Flower Power

What a fun way to connect with your community, offer a service that many people would be happy to use and benefits the library. It’s very easy to think of programs and summer projects to go along with fundraiser. How about a community garden at the library, followed by a harvest feast?

This fundraising page is for the Hadley-Luzerne (NY) Library, part of  the Southern Adirondack Library System.

In the first one the kids tell why they like the library: books, computers, hanging out with friends, lemonade!

And the second, an appeal to voters to get out and support the library budget in November.

Creative and fun! This library participated in a summer reading mini-grant project sponsored by the Mid-Hudson Library System.  The grant provided video cameras and training on editing video (full disclosure – I had great fun doing the training session). Many of the videos are now posted on the NYS Summer Reading site.

Thanks to Marilyn Fino of the Milton Library for sending these in!

But what a neat surprise it was for me to get an email from my cousin saying her mother was one of the participants. I’m looking forward to the reception where printed copies of the books will be presented to the participants and they’ll share their stories with the community.

The library will host a reception and storytelling program celebrating the stories in words and pictures of some of the local, vibrant senior citizens who reside at Hawthorne Ridge. Professional storyteller Mary Murphy will entertain and enlighten our audience with stories of how this project evolved and the wonderful stories shared by the residents. Kathy Nardarcci is the project’s photography consultant who instructed the residents on digital camera usage and enabled the creation of their storybooks. A display featuring the photographic storybooks will be on display during the whole month of September at the library. The event is open to all. This project was made possible by an Outreach grant from the Upper Hudson Library System, the Friends of the East Greenbush Library and Northeast Health’s Hawthorne Ridge Retirement Community. (via:  events calendar)

A Book for Every Mood written, performed and filmed by the teens.

And don’t miss their Little Red and the Pigs Revenge!! and the instructions for an Origami Star Box

As part of their summer reading programs, the Mid-Hudson and Ramapo-Catskill library systems provided mini-grants for member libraries to buy small video cameras for the kids and teens to make movies. And I conducted workshops for the staff on movie editing and camera use. What fun we had.

But not as much fun as the kids seem to be having making movies!  As the summer draws to a close, the videos are pouring in and I’m having a great time watching them.  We’re posting a selection of them on the NYS Summer Reading web site.

KidLibCamp 2009 is a place for youth services librarians to get together and talk about topics that are important to serving children in school and public libraries. KidLibCamp is an unconference that asks participants to share their work, skills, or knowledge as active participants. Unlike more traditional conferences, KidLibCamp will be highly participatory. Sessions will be determined the day of the KidLibCamp by those in attendance.

If you’ve never been to an unconference, you’re in for a treat. Sharing knowledge and collaborating are what drive an unconference. Everyone has a chance to contribute and learn. This day is being organized by Linda W. Braun or Gretchen Hams-Casserotti. The meeting is being  held at Darien PL in southwest CT. If you’re in my neck of the woods (eastern NY) it’s an easy trip.

Gretchen and the Children’s Services Dept. did a really interesting reorganization of their collections when they moved to their new building in January – you can read about it at KidLit Reorg 2008 on Tame The Web.  And go to the unconference and see it first hand and share your own great ideas with your colleagues.

The kids and teens at the  Stillwater (NY) Free Library have a created a great set of READ posters as part of their summer reading program. Great example of a fun, creative project on a budget! And don’t you love the libraries motto? “If the light’s on, we’re home.”

“We are a pilot site at PPL for having Red Box services to supplement the library collection. This gives our library customers 24 hour access to the newest DVDs, means that we do not have to buy as many copies of new releases (thus saving money), and we can a cut of the money from having the Red Box on site that we can use for collection development. Win, win, win — at least we hope so. Pilot projects are exciting.” (More info)

Any library with a Wii Bowling for Seniors program is invited to participate in the Kent Public Library Holiday Classic Wii Bowling Tournament.  Your library can enter as many four member teams as you have.  Each four member team will record their best combined scores of their two best games bowled from December 15 through January 16.

To enter teams please email Frank Rees, Kent Public Library at frankrees@gmail.com.

via: Wii Bowling for Seniors in the Mid-Hudson Library System

1. You can get pretty much any book at the library
2. Yes, we have movies
3. Kids Activities
4. Save Money and maybe your life!
5. Make new friends
6. Find a new job
7. Libraries listen to consumers!

Really interesting comments from library users listing lots of additional services that they find valuable. I loved this comment in particular:

Using my local library has been one of my resolutions for 2008 and I can report that its going great. I’ve saved a ton of money by reading books from my library vs. Amazon.com. I use Amazon.com to research and keep track of titles and when I’ve read one of those titles from the library I check the “I own it” so I can get better recommendations.

Can’t wait for the day we all have catalogs that have those sorts of “amazon” features….. someday soon?

(via LISNews)

p.s. Don’t forget to check out the news on the Summer Reading blog.