Another little change of interest

We decided to move the big study carrels out of the back corner in the Reference Department, mostly to have all the computers together. Once they were moved out of the space, we found we had quite a nice area available. We pulled in the more creative and artistic members of the staff for suggestions and by the end of the morning we had a new quiet reading area.


I'll grant you it has a bit of the look of a doctor's waiting room, but it won't be that way for long. There is plenty of wall space available there, just right for displaying artwork by our patrons.

The Kelley Library has been lucky over the years to host in the Beshara Room an ongoing and ever-changing display of the wonderful artwork of the Salem Artist's Association. Right over the audiobooks and occasionally elsewhere, Lawrence Welch has his artwork on display. Now we have another space for other artists to use. So if you are of artistic bent and have some pieces you want to display, let us know. You can talk to Alison or Andy about it. Not an artist yourself and know someone who is? Recommend them to us. We will also be delighted to hang examples of needlework - quilts, needlepoint, cross-stitch, crewel.

We want to showcase the great talent of Salem in a variety of ways. Musicians are welcome to our music showcase programs, artists of a variety of types are welcome in this new 'gallery'. We have the venues, let us know about the artists.

How times change . . .

We all recently commemorated the 40th anniversary of the moon landings and as is common with such events, it led writers to talk about how far we have come since then. That is just a nicer way of saying what we oldsters remember is now ancient history.

I came across one such column in Wired magazine - well the online version. It was a timely piece considering how many of us here at the library are in the midst of evaluating our webpage, trying to decide whether to use Twitter and/or Facebook for marketing our events, and generally trying to decide what newfangled thing is right for the library. It is a delicate balance between keeping at least on the curve while not losing the personal aspect that makes a public library a part of a community.

Anyway, the column was talking about what the younger generations won't remember that are all too familiar to the older generations. You no doubt have seen these kinds of things in the past, but the skew of this article was interesting as it focused on electronic changes, and still included a few library things.

#96 is "Libraries as a place to get books rather than a place to use the internet". I will argue that one. Sure, we do have lots of people using the library for computers and the Internet, but the vast majority of all ages come in for books, magazines, music and movies. I actually think that people who 'back in the day' wouldn't come to the library at all, are now coming to use computers - so we are actually serving more of the community.

Then there is #86: "Finding books in a card catalog at the library". I still hear from people who miss leafing through the cards in a file. Since my first library job was filing catalog cards at a university library (an inch an hour was the expected rate which equalled 100 cards), I remember card catalogs with a mix of fondness and delight that they no longer exist. We all are nostalgic for things in our past, but if we went back to that I believe the nostalgia would vanish quickly. My 3rd library job - this time a small public library in NJ - seemed to involve helping people to unlock the mystery of a card catalog quite often. So much so that I actually created a small book "Bookworming Your Way Through the Catalog" (hey, I was young) to help. Of course it was typed on a typewriter, first printed with a mimeograph, later with the new copier. Remember the old copiers that put a powdery coating on the pages? Just in that one activity, I dealt with 4 things that most young people have never experienced.

So take a look at the article and judge where you are in the generational changes. It is interesting to see how times change in a short time, yet some things remain for generations. I just came back from Maine, having stayed in a cottage that is some 120 years old. There are old pictures on the wall of how it looked back then and we can identify almost all the furniture. That old table works just fine for cards, dinner and our laptop, the chairs remain comfortable, the dishes and silverware work fine for baked beans made from my grandmother's recipe or microwaved meals. Real quality lasts and remains useful, books and libraries are just two such things.

