Former State Librarian Jo Budler visited the following libraries in September: Herrick Memorial Public Library, Oberlin Public Library, Grafton-Midview Public Library, Elyria Public Library System South Branch, Lorain Public Library System, Avon Lake Public Library, Amherst Public Library, Harris-Elmore Public Library, Northside Branch of the Chillicothe and Ross County Public Library
September 3, 2008
Herrick Memorial Public Library
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First stop: Herrick Memorial. This Carnegie library has lots more room than one might expect when entering. We started out in the children’s area – always my favorite area. The discovery packs drew my interest. Each is based on a theme of sorts. The vacation kits are prepared by the staff in the children’s area and each comes with a journal. Each child who checks it out writes about their adventures – what fun to read their thoughts!
The children’s librarians also offer packets to the families that visit: take-n-make. These are craft packets that parents can pick up and take home with them to work on with their children. What a great idea.
There are so many things for the kids to do including a standalone game station in the children’s room, chock full of pre-kindergarten programs.
The teen section is on the balcony. Quite inviting with all the graphic novels and Playaways. On the opposite side of the balcony are painting and drawings of Archibold Willard. If you get a chance to stop, you will not be disappointed with this artwork. Here you will find drawings Willard did in preparation for his painting “Spirit of ’76.” The model for the old man in the painting was Willard's father; the fifer was his friend and Civil War Veteran Hugh Moser, and the drummer boy was Harry Deveraux, a military school cadet from Cleveland.
Artist Archibald Willard was born in Bedford, Ohio, in 1836. In 1855, he and his family moved to Wellington, Ohio, where Willard became an apprentice to E.S. Tripp. Tripp painted carriages and furniture. This experience provided Willard with his first formal training as an artist.
On the balcony you will also find a Village of Wellington painting.
Like so many of our state’s public libraries, Herrick is using every spare inch. Also in the balcony you will find computer stations where folks come to study for the GED. The library works in partnership with the Lorain County Joint Vocational School. If a person can pass the GED pre-test, the Vocational School will waive the fee for the test itself.
Library Director Janet Hollingsworth is on the Main Street Wellington, Inc. Board and stays in touch with her community in this way. Janet talked about the library’s successful levy campaign. She told us that when she talked to members of her community about “what this will cost” she explained that “it would cost a person the price of a book if he or she owned a $100,000 home.” The community understood what a bargain this was and the levy passed!
September 3, 2008
Oberlin Public Library
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Our next stop of the day was Oberlin Public Library. Director Darren McDonough began the tour with the information desk, which was generously provided by Don and Carol Campbell. This building (which was a grocery store before being renovated for the library) has an incredible amount of space and is very open. Darren pointed out several meeting rooms and spaces which are used as meeting rooms. The community clearly recognizes the value of this library and uses it heavily.
There are several computers loaded with games specifically for kids, a nice way of encouraging library use rather than discouraging it. There is also a story time room and when there are no story time programs, kids can use the room to work on projects. Additionally, the library has a craft room. The city health department holds a seminar twice a year that presents facts about sexually transmitted diseases and information about prevention.
The Owens Room houses a large collection of old and rare children’s books, including Newbury and Caldecott Medal-winning books. Students from Oberlin College use the resources in partnership with Oberlin Public Library.
Some features worth noting: The library has a quiet zone and a garden area. Oberlin authors are included in the Genealogy and Local History Room. The Friends of the Library program has two huge book sales each year.
Director McDonough then showed us The Bridge, Oberlin’s Community Technology Center and a division of the Oberlin Public Library. The Bridge was created to do just that – bridge the digital divide in the city. The Bridge is just down the street from the library and provides free internet and computer access as well as educational classes on computer use to the community. It is a 2005 American Library Association “Library of the Future” recipient and a 2006 Reader’s Digest 100 Best “Library Link.”
Like the main library building, The Bridge has a strong focus on teenagers and has The Backspace, the after-school teen hangout area. This area has a mini music studio donated by the Oberlin College Conservatory where students can record and edit their own music. The area also offers digital video and imaging programs.
Not to leave out the younger children, The Bridge has technology camps for middle school children, as well as for kindergarten through second grade students.
Stephanie Jones, Director of the Bridge, explained that she works with an advisory board that includes one student member. The Bridge is busy on Friday nights in the summer and people also come from other communities to use the facility.
The Oberlin Public Library staff is very dedicated to their community and continues to find ways to partner in order to provide additional services to their users. I am thankful that I was able to visit these wonderful buildings.
Before visiting the next library, I joined Director McDonough and Ray English, Director of Mudd Library at Oberlin College, for lunch. How nice to learn firsthand how Oberlin’s public and academic libraries are working together to provide “integrated” library service to their residents.
