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 come here every day. Every day, because it’s important for my research. I like to sit in this spot, it’s like my office. I use the computers and printer and save thousands of dollars that I don’t have because I pay taxes and then use those benefits.
I often work with a cracker-jack reference librarian to get unusual materials through Outer-Library Loan. It is interesting to see where they come from. I have received books from Alaska - twice!
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.
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!
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!
I set things up in such a bad way for myself early on in high school. Hating the system, people in it, the feeling that teachers didn’t care to actually teach me. Eventually I gave up on academics. I switched to Shabazz City High and things got better but what remained of my earlier high school years came back to haunt me right as graduation was coming. I was behind in credits and struggling to figure out what to do.
Work or Volunteering was suggested. When I couldn’t find a job I only had one option left. I had to muster up a lot of courage just to go to the help desk where Joe Kester was sitting that day. He was quick to help me with the application process and directed me to Liz Amundson. I was nervous but even early on it felt like I was cared for and that she was genuinely rooting for my success. Liz took extra time to help me understand what I needed to do and work out a plan for me.
Things have been pretty smooth sailing since. I never felt uncomfortable in the space she and the people working here made for me. It’s felt pretty surreal. I’m somewhere I almost thought I was never gonna be. In these 7 weeks I have had a great time working with children here, making masks and face painting. I have made book displays and helped the people coming in to find what they need, and I have cleaned more DVD’s than I ever thought I would. Now after 90 hours, I can say I am a high school graduate and I can not stress enough how grateful I am.
I was pretty much staying at home after my husband died, until I joined the writers group. Now I have this whole other life – or two or three. I’m enjoying it so much, and really it’s changed my life, because of the people I’ve met in the group. When people write, they reveal so much of themselves, it really becomes a close group.
I always wonder what people do, who perhaps don’t move into a church for any reason. Where do they start? I would definitely suggest they go to a library and hang around. If you go to a new town, just get a library card, and hang around the library a while, and you’ll be all set. It’s a social place. I meet people that I never see otherwise, and I meet new people, too. Somebody that I just fell into conversation with, it turned out we had a lot in common and we ended up new friends.
But I’m a terrible curse on the library. I have this unreasonably awful laptop computer that just demands patience I don’t have, knowledge I don’t have, internet I don’t have, and things are going wrong constantly. I feel very embarrassed that I use the library so much for help with the recalcitrant laptop, but I don’t know where else to turn. The fact that the library educates me for the new tech world is just a gift from God. It’s wonderful.
Also, the books! I probably read four or five a month. I always have two or three going. It’s a revolving collection. If I didn’t have the library to get them, I don’t know what I’d do. How could anybody exist without a library? I mean, who’s got all the money?
For 18 years, I lived in South America, Bolivia and then in Chile the last three years. I loved the experience, everything about it. But I hated the fact that there were no libraries. In Bolivia, there was a library – the National Library – only a block away, but you had to have special permission to go in, and no one was permitted to check anything out. So I suffered for years, not having enough to read. I joined a book club that North Americans had organized. Each of us bought two books from the list provided, and once a month we got together to exchange books. But I always finished reading them long before the month was over.
I hired a 52 year old data analyst in Room B last week. Using the library study rooms for interviews gives me quiet space, I don’t have to buy something, and people feel comfortable meeting here because it’s a library.
Caleb attended the library’s Minecraft Club. He really likes reading. The library is the perfect place because he doesn’t have to buy the books he wishes to take home and he can check them out and read them at home.