DVD: The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
CD: There is a Season, by The Byrds
Book: Future Shock, by Alvin Toffler (just as a hoot)

My extended family is gathering this weekend in Maine, and I am off to join them in a few days. Thinking of making the now short, but previously long annual trip to Maine brings memories of traveling in the big family station wagon to visit our grandparents. That trip was something we prepared for for weeks. My mom would seal all open packages of food in the cupboards and clean the house. My dad was in charge of making sure the car was ready for a long trip - washing it inside and out, checking the 'fluids' and so on. My brothers and I would carefully consider and reconsider what we would be sure to take, since we each had only one small suitcase that we could take. The best part of the preparation was going to the bookstore and selecting one book each for the trip - we were gone the whole summer so library books were not an option. We tended towards collections of comics: BC, Peanuts, Pogo. My mother would get a few magazines. My dad didn't get any since he drove the whole way, of course. We weren't allowed to look at the books or magazines until we were actually in the car and on the road. I can remember sitting in the dark car (in the middle of the back seat on the hump of course) waiting until it got light enough to see the pages. We set out as soon after 4 AM as possible, so it was quite a wait. Of course the book was read in the first couple of hours, leaving the next 6 - 8 to travel games like trying to find all the license plates for all the states (no trucks allowed) or racing to do the alphabet from signs along the road (you can do the whole alphabet driving through Worcester either way).

When I started traveling with my own children, then driving the even longer trip from Pittsburgh, PA to Maine to visit the next generation of grandparents, I followed the family tradition - but thought about the voracious appetites my kids had. We went to the bookstore (didn't want to risk forgetting the library books in Maine) and got stacks of books - 5-6 each kid at minimum. The books had to last the whole trip there plus the few days before we could hit the local library. We would leave the books in Maine and get another batch to travel home with. It resulted in a nice library of books there in the cottage in Maine, waiting for our annual visit, inviting us to revisit books we had enjoyed a year or two before, these new books joining old favorites from my childhood - (I read An Old-fashioned Girl the very first night every year). Books are a big part of travel reading still for me, but I acquired my mother's habit of always taking magazines.

There is nothing more comforting than traditions. We embrace them, build on them, and hand them down to the next generation. I am sure my kids will just assume that they need to stock up on books for a trip with their future families - my son stopped on his trip north and had a bunch. This time of year, I see many families coming onto the library to stock up for their trips. More movies than books nowadays, but maybe that is part of that family's traditions. As long as they continue to think of including the library as part of their tradition, I won't quibble.

Book: The book of new family traditions, by Meg Cox
Book: Travel with children: 101 games and ideas to make family travel fun for everyone, by Mary Rodgers Bundren
Movie: Fiddler on the roof

Puzzled

Have you noticed the jigsaw puzzle on one of the tables on the main floor of the library? We are putting out puzzles this summer, letting anyone interested the chance to sit down and try to put in a few pieces. Being a jigsaw puzzle fan from way back, I thought it would be something to do to while away a few moments, be something to do when waiting for a friend or family member to finish browsing, and test the interest in offering puzzles to circulate.

So far it has been a huge success. I put out our first puzzle on Monday - I don't think many of the staff thought there would be much interest and I thought it would take some time to catch on. A young man discovered it early in the morning and worked on it the rest of the day. He put together the 1000 piecer in about 5 hours. So I put out another on Tuesday, and by Wednesday that was done too. I put out the 3rd (again, 1000 pieces, and a bit tougher than the others) on Thursday, and it was slow going. But late this afternoon we noticed a pair of teens working on it. Friends? A date? Who knows. Just a nice thing to do on a hot and lazy afternoon.

We've had some interesting reactions. A number of people came to report that someone forgot their puzzle on a table - so we put out a sign inviting people to work the puzzle. Others have offered to donate their puzzles - a very welcome gesture. Even my enormous store of puzzles won't keep up with the interest being shown!

This all has gotten me thinking about what else to do. Maybe a speed contest. 5 copies of the same puzzle, 5 teams competing to see who finishes first. Maybe we should put out a chess set. It is all part of keeping the mind active, alive and sparking - one of the important roles of libraries.

Margaret Drabble has written a memoir of her life through the lens of the jigsaw puzzles she has done throughout her life. The book, 'The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws', is do out in September and talks about puzzling with her aunt and how doing jigsaws have helped her over rough patches in her life. Sounds like my kind of book.