September 3, 2008
Grafton-Midview Public Library
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At the next stop, we entered the library just as Director Terry Cook retired and was handing over the keys to new Director Adele Infante. Adele started our tour in Children’s Services area. Had we come a day earlier we could have seen their lightning bugs made out of pop bottles: a prop for the well-attended summer reading program. The book displays were inviting enough – we were sorry to have missed the summer festivities!
The library had 388 participants in the summer reading program and held many programs, including an event at the Lorain County Metro Parks - Indian Hollow Reservation, where children learned about local insects, enjoyed a picnic lunch, played games, and went on a "bug hunt." Spiderella and Spipderman also made an appearance!
The library has a Teen Zone, and on Monday evenings during school, they have Homework Haven, where students can work on school assignments with the latest in reference resources and technology in the computer lab.
The library has several clubs that meet regularly. They have Crochet Away, Knitting Circle (aka Chix with Stix), and Stitch & Chat, which is a quilting program. These craft clubs welcome all experience and age levels. The library also has a Chess & Scrabble Club that meets once a month on Saturdays.
Grafton-Midview’s website was featured on the Ohio Library Council marketing web page.
The library’s Playaway collection is doing well and circulation increases during vacation season in the summer.
When the library did a survey asking users what services they would like to see in the future, they learned that community members wanted more programs. Because of this, the Chess & Scrabble Club was started and they offered fly fishing for the men this summer. They also had a program with the Ohio Consumers Council on winterizing your home and have planned a program with Mr. Coupon Guy.
September 3, 2008
Elyria Public Library System South Branch
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Rather than going to the Main Branch of the Elyria Public Library System, Director Janet Stoffer wanted to highlight some of the unique building arrangements in the library system. We travelled next to the South Branch, located in the Hamilton Early Childhood Center.
The branch has three part-time staff members. Last year they provided door hangers to market the library to community members. Most of the children attending the Hamilton Early Childhood Center are bussed to the branch for Head Start. Overall, the Elyria Public Library System covers 18 half-day Head Start classes at various locations.
Elyria Public Library System also has the Nonprofit Information Center that is located on the second floor of the West River Branch. Both print and online resources are available for individual and non-profit organizations seeking grants, in addition to workshops and other programs. The Nonprofit Information Center is a "Cooperating Collection" of the Foundation Center in New York City.
Director Stoffer told us that they are very committed to literacy and preparing children to read (and for success in learning). Children’s librarians of the library system have developed a suggested reading list of 100 books for babies.
The Elyria Public Library System also offers Project Read, a literacy program that helps adults ages 18 and over improve their reading skills. Volunteers completing 12 hours of training that are committed to helping adults improve their reading provide instruction along with no cost textbooks.
September 3, 2008
Elyria North Branch
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Director Stoffer then took us to the new North Branch, located in the Lorain County Community College (LCCC) Library Community Resource Center. There we met Steve Musgrave, Branch Manager, who led us on a tour. Ohio has several school-public library building partnerships, but I believe this is the first building partnership of a public and academic library in Ohio. It was very exciting to see the new branch which opened on August 18, 2008.
The North Branch Library is a full-service branch offering programming for all ages. The branch features a popular collection of books, magazines, movies and music, and books on tape & CD. There are also meeting spaces and an abundance of computers – 75!
The LCCC Library Community Resource Center is known as the ‘living room” of the branch. The library has 8,000 items on the first floor and 4,000 on the second floor. Families use the North Branch and children under 12 stay downstairs or a parent can accompany a child to the academia section upstairs. Children over 12 can be upstairs unaccompanied by an adult.
September 3, 2008
Lorain Public Library System
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Jan and I had one more stop for the day: Lorain Public Library. Director Joanne Eldridge and Assistant Director Toni Whitney gave us a tour of the library. It was amazing to see the “shipping room” where requested items are boxed up and shipped out to other CLEVNET member libraries and branches of the Lorain system.
I love lighthouses and was drawn to the model lighthouse in the children’s area. It is modeled after Lorain’s own lighthouse, the “Jewel of the Port®”. Later in the evening we ate at a restaurant and I was able to sit facing the Jewel itself!
The main library has a Toni Morrison Reading Room. Morrison, a Nobel Prize-winning author, was born and raised in Lorain, and was once a student helper for the library. Morrison's books and memorabilia are displayed in an oak and glass case in the plush burgundy and gray reading room, and a letter that she wrote to library officials hangs on one wall. Another wall displays the 1981 issue of Newsweek with Morrison on the cover, then the first Black woman to be featured on the cover of a national magazine since Zora Neale Hurston nearly forty years earlier. Etched on the glass wall of the room is a portion of her acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. "I will leave this hall with a new and much more delightful haunting than the one I felt upon entering: that is the company of the laureates yet to come. Those who, even as I speak, are mining, sifting and polishing languages for illuminations none of us has dreamed of."
