2 October 2013 Happy Wednesday. We have had to reschedule the dates for the Library/South Community Pantry Raffle. We were not able to make the deadline for the South County News and we do want to promote the raffle so that the Pantry can get a good supply of toiletries and cleaning supplies to distribute. The new dates for the raffle will be as follow. You can begin bringing in donations and register for the raffle on Monday, October 28 and the raffle will end on Sunday, December 8. Sorry for the delay. This is the time of the year when many people want to make a donation to a charity or civic organization. Remember the Vicksburg District Library. Donations and Memorials made in memory of loved ones have enabled us to purchase a new CD spinner for our music CD's, purchase easy read and early reader books for the pre-schoolers, career books and college test preparation books for the Young Adults, and many books for the Adult books. Generous donations have enabled the Library to pay for performers for the Summer Reading program. The Library has never been busier and our funding has remained the same, your donations to the Library are greatly needed and apreciated. On the first of October the Secretary of State Express website came online. You can access it from the Library or online at www.express.sos.com. From the ExpressSOS website you can perform some of the simple and basic functions that you would ordinarily have to go to the a Secretary of States office such as: Renew or replace standard driver's license or State ID card Renew vehicle tabs Obtain a replacement vehicle title or registration Submit a change of address Join the organ donor registry and much more. If you need help using ExpressSOS you can phone: (888)SOS-MICH or (888) 767-6424 Remember the Brown Bag Book Club meets at noon on October 21. This month's book is your choice of any work by Charles Dickens. So bring your lunch and join us in the meeting room in the basement of the Library. Have a great week. John

26 September 2013

26 September 2013 Fall is here and with the fall comes a whole variety of activities at the Library. The Toddler and Baby times have been very well attended, much higher than we anticipated. The Teen programs began this week with popcorn and a movie. The tweens have made posters for Banned Book Week and they are on display at and near the circulation desk. Come in and view them and vote for your favorite poster. The Brown Bag Classics Club has had its first meeting. The next meeting will be on 21 October. For this meeting you have to read a book by Charles Dickens. Some books by Dickens in our collection are behind the circulation counter but we have a good selection in the fiction stacks for you to choose from. New display at the Library! On the south end of the circulation counter, we have a display of some of the favorite fiction books of the Library staff. If a title appeals to you pick it up and check it out. The staff has a lot of favorites to replace those that get checked out. Hope to see a lot of you at the Harvest Fest this coming Sunday. I will be manning the booth and Miss Kristy will be reading stories to the children. It is a great time and I encourage everyone to attend. Look for the details of a raffle coming up to help the South County pantry. We are putting together a prize basket and to enter you need to bring and item that is needed by South County pantry. You can enter as often as you want but you must bring in an item off the list to enter. The basket will contain some hot chocolate mix, some micorwave popcorn and two coffee mugs with the Library logo on it. There is on final item we are workig on to complete the basket and I will tell you what it is next week. We will start the raffle on Monday, 6 October and it run through Sunday, 17 November. There are many people in our area who need a little extra help and this is a great way for you to help your neighbor. We ask you bring in items from this list: Toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, shaving cream, disposable razors, shaving lotion, bar soap, shampoo, hair conditioner, hand soap, laundry detergent, dish soap, and other toiletries and household cleaners. Look for the library article in the South County News and remember to support our local merchants. John

18 September 2013

18 September 2013 Monday is our first meeting of the Brown Bag Classics Club. Our first book is "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank Gilbreth, Jr. We will meet in the Library meeting room in the basement at noon. Bring your lunch and we will supply the coffee and water. Next month you get to select a book by Charles Dickens and tell us about it. At the south end of the circulation counter we have a bookshelf with a display of Staff Favorite books. This month we are high-lighting favorite fiction. We encourage you to check out these books and read them. In the coming months we will feature Staff Favorite horror, non-fiction, holiday, craft, book to movie and other themed books. We are always available to reccommend a good book for you, just ask any staff member. Our new Wi-Fi room is seeing plenty of action from laptop users. In the past we have not been able to accomodate wireless users at the level of demand but we now have increased capacity to help ease the situation. The story times have started and we offer toddler time, baby time, tweens and teens programs as well as regular story time. Beth offers a walk-in computer help class every month. Don't forget to attend the Harvest Festival at the end of the month. Until next time. Stay safe. John

September 4,2013

Another month has begun and with it we begin our autumn schedule for programming and events. Next week the storytimes begin. Mom's please notice that baby time is now on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. This is before the regular opening time for the library and will be held in the basement meeting room. Teens and Tweens programs also begin next week after school. Copies of, Cheapr by the Dozen", are now available for anyone interested in attending the Brown Bag Classics Club. Our first meeting will be on Monday, September 23 at noon in the basement meeting room. Anyone who wishes to attend is welcome. The Community Tailgate Party is this Friday, plan to attend, Kristy and Beth will be manning a table at the event. This is the time of the year when children will be carrying books to school. September is also a rainy month. If you or your child should drop a book in a water puddle or accidently spill water or milk on a book take these steps to save the book. If it is a library book and it only has a few wet pages, place white paper towels between the wet pages and put a heavy weight on the book and let it sit for 15 minutes. Repeat this step once. The next two steps are similar to the first two except you let it set for a half hour. Step 5 & 6 extend the time to one hour and the last step is to place dry papertowels in the book and let it sit over night. The next morning the pages should be dry and the pages will be flat. As you use the paper towels, you can let them dry and reuse them. What if the book is soaked? If you do not feel that your can dry the book yourself, place the book in a clear plastic bag and freeze it. If it is a library book bring it back frozen and library staff will dry the book. If it is a school book contact the school and see what their policy is on damaged books. If it is your own book will will need to decide if you want to throw the book out and replace it or to dry it out. Books with glossy paper, as many children's books, need to be attended to before the pages dry on their own as the pages will dry together and cannot be repaired. Remember you can commemorate a retirement, anniversery, or remember a deceased loved one by making a donation to the library. At your direction the library will purchase books or equipment for the library to use. Or the donation may be given to use at the library's discretion. We will place a book plate commemorating the person on event for which the donation was made. If you have any questions about making a donation to the library, come in and talk with me or with our office manager, Terri. Until next week John

