August in review, looking forward to September

Part of one of our play areas. This is actually very tidy.

 Technically, we still have a week of August left, but summer reading ends this Saturday and I am more or less off until Monday, so as far as I'm concerned we're done.

This summer was, in terms of summer reading, traffic, circulation, and programs, extremely successful. As far as staff morale and stress levels, it was... overwhelming. We went straight into summer with no break after a year of stressful renovations. Additionally, it turns out that the repurposed space amplifies sound - combined with the increased traffic the noise is relentless. We also had illness, personal losses, and some major weather events. I try to make summer as simple as possible - I don't want to be one of those libraries that dreads summer or end with my staff and I being burned out and exhausted - but I just couldn't avoid it this year.

In the past, I've offered no programs in August, just summer reading, but this turned out to be problematic between school not resuming until after Labor Day and previous library boards not wanting a program break. I compromised this year and offered a couple simple storytimes and drop-in events (no teen volunteers - those were all scheduled in June-July). However, one thing I've discovered this summer is that the only program our patrons are really interested in is storytime. Otherwise, they are satisfied with the repurposed space, which has three play areas.

We will be taking a long program break, not resuming until September 21. In addition, this fall I am doing a very simple slate of programs.

During our program break my staff will be helping out other departments (we had a pivotal staff member move on), finally getting the Create Space arranged, and tackling the endless to-do list of projects that have been set aside before and during the grant renovation process. The last weeks of August I will be spending writing reports and organizing data and then the beginning of September I am going to actually take some time off, handle collection projects that have been languishing, and potentially work through the last projects as the grant draws to a close. It will still be very busy, but hopefully we can be more relaxed and as traffic slows down as people go to the fair and return to school the noise levels might abate.