The Kindness of Strangers

I was going through the day's mail on my arrival at work, as usual tossing most of it in the recycle bin.

Among the junk mail was an envelope hand-addressed to me, with a Yakima return address.

Inside was a hand-written note and an enclosed advertising brochure.

"Dear Ms. Lewis,

This piece of mail got stuck inside some of our mail.

I don't know if it's something you really need, but I decided to send it on. The last time I tried to return something to the P.O. tht was incorrectly delivered to us, the clerk discarded it saying it was just junk mail.

I would like to think that if my mail gets delivered to the wrong place, tht someone would take the time to get it to me.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas."

I did indeed toss the brochure, but I have thought about the note that came with it ever since. A stranger on the other side of the state took time and spent money on a stamp to do for another person what she would want done for her, and to top it off, wrote me an inspiring note.

The Librarian's Evolution

One of the great things about being a librarian is that you are always learning something. It is impossible not to pick up knowledge when exploring the information requests that come into the information desk from our diverse population of library users. The Sno-Isle system firmly believes educated librarians offer better service, so it provides a number of trainings that bolster the knowledge of library staff in a number of crucial areas.

In the last month or so I've benefitted from a number of training opportunities the Sno-Isle system has made available. Hopefully the information gained will benefit both me and the library patrons I serve on a daily basis.

I was able to attend a book talking boot camp program offered in partnership with the King County system. This training was offered to library staff serving youth with the intent of making them more dynamic presenters and giving them the tools to interest young people in books. With all the distractions our youth are dealing with daily, I'm always looking for ways to break through to them to promote reading.

Along the same lines I was able to also attend The Mysteries of the Teenage Brain. The library system invited an educational consultant and expert on how the brain of a teenager develops to enlighten library staff about the emotional roller coaster that is the teenage way of thinking and strategies to approach, educate, mentor, and hopefully understand and empathize with teenage library users and better meet library needs which they might not be able to vocalize.

And earlier this week I was able to take part in a Reader's Advisory training on inspirational and Christian fiction. I am fortunate enough to be on the Reader's Advisory committee and each year we organize a training for our fellow staff members on a topic or genre they might not know much about. This year we picked a genre that has a lot of depth and a fervent readership that library staff might not be overly familiar with. Librarians can't read everything, and these trainings help fill some gaps in knowledge and give library staff the tools to guide readers in the right direction though the landscape might be foreign.

While times are tough and budgets are tight, Sno-Isle remains commited to educating and strengthening library staff so that we can always be improving the service we offer our patrons.

December 7th...

Remember that day?

68 years ago, my mom remembered waking up to the roar of low flying aircraft. going outside & seeing Japanese airplanes flying over homes and then... explosion after explosion of noise. She was 25 years old, born and raised in Waimea, Hawaii. She was living in Honolulu & working as an usher at a theatre. An infamous day in our history... 1941.



Come and check out our display and visit the World War II Veteran's Audio stories on our web page.

- Joanne

Memories of Pearl Harbor Day

Where were you on December 7th, 1941?

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a definitive moment in the annals of World War II and in American history.

In 2007 and 2008, Sno-Isle Libraries was privileged to be involved in a project to record the audio stories of veterans here in Snohomish & Island Counties who volunteered to share their memories of World War II.

These recordings are destined to be a part of the Library of Congress's Veterans History Project, which is accessible at http://www.loc.gov/vets/

Selections from those recordings are now available here on our website. Check out http://www.sno-isle.org/?ID=4247

Pearl Harbor Day

Let us never forget.

New Year's Reading

Check it out (as we say in the library biz):

New magazine subscriptions for 2010 at the Monroe Library

ADDitude

Cloth, Paper, Scissors

Gold Prospector

Hobby Farms Home

Knit Simple

Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade

Shop Smart

Sports Northwest

and, for kids:

Kiki

Something to inspire everyone.
Come take your pick.

At the library.

It's COLD Out There

When the mercury takes a dive, hop on in to your local library.

We've got DVDs you can share with your snuggle bunny,
dance-music on CDs to wiggle & warm your toes by,
recipe books for making the perfect eggnog
and dictionaries you can use to look up "nog".
(What DOES it mean?)

We've got warm-weather armchair travel adventures.
(Fiji in February, anyone?)
How about a hot bestseller?
Or maybe you need to research a good electric blanket
and want to see the safety ratings.

Come on down
....................and slosh on in.
It's w-a-a-a-a-arm in here.

Without Libraries....

> A self-described illiterate person needing to apply online for unemployment benefits.

> An older adult, new to computers, needing to set up an email account before she could apply for a job.

> A local employer who receives resumes from jobseekers who don’t have the computer (or, often, the computer experience) needed to use his company’s online application system.

> A retired gentleman, subsisting on the declining value of his fixed income, wanting to turn his hobby into a business.

> A homemaker, in the midst of a job search, interested in volunteering here as a way to bolster her resume.

Without libraries, where would these people have gotten assistance?


These are all real people who came to us for help, just in the last month.


Real people.



................................... Like you.



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Like me.

Libraries.


So much more than just books.