Homeschoolers and the Library

According to the magazine Practical Homeschooling, homeschoolers now account for 20% of library checkouts. This statistic seems accurate to me. At Mille Lacs, we have about 8 regular homeschool families. They seem to check out more items and visit our programs more than other families attending public school, especially during the school year. For this reason, I put together a program this January that incorporated some American History and some library skills.
The impetus for the program was a collection of 40 poster-sized copies of famous American works of art. Picturing America is the name of the program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. By taking the posters, we agree to provide some programming related to them.
Although we met for 1 and 1/2 hours, we really only got through 5 of the pictures. The first that we looked at was of George Washington. The 15 attendees to the program and 4 parents looked in the library for a fact about our first President. Children searched the Internet, encyclopedias, almanacs and biographies. All were able to come up with something. We studied his famous portrait by Gilbert Stuart. Paul Revere was another famous subject. We looked at John Singleton Copley's portrait of this silversmith/patriot and then read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous poem "Paul Revere's Ride".
Two different landscapes helped to show the changes in America. from a rural to an industrial society. We compared and contrasted a "View from Mount Holyoke" by Thomas Cole (1836) with "American Landscape" (1930--a scene from the Ford motor plant near Detroit) by Charles Sheeler. The Migration Series #57 by Jacob Lawrence (1940 -41) was the final poster we looked at. We found a book in the ECRL library that showed the entire 60 paintings and also told the story of how blacks left the south around the time of World War I to come up to northern cities.
It was great fun working with the homeschool children. I think they enjoy the paintings and also being able to be around other children. I hope to have 3 more of these programs this spring and also try to incorporate more library skills in addition to showing children these classic American works of art.

Is the Library a Bureaucratic Bargain Basement Behemoth?

The editor of my local paper, The Mille Lacs Messenger, recently wrote an editorial that was quite critical of the library "If I were a Friend of the Library" (Dec. 10, 2008) . Although part of the article was related to some local wrangling about where a possible satellite library should be located in Onamia, Mr. Brett Larson managed to throw a few bombs toward the library. Here are a few of my answers:

1) East Central Regional Library is not a "bureaucratic behemoth". It is the smallest, most modest system in the state. The offices of ECRL are in a basement and consist of a director and an assistant director. A board that meets monthly, consisting of citizens and county commissioners largely oversees the budget. This is a public institution and if there are to be more branches, then the counties and the board have to agree to set aside more budget money to pay for them.

2) "Books are a dime a dozen," Mr. Larson says. If you are looking for any old book, then you probably can find one for very cheap. But often people are looking for a specific book. They may want the newest book or a best seller. Or maybe they are looking for a book on how to build a shed or train a puppy or cook a souffle. They may have a health issue that they need up-to-date information about or they may even be looking for a classic they can't find in the used book store.

3) "It costs more to pay the fines than it does to buy a classic." I can only conclude that Mr. Larson has had a bad early experience with libraries. The fines at ECRL are 10 per day, per item. Notices are usually sent out within a week if you are late with an item. The maximum fine for an item is $6.00 for adults and $2.00 for children. Lost items are of course more. Fines may be a disincentive for some people to use the library, but most people can return their items in a timely fashion--three weeks is usually long enough to read a book.

4)"[with volunteers] you can keep it open more hours than the average ECRL branch." The Mille Lacs Lake Community Library--the smallest ECRL branch--is open 30 hours a week. Milaca is open 37 and Aitkin is open 48. Of course volunteers are great at the library and we appreciate ours, but to ask volunteers to commit that much time to keeping a facility open is unrealistic. It is also difficult to ask volunteers to do the myriad other jobs that librarians do, from organizing materials, and displays to planning programs.

5)"it'll be just as good or better than the bargain basement library the ECRL can afford". Mr. Larson may not understand that it is the city that builds and maintains the library. ECRL does not provide money for facilities. They only provide the staff and materials. The city of Onamia only suggested the Depot because it is a facility that they currently own. It is also handicapped accessible and has bathrooms. The city does not own or maintain the Ralph Olson Center--that is owned by District #480.

It is certainly unfortunate that the Tourism Council that is now in the Depot was not informed about the City Council's decision to allow the building to be used as a library also. But there is no reason that these two entities can't co-exist. A library does not spring fully formed from a "behemoth" like ECRL. It is built gradually over the years by a community. The Mille Lacs Branch was in a tiny old school house for 7 years before it moved to its new location in city hall.

I know that Mr. Larson was just trying to ruffle some feathers with his "outrageous" comments. I just can't quite believe that he would be such a bully to pick on such a humble organization as ECRL.

