Vivien U, Guild president
To all RSF Library friends, patrons, and interested readers…I hope this summer has been a pleasant one! There have been a number of items of interest which I want to tell you about. First of all, the Library Guild has been one of the lucky recipients of a $500 grant from the RSF Rotary Club. Besides funding international causes, they are also helping local nonprofit organizations, which I think is wonderful…There may not be a lot of publicity for small groups, but that does not mean they do not need or appreciate a bit of help! We are going to use these funds towards improving our Community Room in the library. As many of you may or may not know, the county library now is encouraging and promoting programs and classes of varying subjects in order to raise more interest within the communities, encouraging more of the population to visit the libraries. In my visits to the newer county branches, they all have large meeting rooms to accommodate this. Here in RSF, we will be using our Community Room. However, somehow that room got left out when the air conditioning units were installed. Perhaps those were the days when AC was not that necessary. In any event, we plan to install a sleek wall model incorporating it with wall shelving, so that our patrons and guests will feel like they are in a “living room” atmosphere when they attend the programs.
Second on my list…have you all seen the lovely knitted afghan made by our own Ginny Dewey, when it was displayed in the front room on top of the Spanish section opposite the DVDs? Ginny won first place at the recent County Fair and having seen this afghan in the process of being made, the finished product is beautiful…congratulations Ginny!
Ginny also leads the Knitting Class every Monday from 10 a.m.-11 a.m. at the library, so all knitters can gather for inspiration and meet new friends.
Third…we are delighted to see that the Book Cellar was the “favorite book store” in the recent poll by this newspaper. It does not really matter that we are the only bookstore in town, but rather that there are many people, both local and visiting, who are familiar and impressed enough with the Book Cellar, to take the time to put it on the list! It is entirely run by volunteers, from the pricing, cashiering, sorting, helping to carry bags of book donations from the cars, down to cleaning the spots in the carpets! We all look forward to our scheduled times for the enjoyment and comradery, plus getting to know the customers.
Fourth…The Guild has come across a new type of audio book called the Playaway. We have purchased two of these and would appreciate some feedback as to ideas — pros and cons. The titles available are State of Denial by Bob Woodward and Places In Between, a travelogue about traveling by foot across Afghanistan. I took a look the other day and was quite intrigued. Basically, these Playaways are small tapes which are totally enclosed, and all one does is plug in earphones to listen. There are small controls on the backside. One can move around, listening with this device in the pocket. It would be suitable for a plane/train/car trip when one does not want to disturb fellow travelers. However, given all the various options we have now for just about everything, this may just prove to have limited selective use. So on your next visit to the library, ask to have a look and let us know what you think.
The popular Children’s Reading Program has kept the back room quite busy this summer, wrapping up with all reports given by July 26, with an ice cream party on the 27th.
That gives us a mere month to clean up and prepare for the beginning of the next school year starting at the end of August…and we’ll be asking “what ever happened to SUMMER?”