YA, Needlework group, Taste of Culture Planning, Front desk, NC Room

9:00 am -2:00 pm
5 hours
Total hours to date: 52

Today was another busy day, beginning with helping Alicia with her YA activities by making Hunger Games buttons for next week's big kickoff of activities celebrating the books and the movie premiere. Since Alicia and her daughter were able to serve as extras in the movie, she is excited about the premiere, but many other people in our community are excited as well. Not only are the books phenomenal, but parts of the movie were filmed in our county, so the buzz surrounding this movie premiere is a little larger than usual for the YA audience in our area. I am planning to attend as many of the YA events next week as my schedule will allow.

After helping Alicia, I went upstairs to the Needlework in the Morning group. Francis had brought the afghan she is working on for me; she kindly offered to finish the knitting my grandmother had started over 20 years ago, and she is almost finished. I still cannot believe the extent of her generosity. By the time our group meets again, she will have completed it. I am so grateful to have met these ladies in the needlework group. They are inspiring and interesting. It is amazing to hear of their experiences and global travels. There were about 11 ladies there today, an increase over previous weeks. For these ladies, this group is an opportunity to connect and share a common interest and appreciation of craft, and there are several different techniques represented. There are varying levels of knitting and crochet experience present, but members are also making jewelry, crewel, and a Japanese form of needlework I learned about today called temari. A website on temari with photo can be found here: http://temari.com/   The ladies expressed their appreciation that the group has continued even after a staffing change. Cassie, the new Adult Programming Coordinator, only started in the position in September, but she fits right in with this group and they appreciate her contributions.

At 11 am, I joined with Cassie, Alicia, Chesley, Amber, and Mr. Wilson in the planning meeting for the Taste of Culture Activity to be held on Saturday, May 12. The event is a rather large event with a budget of $4000 and involving several community and performing groups. Discussion centered mainly around which performing groups and booths had been confirmed and ideas were taken for other participants. Gale in the NC room had agreed to put together an inside display of "Picture Burke" photographs. Children's activities and crafts were discussed as well. Some staff members will be securing additional confirmations of performers or seeking donations bottled water or items for giveaways. The next meeting was set for March 30, 11:00 am.

After the meeting, I spent the remainder of the day helping Gale in the NC room or helping out at the front desk. During that time, I was able to finish documenting two of the archival items for Gale. These items are over 100 years old and both are ledger books for a grocer in the area at that time called Forney & Co. One appears to be an account book for the grocery store, to keep track of items bought by particular customers, but the other seems to be an individual's transactions with the grocer. Both items are in very fragile condition. Gale and I hope to get a good system started for documenting the characteristics of these archived items so that they can be properly cataloged. I was also able to help out a couple patrons with specific research issues. One lady, in particular, was distraught and visibly upset because she was desperately seeking to find non-fiction, self-help reading material by 2 particular authors. Since the library didn't carry any items by either author, I tried to show her some similar works, but she really wanted these authors because a friend had recommended them. So I showed her how to use the library computers to look up information about these authors and their books using amazon.com, and we pinpointed the books she wanted. Then, she was able to fill out an interlibrary loan request. She was a desperate patron without a lot of initial information nor skill, but I believe she felt satisfied, in the end, even though she didn't find exactly what she wanted.