Storytime Volunteers

Mille Lacs Lake Community Library relies on volunteers to help out with storytime. They read the books, help with projects and interact with children and their parents. We've had some really good ones over the years, including Norma Thompson and Jack Overbaugh. Barb Stone has been a storytime volunteer for several years. She has a remarkable personality, the kind of person that you want to tell your life story to after knowing her for 5 minutes. This makes her great with kids who are often eager to have an adult listener. She always pauses to listen when a child has a story to tell. Carolyn Avaire has started volunteering this fall. She has some teaching experiences and it shows in how she handles the books. She always lets children know the author and illustrator of the book. She keeps children on track by involving them in the story through both pictures and language. These two volunteers have helped to create a very successful storytime season. We've had up to 11 children on occasion which is a lot for our small space. I really appreciate the skills, talent and time that the storytime volunteers put in at the library.

Second Graders visit the Library

The Nyquist Elementary second grade, along with their teachers Mrs. Exsted, Mrs. Perron and Mrs. Petty visited the Mille Lacs Lake Community Library on October 24th. To make the day doubly fun, the children visited the Isle Police Station which is also in the Isle City Center.

We were especially pleased to have the opportunity to share with the children all the joys and responsibilities that come with having a library card. I tried to impress upon them that the library is a place that everyone can go and everyone can find a book they like. I showed them some of the different kinds of books that are available. For the children that had filled out a form, they were able to pick up their library card.

We hope that the children will tell their parents about the library and that they will take the time to get to know the wonderful resources that the library has to offer. We gave each of the 37 children a bookmark and an hours card.

Seattle

My husband, Jim Johnson, and I just returned from a marvelous trip to Seattle. We took the train out, leaving St.Paul at around 10:30 p.m. and arriving at Glacier National Park in Montana at 8:30 the following evening. We had two beautiful days of hiking there before getting back on the train and heading for Seattle. We got on at 8:30 p.m. again and arrived in Seattle around 10:00 a.m. After a brief snafu related to car rental, we were in our PT Cruiser and on our way up to the ferry at Anacortes. We ferried out to Orcas Island--possibly the most beautiful place in America. After two luxurious days in a huge cabin, we ferried back to the mainland and then drove down to Mt. Rainier. We spent a few days there, hiking before returning our rental car in the city. We dropped off our bags at the Moore Hotel and then walked the city, stopping at the Seattle Art Museum and the public library. It really is a beautiful library, but the best part about it was the warm reception that I got from the librarians and workers there. We enjoyed the Pike's Place Market and the Music Experience in the rain the next day. Our final day, we took a bus to the Fremont area. We went to an Octoberfest there. Looking around we found ourselves to be the oldest looking people at the event Oh well, we old geezers can still have fun.

New, but not Improved

August 2006, East Central Regional Library of which Mille Lacs Lake is a branch, implemented a new automation system called "Horizon". It was said to be faster and have more features than the obsolete system the library was then using. Despite some problems such as software that wasn't completely operational, poor staff training and a system that overloaded easily, ECRL went ahead and implemented the new system. From the start it was a disaster--it could not do holds, the most basic function of a multi-branch system. It was much slower than the old system taking much longer to check in and out books and print receipts. Finally the system crashed the following October 2007. Six months worth of records, both patron and material were lost. After a month or so, ECRL began using the Unicorn computer system. Though this system works okay, ECRL patrons have had to adjust to poorer service in a number of different ways.

1) Holds come up to two days later than under the original system. Holds can only be received once a day and only Monday through Friday. The original system was able to generate a holds list several times a day. One Cambridge librarian always prided herself on running the holds list before she left work for the day.

2) Exchanges of materials used to be regular part of our routine. Every six weeks branches would exchange both print and nonprint items, such as videos and books on tape. Though we have had a few exchanges in the two years, this is no longer part of our service to our patrons.

3) Patron services brochures are no longer available. Because the software we are using is temporary, ECRL doesn't want to print up a new brochure. The old information is outdated, leaving librarians with nothing more than an hours card to give to new members.

4) Longer waits for new materials are also a problem. Initially this was due to having to catch up with all the lost records, but the time frame has not improved.

As a branch librarian, I try to give good service to the people who come in to the library. I know that people are often anxious to receive their materials. I wish I didn't have to keep blaming "the new system". I wish that this Dickensonian lawsuit with SirsiDynix was over and we could return to a system that could be modified to best meet the needs of ECRL clients. Maybe then we could return to our former level of service and Gosh, maybe even try to "improve" service!!