Monday, September 10, 2012
June at the Library
Total circulation for the month of June…drum roll please! 34,087 items
A total of 18,384 people came in our doors and a record-breaking
2,447 kids, teens, & adults attended programs
Public computer logons:
2310
Wireless logons: 258
Yep, we’re pretty busy! We
circulated more than 1/3 of our entire collection in one month. All we can say is, Wow.
The first day of summer reading was met with little kids beating
on the front doors ready to get started.
Fresh out of school, the kids and teens look forward to reading for
pleasure and fun for little incentives along the way. The planning that goes on all year long pays
off this time of year and the staff should be commended for their extra efforts
for providing the citizens of Chambers County with outstanding library service!
Many of our programs are held off-site simply because we don’t
have the room. One of the downsides to
that is not having the library readily available to grab books on the go. This year the West Chambers Branch continues
to reach capacity at the Cove Community Building with over 200 kids at their
programs, Juanita Hargraves in Winnie can’t possibly fit 100+ kiddos in their
story hour room, and Chambers County Library in Anahuac has no choice but to
offer summer programs at the Legion Hall since their 30 capacity room just
doesn’t hold up. These space issues are
currently being addressed and we hope in the near future we can move back “home”
to our libraries during the summer months.
With 2 weeks left to go, we’re getting ready for the annual Summer
Reading Program parties where kids get to celebrate all their hard work by
accepting their reading certificates and seeing our all time favorite
performer, Jeffrey Gardner perform his latest comedy show. Jeffrey has over 15 years of experience as a
children’s entertainer, and toured nationally as a cast member of “The Ronald
McDonald Show” and “Bob The Builder LIVE!.”
You don’t want to miss him!
In other news, Technical Services
continues to crank out new items that get delivered to the branches each
week. We stay on top of the latest
books, magazines, DVDs and more so you don’t have to spend your hard-earned
money! The library offers library service
to each county taxpayer for only $16.99 a year.
For less than the cost of 1 hardback book you can have access to as many
as you want for free, as long as you get them back to us on time!
And a reminder about a couple of our
newest services, Freegal music and Newsbank.
Freegal is free downloadable music similar to iTunes, which allows patrons
to download 3 songs a week. Songs are
yours to keep forever and each Sunday evening your account resets to allow you
3 more Monday morning. This service was
previously available only in the library but we’ve opened it up to home access
as well. Newsbank is also a fantastic
source for free online newspaper access.
Papers such as the Houston Chronicle, Baytown Sun, and the Beaumont
Enterprise are all available from home.
Historical papers are also part of this subscription and include papers
as far back as 1690.
And finally, something that
we’ve been working on since February is our new Interlibrary Loan service. Nothing changes for the public, but due to
State budget cuts the State Library was forced to shut down the local
Interlibrary Loan office in Houston.
This forced public libraries who wanted to continue to offer the service
the ability to join a new program called Navigator, which is part of OCLC WorldCat
(Online Computer Library Center). We
will now do our loans directly with other libraries as well as lend out to
other Navigator member libraries. We’re
not too sure what to expect in requests from libraries outside our system, but
we’ll be ready when it happens. Until
next month!
Carlton Carrington with Chambers County Sheriff's Department and his K-9 partner, Arco
Kaivan Armstrong from Mont Belvieu and the bike he won at the Dignity safety program
Teen Krystal Sherrill from Winnie with her coupons for reading!
# posted by Valerie @ Monday, September 10, 2012 