The Pattern in the Carpet, by Margaret Drabble
Frannie in Pieces, by Delia Ephron
Jigsaw, USA (software)

A welcome change

I don't know if you have noticed, but we have made a change with our DVD collection. Previously the collection was too small for the demand, and we have worked hard over the years to increase the size - without neglecting the other parts of our collection, of course. Recently, we decided the time had come, the collection was at a sufficient size, and there was no need to put it off any longer.

You can now reserve our DVDs - old or new. Maybe it doesn't seem like that big a change, but it is already making a big difference to many of our users. Instead of having to haunt the check-in desk trying to grab something good, you can just put a reserve on it and before long it is ready and waiting for you. In addition, we can watch the reserve lists and know just what titles to buy additional copies of to meet the demand. We do this already with our new, popular books and it has worked well for years. We see this as a wonderful enhancement of our service to you.

And as a nice side effect, we are now able to supply DVDs to users of other libraries in our consortium. Our patrons were already calling in DVDs through the online catalog and we thought it wasn't right that we weren't able to share our collection back. Now we can, and the huge benefits to us of being part of GMILCS is reciprocated from us to the other member libraries. It isn't often that a simple change can have so many positive ramifications.

So, reserve away!


1001 movies you must see before you die, edited by Stephen Jay Schneider.

Taking risks

We are all uncomfortable with trying new things, but there are such benefits. A few weeks ago, Kelley Library hosted the Pontine Theater of Portsmouth for a presentation of their program about ee cummings. I have been coming to all the programs this year, many of which weren't on topics that I would jump to attend. I haven't regretted any of them, and each has spurred me to explore the topic in some way or other.

I mention the Pontine Theater program particularly because ee cummings' poetry was a real trial for me in high school. I just didn't get it at all and came to the program sure that I would still not get it. Let me say that I lucked into one of those wonderful aha moments early in the program. Several poems were projected for background and reference during the overview of ee's life. There it was, the lack of punctuation, the lack of caps, the odd layout - the high school nightmare was returning, when one of the presenters said the simplest of comments. ee was creating a pattern that would mirror itself in the poem - the beginning mirrored the end. The content was important, but the precision of pattern was equally important. There was the aha. Suddenly it all fell into place, made sense and I could finally appreciate this respected poet.

I have had similar ahas over the years - watching the history channel (another thing I normally avoided) the cause of WWI suddenly made sense due to one simple sentence (and it wasn't just the Archduke assasination we all learned). Watching remedial math years ago (desperation early in the morning with a cranky baby) fractions suddenly made sense. The list goes on. I have often wondered why teachers didn't provide these simple explanations, but thanks to trying something different, something new, I finally did get the explanations.

Libraries often talk about lifelong learning, too often creating the idea that as we age we will be busy studying like back in school. Lifelong learning to me is finding these nuggets of information when I least expect it and heading off to find out more on the topic. I think this is why non-fiction has grown in popularity at libraries. No longer the dry books of the past that challenged even the most dedicated readers, there are now wonderful books being written as interesting, thrilling, and fun to read as any fiction book. I never used to read non-fiction and started to mostly due to my job. Now, I find it the best read there is.

So, take a chance, try something outside of your comfort zone, say yes to something new. You might be surprised where you end up going.

Yes Man, by Danny Wallace (way, way, way better than the movie)

Wild Trees, by Robert Preston

Round Ireland with a Fridge, by Tony Hawks

Survey revisited

We have gotten a lot of surveys returned either from the webpage or in hard copy and I want to thank everyone that has done one. There is still a couple of days for you to fill one out if you haven't taken a moment to do so. Pick up a survey at the library or take a quick moment to go here to do it. Why? Because we want to hear what you think. A few minutes of your time will have a big impact on your library. You can be confident about one thing, I pay attention to what our users are saying and follow through. Your time is far too valuable to waste. I already know some things we will be doing in response to this survey: expand the audiobook collection focusing on new titles and big authors; expand our large print focusing on best sellers, big authors and non-fiction; and we will be keeping videos of movies that we don't have and/or can't get in DVD. You told us, we listened.