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Director's Thoughts #13 – Program Evaluation
I’m finalizing our strategic plan that will begin officially in January and our next project to take on is program and service evaluation. It’s definitely a time-intensive, difficult project because people feel strongly about programs and services, what we should keep, what we should get rid of, what we need,…
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The Solar Eclipse Experience
At this point (especially if you work in a library), if you haven’t heard about the solar eclipse then I want to be you! We applied for the NASA grant and didn’t get it, so my children’s and teen programming librarians decided that we would offer a program anyway and…
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Popular Trends & How to Incorporate Them into the Library
Popular trends happen in a blink of an eye – a book becomes popular after being a sleeper when it was published, a movie becomes the most quoted movie of the summer or a toy becomes the must-have of the holiday season. As libraries continue to fight for funding and…
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…And Now a Short Break
I’m taking a quick break today from my regularly scheduled blogging to blog-brag a little about the my partner’s amazing skills when it comes to photography and graphic design. I’m going to try really hard not to get too mushy, but he’s got some amazing skills and is brave enough…
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Multi-Cultural Night
This is one of my favorite programs we put together at our library – we’ve done this a few times. What makes it absolutely amazing is that we ask our patrons to share their culture which means we get an authentic look into a variety of cultures in just one…
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Director's Thoughts #11 – Marketing
Our township has a quarterly publication that promotes the township departments and we usually have a little space in it. For the summer, I made sure to include the information about the summer reading program as well as where we are in our strategic planning process. I strongly believe in…
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Far Too Common a Problem Results in Unexpected Heroes
I think at this point almost everyone who follows social and community issues has heard of the skyrocketing numbers of deaths due to drug overdoses, specifically that of heroin in the past few years. It’s a national crisis and you can learn more about the startling number of people it…
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Holocaust Survivor Program
We had a HUGE crowd for this program on a Wednesday evening. At a time when there are fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors living, I felt strongly that we needed to give our community the opportunity to hear about this horrific historical event from a first-perspective. It also worked out…
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Community Survey Results
We created a community survey using Survey Monkey and also had it available on paper for people who stopped in the library and were willing to fill it out. After about six weeks, we gathered 333 responses, about 1/3 of which were gathered online, while the majority were gathered on…
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Girl Scout Visit – Yoga
I had a visit from a Girl Scout troop this week and was requested to provide a short yoga/book program for the girls. I was well-prepared and created an entire lesson plan the week before, but about an hour before the girls came, I switched everything up and I’m so…