Monthly Archives: August 2012

Librarianship, Library events, Spare time - Culture, Summer reading

End of Summer Exhaustion and Vacation

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Between finishing up the summer reading program and Ophy’s ongoing health issues, this has been a loooooong two weeks.  I went in to the library yesterday to inventory and put away all of the summer reading prizes, and when I got home I sat on the couch to watch the news (Jim had band practice last night).  Next thing I knew, I was wakened by the phone ringing an hour and a half later.  It’s not my style to fall asleep on the couch in the middle of the afternoon or early evening (or ever, really), so I think it’s safe to assume that I was absolutely tuckered out.  Exhausted.  Worn down.  However you want to put it, I was tired.

I worked today, and managed to finish up everything that might potentially haunt me during my vacation week; this included submitting my statistics to the state for the summer reading program.  And even though I planned the summer and knew full well what was going on all summer, I was blown away by our statistics:  we ran 58 programs (including hired performers, storytimes, book groups, and other library-run programs) and our attendance at those 58 programs was just shy of 1,900 adults and kids.  Wow.  Wow.  No wonder I fell asleep yesterday!

So goodbye to summer reading 2012 – it was a good summer, and we all enjoyed it and got lots of reading done.  (The kids read for over 5,200 hours this summer!)  And hello to Abby’s vacation 2012 – a stay-cation, of course.  I’m looking forward to sleeping in and making a full pot of tea every morning (and drinking the whole pot, too) and reading lots of books and going on adventures with Jim and repainting the exterior of our house and helping Ophy to recover.   Woo-hoo!

Storytime, Teaching

Tooting my own horn

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One of my storytime regulars said the nicest things to me today – so nice that I just had to share them, though I know it comes close to blatant self-promotion…

This storytime regular (who drives in from another town) has been coming to my storytimes for a few years now, first with just her oldest son, then with both of her sons once the younger was born.  Their family has come to my Mother Goose on the Loose storytimes for a long time, and then the oldest son grew older and they also started coming to my Storytime for 2’s & 3’s.  And today they tried out my Art & Stories for 4’s & 5’s for the first time.  As the kids in the group settled in to their art project, this mom came up to me and said, “Abby, you are phenomenal.  You’re good with all the ages – some people are only good with one age, but you’re good with them all.  You’re phenomenal.”  She went on to say some other really nice things, all of which made me feel appreciated and understood in a way that I haven’t in a long while.

And then later we were chatting again as I rinsed out paint-filled Chobani containers and messy paintbrushes.  I mentioned that my mother had been a teacher, and that she had always wanted me to be a teacher, too, grooming me from an early age; Mom even brought me with her to work when she was a preschool teacher and I was ten or eleven, putting me to work with the kids and talking me through how to work with them.  “The sad thing is,” I said, “my mother never lived to see me in this job.  Which is a shame.”  And this lovely storytime regular said to me – bringing tears to my eyes then and now – “I bet your mom knows exactly what you’re doing, and that she’s watching and smiling down on you.”  And then she went on to say, “It’s definitely in your blood, teaching.  You’re a teacher-librarian, that’s what you are.”

So here I am tooting my own horn, but also expressing gratitude to someone who did what we all should do more often, but don’t: telling another person that you value and appreciate them.  It’s such a great feeling to know that you’re making a difference in the world, because I know that there are many days that go by where I’m not sure if what I’m doing is having any impact.  Today, happily, is not one of those days.  Today I am reassured that what I do every day is worth doing.  Thank you!!!

Children's literature, Librarianship, Spare time - Culture

Study break

I’ve been working hard all day at more book ordering, this time making my way through issues of School Library Journal.  It’s fantastically fun, really, though maybe not my first choice of a way to spend my Sunday [yes, yes, yes, it’s off the clock…I do that a lot!].  Fun because I love seeing which series have a new title – sometimes it will be several years from one entry in a book series to the publication of the next, sometimes it will only be months – and which of my favorite authors have come out with a new book.  And I also love seeing what unusual nonfiction topics have now been addressed in a children’s book.  Sometimes those nonfiction books aren’t worth buying, but lately there have been a ton of great nonfiction children’s books on cool topics.

And I’ve enjoyed ordering today because it’s given me a chance to spend some quality time with Ophy as she (hopefully) recovers.  I’m sitting in the middle of the couch with my laptop and the review journals, and Ophy alternates between napping curled up to my left leg and then my right leg – with water drinking breaks in between.

Study break is over, though – I still have more ordering to do, and I suppose it might be wise to eat some dinner, too.  My goal is to go on my vacation next week having absolutely no loose ends at work, and I think I can achieve the tying of those loose ends this evening.  Yahoo!!!

Library events, Pop culture, Summer reading

Winnie the Pooh

Last night’s movie night was hands down the sweetest movie night ever at the library.  We showed the 2011 film Winnie the Pooh, and the audience was full of younger kids (all under the age of five, I believe), some of whom had never been to a movie night before.  They were so sweet and so attentive and so wrapped up in the flow of this very gentle movie.  Lots of giggles when Pooh’s tummy grumbled, lots of delight when Tigger bounced and sang.

And from my adult perspective, I was impressed by how Disney constructed this movie.  Mid-way through the movie I went and checked the DVD case to make sure this was actually a new film, because it has the look, feel, and spirit of the older classic Disney movies.  The animation is lovely (the DVD case says that it’s hand-drawn) and the plot is gentle, with just enough tension to make things interesting, but not so much that younger children are anxious.  And I loved the way that the original text of the books is integrated into the film.  The text is almost a character in the film, as full page spreads of the original book (or a facsimile thereof, I’ll have to look at the book to figure that out) appear from time to time, and then the words and letters will move and fall and incorporate into the action of the movie.  My favorite bit was when the characters are stuck at the bottom of the pit they have dug, and then they use the words of the text to build a ladder to climb out.  So cool.

