Recruitment tool

Have you used your library as a recruitment tool? Have you brought potential home owners or employees to the library? If not you are missing a grand opportunity to impress newcomers with a beautiful community center with fantastic services.

Everyone wants to live in a community which offers a wide variety of recreational and cultural activities. Your library provides activities for all ages, and recreational reading as well as information about your favorite recreation is certainly standard fare at your library.

Recently I toured a mother and teenage son through the building while Dad was at an interview. The boy
patiently walked through the children's area and adult stacks with us. He browsed through the book shelves
in the teen room and looked at the variety of reading and game spaces. As we left the area, he said "This is reason enough to move here, Mom." Once animated we discussed science fiction authors and the sci fi collection that is available at your library. He was sold.

Let me know if you have other visitor impressions that you would like to share. Tours are available to you by calling the administration office, 687 -0009.

Patty

New ideas ??

They say there is nothing new under the sun, but the American Library Association taught me a few things. For instance, do you remember the old book mobile that travel through Gillette? I saw the new models. Even better, I saw portable branch library. I book kiosk which holds 500 books, and it can be place almost any where. The price tag was pricey -- but cheaper than a building. I wonder how many kiosks we could use in Campbell County ??????

I saw a nifty advertising sign for the front desk. It looks like a flat screen television, and it could list the daily/weekly activities or run a book discussion series.

I saw the new Checkpoint program that allows library customers to "comparison shop" books and to earn bonus coupons from local merchants. Google too is coming up with solutions for library users. The new programs are aimed at self-service libraries. How to you feel about that ?????

The theme for the conference was transformation -- 21st century libraries have transformed. Like it or not, we are more computerized, nosier social and cultural centers, and still customer oriented. The future is in the hands of the consumer, and library patrons have not been shy in making requests. Have you shared your wishes with us yet ?????

Garrison Keillor

It was the voice we all recognize from "A Prairie Home Companion," and he regaled us with childhood memories and the librarian at Lake Wobegon. Garrison Keillor delighted us all at the closing session of the American Library Association.

Keillor has a talent for language, and he made us laugh describing the "library crypts where authors go to die." He is concerned is newest title PONTOON, coming out this summer, will soon be living in basement storage along with Grace Livingston Hill and Fitzgerald.

"Reading is the privilege of living mroe than one life," Keillor said. Instead of being trapped in our limited lives -- isolated on a ranch or the chaos of the city -- readers escape to other adventures. His librarian allows him to "move through history" using the library books.

And he reminisced about the history of libraries that allowed smoking and the pipe smoke mingled with the smell of old books. He described the art of reading a newspaper and the special style of holding the paper like Cary Grant.

Keillor says things like the library is a place where "the gift of writing and correcting on paper" is a process that is endorsed; the library "is a place of comfort;" the library is "our route to freedom." He used the term "sacred stacks," a not uncommon term to librarians, but it embodies the feeling generations of people have about the library where they grew up and learned. Keillor's library is a place where people gather, where they can unwind, where they can think. "I like to sit there and think," he said. "I can plug in my computer if I want to. I go there when I don't want to give my attention to the world.'

Best of all, Keillor sees the future at the library. "I believe the future is in the hands of the bowed heads I see at the library -- working, thinking."

There were 22,000 librarians at the conference. Many of us had the pleasure of Garrison Keillor. It never hurts to hear praise, and it never hurts to recognize the importance of your public place in the eyes of someone else.

Are you a Keillor fan? Have you checked for his books at your library? Or do you listen to him on the radio?