The main library has a computer resources room with 40 computers and offers hands on computer training. These classes cover many different topics, from different levels of Microsoft Office to creating your own blog.
The Lorain Public Library System has two newsletter versions of “Dimensions”, a program and event guide. One newsletter is for Main Library, South Lorain and Domonkas branches and the other is for Avon, Columbia and North Ridgeville branches.
I was delighted to see Browser's® Corner, a special section at the Main Library for children, birth through six years old and their parents or caregivers. The area includes two early literacy computers, a train table, puzzles, games and comfortable beanbag seating. Browser® is the library reading mascot who loves the library and hopes you do too. Browser® will also appear at the library’s Fall Family Read-Aloud time, where families can earn great prizes just by spending time reading together in October and November.
September 4, 2008
Lorain Public Library System (continued)...
We started the next day of our tour of Lorain County libraries appropriately with a meeting of the Lorain County Library Administrators Council at the Domankas Branch Library of Lorain Public Library System. This group meets quarterly and their agenda focused on county collaboration projects and committees as well as updates.
This branch sits right on Lake Erie. I asked the library staff if they ever got tired of that gorgeous view and they were emphatic: never! The seasons on the lake are breath-taking.
Avon Lake Public Library
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Director Mary Crehore and Assistant Director Gerry Vogel were on hand to welcome us to their library and give us an extensive tour.
We started out in DiscoveryWorks, the library’s hands-on arts and science center that offers guided opportunities for learning and playing. It has an exhibit area, a loft for Tree House Club activities, a classroom/meeting room area, and the hands-on displays. Library employees working here have education backgrounds. Here I met the library’s gerbils, Stanley and Livingston, and had a chance to play the Theremin Electronic Synthesizer. I always wanted to play a musical instrument and now I have pictorial proof that I did!
The library is starting a teen advisory board in September. This group will plan activities at the library and recommend books and music for the teen collection. The Young Adult area has its own DVDs and CDs in addition to books. Manga is very popular with the teens here, as I have seen at many of Ohio’s public libraries.
We moved on to their meeting and conference rooms for public use, as well as a public art gallery, which features local artists’ collections, art, crafts and more. The gallery is currently featuring Auburn Classic Car Show Posters and Memorabilia.
Another unique feature of the library is that some of the windows are acid etched and you can see a picture of the fairy garden theme in the children’s area.
Business is booming at the Avon Lake Public Library. The library will have 13 story times for the community in the fall. In June, the library had 4,300 circs one day – a library record for the highest circulation for one day. Then July circulation broke another record with the highest ever – over 67,000 circs!
Channel 3 in Cleveland ran a segment about saving gas and vacations and featured the library as a destination for family activities. The library has the local public access station, a department of the city, in the lower level. The Cable TV station does a promotional CD for the schools on the library summer reading program. The library is planning an oral history project with the cable TV station.
The library is also planning an Arcadia book on local history and people are bringing in photographs for inclusion in it.
Avon Lake Public Library offers a great variety of programming aimed at kids, teens, and families, but also at adults, and they are not just reading programs. They have a whole series on environmental issues co-sponsored by the City Council Environmental Committee and the Environmental Affairs Advisory Board. I wish that I lived closer to this library so that I could take advantage of programs like “Rain Barrels” and “Organic Lawn Care”, not to mention the “Erie Lights & Lighthouse Lore.” You can view more of their adult programming at http://www.alpl.org/calendar/default.asp?FrontFilter=6
Amherst Public Library
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Our final stop of the trip was Amherst Public Library, where Mary Rawlings, Head of Technical Services, was on hand to lead us through the library. This Carnegie building is made of sandstone. Amherst is known as the sandstone center of the world because of its quarries. One of the pictures shows the sandstone wheel which rests outside the library.
In 2007, the Amherst Public Library celebrated 100 years. The reading area used to have separate rooms for women and men. The building also has a gymnasium on the lower floor which was part of the original Carnegie plan.
During the Summer Reading Program, the library had craft day every Wednesday. The library also collected 1,791 pounds of food for the Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio. To celebrate the conclusion of their Summer Reading Program, the library held a fair on the lawn, which was a success. The library hosted a Great American Cookie contest and awarded three Golden Spatula Awards.
This library certainly offers a great deal to its community members: Amherst offers Wi-Fi to its patrons and their regular computers are heavily used after school. The collection has over 100 Playaways which are well-circulated. In addition, the library takes kits to home daycares and professional daycare facilities in order to reach the youngest members of the community.
Mary had great praise for Cat Express – the cataloging tool which OCLC offers to small public and school libraries. This has allowed Amherst to add many records to their catalog.
In an effort to work collaboratively with other Lorain county libraries, Amherst shares a treasurer with Oberlin Public Library and Grafton-Midview Public Library.