The best part of last night’s movie?  Everyone left happy, and got home in time to get to bed at a reasonable hour (a major benefit of a movie that’s only one hour).  That happy-and-bed-at-a-reasonable-hour includes the children’s librarian, by the way.  🙂

Summer reading

I take it back

Did I say in my last post that summer reading was winding down and things were getting a bit quieter at the library?

Then again, maybe not.  After an extremely busy Monday, I take that back.  I saw kids today that I haven’t seen all summer – and some of those kids have read twenty hours or more so far.  And then there were the reference questions!  Tons of kids and their adults looking for books today…and happily, I was able to come through for most of them with a book in hand.  The rest have books requested for them, soon to arrive.

It was a very fun day.  Very fun.  But definitely not quiet.  And now for some rest to prepare for tomorrow, which promises to be busy again.  (Especially since the road construction seems to have come to a halt.)

P.S. Total time reading by kids in the summer reading program now stands at 3,809 hours.

Library events, Summer reading

Winding down

I just bought nine bags of popcorn, which should be enough to get us through the last two movie nights of the summer (Winnie the Pooh and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), and it really hit home as I bought that popcorn that summer is almost over.  Sure, it’s ninety degrees and wicked humid out, but the summer reading program only has eleven more days to go, and kids in the town where I work will be heading back to school soon after that.

It’s been an interesting summer at the library.  The first several weeks of the summer reading program were intensely, crazily, ridiculously busy, with tons of kids coming in for prizes each day and waitlists for programs.  In those several weeks, I wasn’t able to do anything that wasn’t summer reading related, and I went home absolutely pooped each evening.  But a week or so ago, things got somewhat calmer, and I suspect that a lot of people have now gone on vacation, and that the remaining kids have moved past the prize-receiving threshold and are now working on their bookplate numbers.  Which is not to say that it’s been quiet at the library, because it hasn’t been, but I have been able to accomplish some other “action items,” like getting that order of new books completely sorted and shuttled down to tech services for processing.  And, as I think about it, some of the relative calmness in the last week at the library can easily be attributed to the road construction on the state highway that runs in front of the library (the state closed the road and sent motorists on unmarked detours, which is a whole ‘nother story).

So, with eleven days to go, here is the current summer reading hours total for the kids participating in the summer reading program: 3,498 hours read.  That’s very impressive, especially since I know that not everyone has gotten their hours entered into the online reading program.  And I’m impressed with my own summer reading hours, which currently stands at 35 hours – a personal best.

As for programs, there are still some great programs coming up at the library.  Tomorrow afternoon is the last summer meeting of the Lego club; Wednesday is a program for ages 6 and up on Wetlands and Watersheds, presented by a teacher naturalist from Audubon Ark; Thursday night is the Winnie the Pooh movie night; Wednesday the 15th is the Finale Picnic; and the day after that is the final movie night for the summer, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  Not to mention the six remaining storytimes of the summer.  There’s still space left in all the programs (except for the Storytime for 2’s & 3’s), so call tomorrow if you’d like to sign up.

And now I’m going to do a little more work on my own summer reading hours, to finish up the excellent book Superman versus the Ku Klux Klan by Richard Bowers.

Cats Dogs Plants Animals, Jewelry Making, Spare time - Culture

Man in the Moon

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Last Sunday, to assuage my guilt at wasting time watching the Olympics, I decided to multitask and make a necklace while observing other people being active (which always makes me feel woefully chubby and out of shape).  The necklace is one I’ve been wanting to make for a long time – not a design of my own, but a combination of two projects (handmade chain and a single earring, used as a pendant) from Jodi Bombadier’s book Weave, Wrap, Coil.

I LOVE this necklace, and I’ve been wearing it all week.  It’s just so bright and shiny, and looks great with a scoop neck black shirt.  I had dinner with my dad last night, and showed it off to him.  As he examined it, he kindly remarked that it looked professionally done (aw, gee, shucks), and then asked me if it was the Man in the Moon.  What an absolutely perfect name.  I love it.

I’ve put a photo of my new favorite Man in the Moon necklace below, as well as some photos that transferred from my camera to my computer automatically when I retrieved the necklace photo.  Not being much of a photo bug, there are some old-new photos that I just rediscovered, and I included three of my favorites below: two of the Concord Independent Battery horses in the Patriots’ Day parade – look carefully at the brown horse; a photo of my sweet little Ophy cat, who currently isn’t feeling too great – hopefully she’ll get better soon; and a picture of the sun lighting up one of our glass doorknobs.

Summer reading

Raffle tidbit

A couple of days ago, I was calling this week’s winners of the raffle prizes.  Most of the calls ended up in voicemail, but some people were home…and one call was just so funny that I have to mention it here (and no, I don’t actually remember who this conversation was with!):

Phone rings.  The dad of the child raffle winner answers.

Me:  Hi, this is Abby calling from the library.

The dad:  Oh, no, we have an overdue book?!?!?!

Me:  No, no, no – much better than that!

The dad (excitedly):  Some books came in for us?!!!!!!

Me:  No, even better than that – your [son/daughter] won a gift certificate for a pizza!

The dad:  Awesome!!!!!!  We’ll be right down!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that’s a library lover if I ever met one.  I hope the whole family enjoyed that pizza.  (And thanks to the pizza place that donated the certificate.)