Saturday, June 7, 2014

This week at the library; or, Summer Reading Approaches

Programs
  • Elementary School visit (2 schools)
  • Welty Environmental Center: Twitter on the Wing
  • Summer Reading!
  • Usborne Book Fair
Random Commentary
  • Well, a small but vocal group of the teens are NOT happy about the move - but I expected that. Their complaints are "we can't talk" "people stare at us" and "we don't like it". I finally got a definite answer why they won't go to the after school place in town "we just have to sit there and be quiet". Um, why exactly would you think you could do anything else at the library? I told them to suck it up. We've been telling them for years they were too noisy and they couldn't hang out here for hours and hours and now we're enforcing it. The computers are in the way and a bit too big, but that will be taken care of when we get new furniture. Next year maybe. On the positive side, several younger kids were practically sobbing with joy at discovering all the new superhero comics in the teen area. Most of the teens, specifically those actually using the materials and the area for something other than a hang-out/make-out spot, don't really care either way. I think everyone will get used to it in the end (they'll have to anyways!) but I'm waiting to see how circulation is affected.
  • Somebody make me stop! With two days to summer reading, I decided to shift all the picture books to put the Neighborhoods first (or, rather, assign one of my aides to shift them). I did finish all my school visits first though...
  • I'm generally not very sociable - in real life or online - but I do admit to a little thrill of pleasure at being interviewed on Library Adventure (yes, that is the back of my head. I don't like having my picture taken)
  • We got all our displays done, interactive and otherwise, all the shifting and moving finished (for now anyways) and finished cleaning out the storyroom (by dumping everything that was left in my office). I also spent half a day cleaning out the summer reading closet (should really be reading program closet I suppose, because all the winter reading stuff is in there too). My feet hurt afterwards, but it was worth it! I do still have programs to plan in more detail, but I have an associate! I don't have to be at the youth desk every minute!
  • Saturday I had all my staff in at 9am (although actually that's not what I put on the schedule which led to my confused staff being like "should we come when you tell us to come or when the schedule says to come?" which led to me telling my staff to just ignore me), an hour before we opened, to make sure everything was absolutely ready - displays filled, summer reading materials out, community room set up for the Welty Center...we were READY! Would people come? Um...no. I have never had such a slow kick-off. Last year 60 people came to Welty, this year barely 20 showed up. I don't think I advertised any less than last year, and I always have plenty of people even with Bike Safety going on, so I just don't really know what happened. I also have really low sign-ups for the big parties - only about 15 people are signed up. WHY?? Ok, apparently hand foot and mouth was distributed at the schools last week before they closed - at least two families are out with it. That may be a reason right there. Or the weather's nicer this year and everyone is out...or it's just a slow-starting year...a lot more people came around 11:30ish and I think I did ok - I won't know for certain until people start returning logs since I count participation, not registration - but I think next year I'll have the Welty center later, like 11 or 11:30. Ok, yeah, about 50 people total came to Welty but most came in later, so starting later would probably be good.
I have so many pictures of awesome displays, shifting projects, etc. that I just made a whole photo album for the summer. You can check it out here.

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