September 27, 2008
Harris-Elmore Public Library
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It was a beautiful ride up to Elmore and I was pleased to find Library Director Georgiana Huizenga (pictured to the left) waiting in the lobby for me. We started our tour immediately after meeting the staff who were busily helping library users and overseeing the bank of public access computers (which were full already – at 10:30 on a Saturday morning!).
Georgi asked if hers is the only library that I had visited that had a car in the entry area and I must admit that it is. The designer of the library remodel felt that having an Elmore car on display would be distinctive and memorable. The first Elmore car was manufactured in 1900. The car in the library does indeed attract a lot of attention, especially from the library’s youngest users, who are tempted to climb aboard but are asked to refrain!
There are also period lamp posts situated around the library which add atmosphere and suggest that this community honors its history. Also on display is an Elmore Roadster bicycle which debuted in 1893 and was a success.
You can read more about this and see Harris-Elmore Public Library’s digitization project at http://omp.ohiolink.edu/OMP/NewDetails?oid=963364
We also visited the Grace Luebke Local History Room which contains a vast wealth of material on the local history and genealogy of the region. The Local History Room is named for former Library Director Grace Luebke who retired in 1993, but continues to serve as Local Historian on a part-time basis.
I loved the mural (created by Denise Bortz) that has been painted around the children's programming area. All of the figures in the mural are local children and pets. In fact, the sheltie beneath one of the trees looks an awful lot like Georgi’s very own Bonnie. The Schedel house in the Schedel Arboretum and Gardens can be seen from a distance. And hanging from some of the trees are small books – in 3D -- all famous titles that the children are sure to recognize.
The children’s section is always a draw for me and Harris-Elmore Public Library was no exception. I was thrilled to be there with a young dad and his two children. You can see from the pictures that they were enthralled with their library book finds!
I was pleased also that Georgi had kept the library’s art exhibit a little longer so that I could view the artwork of local artist, Justine Magsig. Her formal art training took place when she was 16 years old. While she enjoyed painting, she did not paint again until her retirement in 2006. Her long-term project has been a series of paintings of Elmore doorways and alleys. One of my favorites is “Sunflowers in the Garden, Northwest alley between Augusta and Lincoln Streets.
After we had lunch at a local coffee shop and visited the Autumnfest booths (complete with a demonstration of Irish dancing, with star library employee Jennifer Richards performing!), we visited the branch in Genoa with Amy Laity, branch manager.
The library is surprising in how much space it has. Again I marveled at the use of the library (including a very nice meeting room which we visited just before it was used for a Saturday meeting). What a treat it was to meet the staff -- Claudia Van Sickle, Senior Clerk, Mary Anne Schnee, and April Toeppe – and to have the opportunity to meet former Branch Manager Eleanor Richards. Eleanor just happened to come to the library to pick up some reading material.
It seemed that Georgi and I had been planning my visit for a long time – and when I searched back, I realized that it had been nearly a year in the making! It certainly was worth anticipating.
September 30, 2008
Northside Branch of the Chillicothe and Ross County Public Library
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David Namiotka, Dianna Clark and I made a visit to the Northside Branch of the Chillicothe and Ross County Public Library to meet with Jennifer McKell and Bruce Landis. The State Library is working with 10 other states to explore Open Source Software options for statewide resource sharing and Integrated Library Systems. We will be offering participation in a pilot program to the library community. This was a good opportunity for us to discuss the possibilities with key members of the public library community. Thank you, Jennifer and Bruce, for brainstorming with us and identifying key questions. As we visit with library community members and share this on the web with the library community at large, we will create a FAQ and make this available on our website.
Jennifer explained that the Northside Branch houses half of the library operations for the entire system and is, in effect, half of the Main Library. The other half is housed at the Carnegie building which is located on S. Paint St., less than 2 miles away (see November 6, 2008 visit).
I found a wonderful reading area near a bank of windows – you can see this in one of the pictures. There you will find a wall of periodicals, one which I found so tempting (and I had not seen before) that I will probably subscribe to this title myself.
I am really impressed with the way our libraries are adopting new marketing techniques. I noted the displays of books facing outward on the end-panels and Jennifer agreed that this makes the titles more noticed. Circulation of this material increases.
The children’s area was quiet so I could really explore. You can see from the pictures that this is a magical area. Mother Goose is flying overhead, skimming the bookcases. There is a “scarf cave” around the AWE computer which invites Chillicothe’s youngest users to play educational games.
The YA book display was popular – it is apparent that this collection circulates heavily. Even though it was early in the day for many YA visitors, a couple of young adults were browsing and choosing titles to check out. I am sure that it gets a lot busier after school lets out!
Jennifer noted that the meeting room at this branch is very heavily used as there is no meeting room at the Carnegie building on S. Paint St. I could see why: it is a large room with nice windows and apparently would serve multiple purposes.
I am looking forward to a visit in the near future to the “other half of the Main” as Jennifer called the Carnegie building on S. Paint.