August 28,2013

28 August 2013 The end of August is here and this is the Labor Day weekend. This has been a good summer. There was enough rain to keep the lawns green and the crops happy, there was plenty of sun and the temperatures were not oppressive. The Summer Reading Program was well attended and the plans for programs starting in September have been made. I want to thank all of the people who have volunteered to help at the library one more time, we appreciate all you do for us. The Brown Bag Classics Club will have its first meeting on September 23 and we will be reading Fred B. Galbreth's Cheaper by the Dozen. It is light reading but it is a window into how Americans lived a hundred years ago. Mostly the tone is light-hearted but there is trajedy as well. To join all you need to do is bring a bagged lunch to the library at noon on the 23rd, go down to the basement and take a place at the table. Fresh coffee and cold water will be provided along with cups. Some of the future selections will be to select a work from Charles Dickens, one of the Bronte Sisters, Mark Twain or a play from Shakespeare. Some of the titles we will consider are House of the Seven Gables, The Virginian, Elmer Gantry and the Canterbury Tales. We will not be a literature class but we will discuss what makes these works and authors worth reading. This fall we will also be working with PNC bank to do financial literacy workshops. How to maintain a checkbook, keeping your credit score high and why it is important, managing finances on a tight budget and how to address the financial decisions that are part of everyday life. We hope to schedule these workshops on Saturday mornings so most adults or students will be able to attend. Depending on attendance, we would like to have these programs once a month. The Wi-Fi room is now ready! We now have four wi-fi stations set up in the library in the audio-book room. Outlets are available so you can plug your laptop or other device in so you can save your battery. When you come in all you have to do is sign in at the circulation desk. We ask that you sign in so we may collect the statistics for our yearly report on library usage to the State Library. The Library Ladies Auxilary is taking donations for the book sale. The only restrictions are no National Geographic magazines, no encyclopedias and no Reader's Digest condensed books. Also, if the books are falling apart or have mildew will not be acceptted. It is going to be great fall. See you at the Library John

14 August 2013

14 August 2013

If you come into the Library over the next couple of weeks you will notice that we have a bit of a mess, and for a good reason.  The audiobook room is undergoing some remodleing and we will soon have six wi-fi stations for our patrons to use.  The wi-fi stations will have access to electrical outlets so that users can plug in their laptops instead of working off their batteries. 

On 23 September 2013 the first Brown Bag Classics Club will meet for the first time.  This book club will feature classic works in literature that many have always wanted to read but just didn't know where to start.  The first book we will read will be, "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey.  It was made into a movie in the late 1940's with Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy.  It is on the light side but a good book to get started in reading of the classics.  Future books to be read will be books by Hemingway, Austen, Verne, Cooper, and so on.  Bring your lunch and book to the Library basement and we will have a good discussion.  The Library will provide coffee and water.

In the vestibule of the Library you will see the Lost & Found box next to the display case.  This is for items of clothing, tote-bags, and such.  We will keep ojbects in the box for 60 days after which they will be discarded. 

Anyone who has volunteered at the Library in the past year, there will be a reception for you at the Library on 20 August 2013 at 3:00 p.m. There will be some cake and punch served and it will last about one hour.
If you can phone in and let us know if you are coming before Monday 19 August 2013, it would be greatly appreciated.

Remember to eject the DVD from the player before returning the movie case to the Library.  Since the end of Summer Reading, we have had a couple of occassions where this has happened. 

Keep reading, it keeps your mind alert.

John

Planning time

8 August 2013

Looking at the Library calender, you would think that August is a quiet month for the Library but actually, it is one of the busier times for us.  This is the time of year when we sit down and plan out our programs for the next eight months.  We will be trying to better schedule older programs so they are more accessible for all patrons and we will also be looking at adding a few new programs.  The Library will offer two new programs for the adults this fall and I will go into it more in next week's posting.

The big news is that this month we are converting our audiobook room to accommodate at least four wi-fi users. With an older building like ours, there is a limited number of electrical outlets where patrons need them to plug-in their laptops, this has led us to create the wi-fi room.  There will also be some extra shelving in the adult fiction area which will allow us to shift the books so that they can be easily removed from the shelf. We should even have enough room to add to our collection.

I know a lot of people feel they should put a book back on the shelf after they have taken it to a table or chair and used it.  We are grateful for your concern but please put them on the carts at the ends of the aisles.  When we make our yearly report to the Library of Michigan, they want to know how many of our materials are being used, when the books are returned to the carts, we can take those books and scan the barcodes so we can get a count on the materials used in the library.  On the state-aid form there is a space for the number of materials used in the library so by returning the books to the carts, you are doing us a much greater service.

We will hold a reception for all the volunteers who have helped at the Library this past year.  It will be held on Tuesday, 20 August 2013, at 3:00 p.m.  If you have not received and invitation and you have volunteered and would like to attend, contact me at 649-1648 and let me know you will be attending.  Cake and punch will be served at the reception and it will last about an hour or a bit longer.

I want to thank everyone in the community for making our Summer Reading program one of the most successful ones that we have had.  The support of the local merchants was very high and people who donated to the support of the program.  Especially to all the students who did such a great job reading.

Until next week, keep on reading, John