Tuesday, March 06, 2012

 

February @ the Library!









Sherri Speight working the Winnie
book sale












Aquilia De la Cruz and Autumn Parham
at Anahuac ISD's Family Reading Night




February continues to bring busy times to the library. Starting off the month was the annual Friends of the Chambers County Library System meeting. We had one of our most well attended meetings with people county-wide coming by to hear how the Friends have helped the library over the past year. The impact the Friends have on the three libraries is incredible. Funds they raise through dues, book sales, donations and miscellaneous projects provide an amazing variety of items for library programming and other additions that become part of the library inventory. This year they voted to buy café stools, area rugs and other items the staff has on their “wish list”. They provide the biggest support for the Summer Reading Program each year and allocated funds for that as well.

The Friends hosted one of their book sales at the Juanita Hargraves Memorial Branch in Winnie. They boasted their biggest profit to date bringing in over $900 from books, DVDs, magazines and more. Their volunteer base of teens and adults was a great thing to see! We are fortunate to have such a dedicated group of Friends and currently have a growing membership of over 200 people.

And one final order of business at the Friends meeting was voting on the Library System’s employee of the year. The County Librarian was given the hard task of nominating employees and the list was sent to the Board for a vote. This year the Friends voted to award Aquilia De la Cruz with the honor. Aquilia has been with the library since 2008 and has done great things for the library.

A couple of special guests at the Friends meeting included architects who have been consulting the Friends and the County Librarian about the construction project at the West Chambers Branch. Ideas were tossed around and soon the Friends will have a professional business plan to present to local industries about possible donations towards a new library on the West Side of the county. The Friends are able to solicit and fundraise on behalf of the library and we appreciate their efforts in doing so. Other projects are in the works for Winnie and Anahuac as well.

Branch Librarian Aquilia De la Cruz and Children’s Librarian Autumn Parham attended Anahuac ISD’s Family Reading Night. The ladies provided pipe cleaner glasses to go along with the Dr. Seuss book, “I can read with my eyes shut!”. The library was well represented and parents along with their children saw the many resources the library has to offer. The library loves to take part in outreach opportunities at schools or other functions to make the public more aware of library services.

Branch Librarians Aquilia De la Cruz, Christi Silcox and Missy Parham attended the Small Library Management training in Lufkin. This program is sponsored by the Texas State Library and Archives in Austin and usually takes 1-2 years to complete. Such training gives the “off the street” library worker a chance for some serious looks at the things professional librarians learn in graduate school. Topics covered include the budget process, technology planning, policy making, collection development, youth services, and administration.

February also brought Valentine’s Day parties for kids and teens including a Hunger Games themed party at the West Chambers Branch in Mont Belvieu. Teen librarian Toya Peters held the event complete with games and snacks surrounding the popular book series for teens. Kim Silcox the Teen Librarian at Winnie held her first Teen Advisory Board meeting with eager teens ready to start planning events.

Other programs that took place in February included a Teen gaming night, outreach visits to the Winnie Arboretum, Daddy and me dance, Anime club, book club, English and Spanish computer classes, Writers’ Interest Group, Genealogy Interest Group, Toddler times, Knitting classes and more!

Our program totals for the month of February show that we had 21 programs, with 238 children and 128 adults attending.

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