reassembled, so we’ve had a grand time during lunch breaks and down time building. You can see the fruit of our labor in the display case now. Marie and Amanda did an amazing job assembling London’s Tower Bridge, which takes up almost half of the case. The rest of the sets run the gamut of heroes (both real life and made up), library-themed pieces, and Minecraft scenes.
In other display news, our staff has been busy setting up displays of books and DVDs. Bonnie and Jerri assembled some of their favorite musicals at the East end of the checkout desk. Marie found a Bayeux Tapestry generator online, which inspired her Middle Ages book display. Kalyn’s display at the Computer Lab desk will help with your New Year’s Resolutions, and Amanda and Autumn have their favorite picture books next to the Youth Services desk.
While you’re at the library looking at our LEGO sets and materials displays, don’t forget we’ve got toddler storytimes on Wednesdays at 10:30 am; Teen Night the first Thursday of the month at 6:30 pm; and events for adults on the second Thursday at 7:00 pm.
Read On! Strategic Plan Update
Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash
Back in October, I mentioned in this column that the library is working on our strategic plan. Back then, I said the goal was to have the plan written by the end of November and to begin implementation at the first of the year. The year we just started. Oh, what a young, naive thing I was three months ago!
I made several mistakes in that assertion: 1) I grossly underestimated how much time strategic planning takes; 2) I did not anticipate getting lost in the weeds of the data for a few weeks; and 3) I did not take into account the amount of time spent in the paralysis that comes with the realization of just how big a project we are undertaking.
When it is finally completed, our strategic plan will have four main components: A mission statement that clearly, if broadly, states what we want to do as a library, a set of values that explains the things the library really cares about when carrying out its day-to-day operations, a set of strategic priorities that reflects the community’s interest in what aspects of library service we should concentrate most on, and goals within those strategic priorities that we wish to accomplish in the next three years. It’s a daunting task to write this document.
Figuring out our goals is where I got lost in the data. From demographic data to comparing where we are against libraries serving a similarly sized populations and taking into account where the State wants us to be, I have looked at a whole lot of numbers and charts. Of course, that’s also where I got paralyzed by the enormity of the project.
The library’s staff and the library’s board are filled with so many smart, wonderful people who make the library better every day. Together, things are progressing much more smoothly. I won’t predict when, but look for our strategic plan soon!
Closed for Martin Luther King Day
The Library will be closed January 21st, 2019. But we’re always open online; check out the online library for ebooks, downloadable audiobooks, and streaming movies, even while our physical building is closed!
Read On! Bullet Journals
Photo by Matt Ragland on Unsplash
Bullet journaling, habit tracking, and life planning are all terms for the popular phenomena of using good old fashioned pen and paper to keep track of your life. Whatever you call it or whatever kind of vessel you use, designing templates to track various aspects of our lives is a big deal right now.
I did a quick survey of the staff working at the time of this writing and all of seven of us use some sort of analog system to record our daily lives. We use our various journals and planners to track a wide array of things – to do lists, car maintenance, habits to be formed, daily moods, bills paid, books read, and more.
Most of us have special pens we use in our notebooks or planners and have chosen to decorate the pages where we track the various things we want to record before we start using them. Some of us like to use stickers, others draw freehand or with stencils. All of us have taken time to think about what we’re tracking and devote a space for those things in our journals or planners.
I struggle with the difficulty of translating a vision of art onto paper, so my planner is not very pretty. I was feeling a little glum about that fact this morning, but then I remembered that the library has a collection of scrapbooking tools. It’s not an extensive collection, but if you’re looking for a free way to spruce up your planner or bullet journal (or do some actual scrapbooking), we’ve got fun stamps, fancy edge scissors, and paper punches that you can check out or use in the library. I’m excited to use some of the paper punches to make my own stencils.
If you’re interested in starting your own bullet journal or habit tracker, keep an eye out in the next few months for a workshop on this very topic. Our adult classes and events are the second Thursday of every month at 7 PM.