THE LIBRARIES TRANSFORM CAMPAIGN
Designed to increase public awareness of the value, impact and services provided by libraries and library professionals, the Libraries Transform campaign will ensure there is one clear, energetic voice for our profession. Showcasing the transformative nature of today’s libraries and elevating the critical role libraries play in the digital age.
I attend the community meal at the Badger Prairie Needs Network and I discovered a fellow library-user was doing the same. Now we ride together to the meal. The library is a community hub for me.
It started off as a way for me to read the 100 greatest books of all time, it became how Addison and I found reading together. Working mostly 2 jobs and raising a family did not afford me much time to read, but I always knew I wanted to read the greatest novels. My aunt was a teacher and principal, and always encouraged me to read as much as possible. I was always more interested in playing baseball. My wife and daughter had started Addison with the basics of Dr Suess, and the Hungry Caterpillar. He seemed to really from a very early age always wanting to be “lost” in a book. He was always picking up whatever book we had a read it with a passion. So one day I went to the library in Verona and got a card. I started checking out books for myself, and taking Addison with me, he would go over to the children’s section and look at what book cover interested him. As time passed, he would choose his own books, and I would check them out on my library card. Then he decided he wanted to at the book check-out station, and scan the books himself. That grew to him telling me it would be “smarter”, and easier on me if he had his own card. Do they let kids have their own cards?
So Addison decided it was time to ask the lady at the desk what he needed to do to get his own card. So now armed with his own card he was free to roam the children’s section on his own, or so he thought with Grandpa hovering with a watchful eye nearby. Now, he reads so intently and so much it has become a Herculean effort to keep up with the latest series he is on. It started with Tom Swift Jr series that was almost impossible to find. The series of 57 books would only have been possible with the extra efforts of Mark Cullen, the man at the reference desk in Verona. With his help, I have attempted to stay up with the latest Rick Riordan, Chris Grabenstein, JK Rowling, and other author and title that catches Addison interest! As I now have become at least somewhat perficient on placing holds on books that Addison wants thru the LINKcat system, I have to put “on hold” more and more to stay ahead. It really has become a challenge to stay ahead of his ability to rad almost non-stop. What a great way to spend time with your grandson, getting lost together in the joy of reading, and knowing that he will always be just fine as long as he has a book to read, and a quiet place to read it at. What a nice thing to know as a grandparent that at only 9 years old, Addison knows what it took me fifty years to figure out!
After Dad went to a care facility, he and I had many conversations about his life. He was an amazing storyteller with a gift for theatrical embellishment. He told me about a coffee clutch conversation he and his friends had about the library and how one friend raved about all the stuff you could check out. He was so excited, he forgot I worked at the library and asked me if I knew about all the “stuff,” and could I believe it was free. In seconds it dawned on him and we shared one of our last bouts of hearty laughter. I miss him.
Well, what first brought me to the library was that I needed a quick copy for something. We moved out here…oh, at the end of the month it’ll be seventeen years. And I hadn’t been in a library since back in the seventies when I was going to college! But the local Xerox machine was here in the library, so I was here for that.
The first time that I really extensively used the library was back in the summer of 2012. I found myself unemployed after how many years, and they no longer put the ads and stuff in the paper so much anymore, it’s all online. I was talking to my best girlfriend, and she said, “Bonnie, just go down to the library. You can get a free Gmail account down there, and search online,” – she gave me a couple of ideas as far as the websites. And I said, what the heck? Let’s give it a try! I would come here almost on a daily basis to check my email, etc. and even posted my resume on the job sites. Everybody was so helpful and as far as, “OK, now how do I post my resume?” ‘Cause you know, I’m not real computer-savvy. I redid it, and printed it, and then was able to put it on the job sites. And it took me…well, three or four months, something like that, to find a job.
And then I had picked up another job only by word-of-mouth, not through a library search, and I had an accident at work. I had to have like 10 days off for my hand to heal, and that was part of my decision to leave that job, because no one was really concerned, and I was just very disgusted with the job generally. So, I spent most of the 10 days down here actually, back on the websites. And I have now had the same perfect job for seven months. So it worked out very, very well. It’s amazing what you can do with a computer. Most of my computer background had been work-related, you know their own little websites for purchasing as well as messaging and training, and I don’t have a computer at home. I never thought about coming to the library to look for a job! Very pleased. I still stop by and say hi to Deb. We formed a relationship during all those months of job searching. Now I’ll be in at the post office, and I’ll think, “Well, I’ll see what Deb’s doing, see if she’s in…” and I’ll pop in and say hi, or run into her at the grocery store.
I guess you could say I founded the writers group. I’ve always enjoyed the book discussion group, and one day I asked if there’s ever been one for writers, and that was the beginning. I’m working on a memoir. That’s been rather healing for me. Some of it…well, I have an interesting story. I have five children – one biological and four adopted, one of whom was extremely traumatized, and it changed my whole life, changed all our lives. So part of it is about that. It’s been healing, and it’s been empowering, because I think, “Do I really share this or not?” As I get more comfortable with the group, I share more – even outside of the group. I’m braver about saying, well, this is how it is. The group gave me that. When you just put something out there – like if you’d write it on Facebook – you get some response, maybe, or no response. But if you’re in the room with people, and they’ve had two whole weeks to read it, then we talk about it. And it’s good to hear everyone’s comments. We just get to know each other better. That’s why we’re so friendly! We’ve shared so much!
So you know that restaurant, Altn’ Bachs? It’s off of Seminole Hwy. Anyway, they remodeled and took down all the photos of the local area teams they had. Well I asked them about it and they went down to the basement and pulled out a box of them for me. And I found it! So I then I brought it in to the library and had Jenny Carr make a photocopy for me and I have been taking it around and showing people. My wife has been giving me a hard time, but I do it anyway. I already asked Jean at the mall to guess and she couldn’t get it. Can you guess which one is me? I know, right! I was a skinny bugger. 145lbs. and 5’9”. I played everything and while I wasn’t necessarily that good, I played. I ran track too. Can you believe that? I was co-captain and I ran the ½ mile. I always wanted to play football too, but you see, I wasn’t big enough.
See this guy right here? He was one of my coaches. This guy was one of Madison’s all-time best coaches. World class, really. Earl Wilke. Everything is named after him. The gym, is. He lived right there on Woodrow. He helped me tremendously when I was a kid. Once I was awarded a star I had to go to his house to pick it up. I took my yearbook with me and asked him if he would sign it. And he did. He sure did alright, and you know what he wrote? He wrote, ‘To Bob, a real bugger.’ It meant so much to me, you know why? It meant that I was tenacious.
One afternoon Patricia Butler was in the library looking for some old articles in the McFarland Thistle (formerly McFarland Community Life). Patricia had stopped by on her way home to Minnesota to see if she could find something about her sister, Marie Udulutch, former publisher of McFarland Community Life, and the fire that destroyed the building where the newspaper was made one fateful day in the 1970’s.
She didn’t have much more than that to go on, but with the help of Newspaper Archives database and the bound back issues of the McFarland Community Life newspaper that are stored in the Local History Room at E.D. Locke Public Library, information was found. The articles were forwarded on to Patricia and will be used in her sister’s retirement party presentation this fall. Newspaper Archives and the Local History Room newspaper archives certainly guided and transformed Patricia’s research.
My family first lived in Sheboygan Falls. We moved there when I was 10. One of my main memories is that we got asked to march in the parade as part of the library float. All the girls dressed-up as Cleopatra. We had no idea who Cleopatra was. I felt like a celebrity because I was associated with the library.
