herbiehancock

   I had an interesting and unusual day today.  I drove to Bowling Green, Ohio for a Performers Showcase by video conference.  There were 22 different people in the showcase.  Each of these people travel around to libraries to present a program or to put on a performance of some sort.  They each gave a twelve minute snippet of their performance via video conference for us to preview.  The purpose of this conference was to give us new ideas for programs that are available for booking at our libraries.    My favorite presenter today was a man named Jeff Nicholas who is an illustrator and author.  He demonstrated how to draw one of his cartoon characters, a kangaroo, and then recited a story he had written about it while showing his accompanying illustrations.  It was quite clever and funny, and the story was written in the form of a rhyming poem that made it even more whimsical.  I really enjoyed his presentation and would  ...

   Yesterday afternoon, I had the opportunity to drive to Bowling Green, Ohio to attend a presentation at the library there by a lady named Nancy Pearl.  There may be one or two of my readers who have been around long enough and who read both of my blogs that remember me doing a post before about Nancy Pearl .  She is a librarian and writer.  She wrote the book, Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Reason , among others.  She also has her own action figure or doll, if you prefer, which brings her finger to her mouth in the classic "Shhhh!" pose when you push a little button.  The action figure is a bit of whimsy that amuses me.     The real life Nancy Pearl, in person, was quite amusing too.  She gave a very interesting and entertaining speech which included many anecdotes about how her local library was a major influence on her as a child when growing up, what it was like for her to later become a librarian, an...

The men in my family left this morning for a five day Cleveland Indians baseball/fishing/Lake Erie/visiting husband's relatives combined vacation. Of course, Max and Charley and the crickets (who are singing to me at the moment) are still here to keep me company. I stayed home because I have to work for three of those five days that the fellows are going to be gone. That's a good thing, though. It means I still have my job--- at least for now. Our state budget proposal was decided upon this week. Although cuts in funding for libraries were not as deep as originally proposed, they were still severe. Our library is losing an additional 11% in funding instead of the original additional 32% that was proposed. Coupled with the 20% that we lost earlier this year, our funding has been cut 31%. As a result, on August 1st, the staff at our library and our branch libraries which now totals 54 employees will be cut to just 28 employees. I still have my job, but many of my cowor...

These are just a few of the reasons I've had to smile lately. If you look around today, perhaps you will find some reasons to smile too. * * * * * A Coworker With a Sense of Humor There is a young man who visits the library where I work who always wears his pants sagging down and droopy so that the top of his underwear shows. I'm sure you've seen someone like this. T his habit drives me crazy. I have never understood this fad. My coworker knows how I feel about this fashion "statement," and she feels the same way. She decided to have a bit of fun with me. She could see our saggy pants patron coming to the desk for me to wait on him. She was in our supervisor's office and was visible to me, but she was not visible to Mr. Droopy Drawers. She immediately pulled her pants down so that they were drooping just like the patron's. She then swung her backside around in a little swagger dance to make sure that I could see her. Of course, I laughed. ...

Although, I try to keep things light on this blog, today I have something important to me to talk about. I hope you will indulge me with a few minutes of your time. As many of you know, I am a librarian. My local library made front page news again yesterday, and once again it was NOT good news. You can click on the picture to enlarge it if you'd like to read the article. At work yesterday, this is the flyer we were passing out to patrons requesting them to read it and take action if they would like to continue to have the library services be available to them. I think these things are self explanatory, so I won't go on and on about them. I do want to say that since the downturn in the economy, our library has had a 20% increase in usage, and yet, we have already been forced to take a 20% cut in funding. This new proposal will increase the cuts an additional 32%. Not only am I a library worker, I am a library user. Even if I weren't employed by the library, I would be extr...

As mo st of you know, I am a librarian. The other day at work, I was checking in a book and a small birthday card fell out of it. Inside the card was a five dollar bill. This got me to thinking about the many odd things patrons use as bookmarks that are left inside of books and returned to libraries. The bookmarks left behind sometimes paint a picture of the person who checked out the book. Some of the following items I have found myself, others have been found by people I have worked with, and others I have read about or heard about from other librarians. Odd paper items found lying around the house (These are the most common---whatever is there at hand, that is what patrons stick into the book to reserve their place in the story.) paper money of various denominations store receipts admission tickets or stubs to plays, concerts, movies, or other performances church bulletins candy and gum wrappers party invitations thank you notes birthday and get well cards pictures cut out from mag...

Most of my readers probably know by now that I work at the local library. I took the camera to work to snap a few photos there so I could show you around. I hope you enjoy the tour. Some of these photos are a little blurry. I guess I hadn't had enough caffeine yet when I took these, or maybe I had too much! Apparently, I wasn't doing a very good job of holding the camera still either way. I work in the adult department of the library on the second floor. I didn't take any pictures of the children's department which is on the first floor. The photo above is the front view of the outside of the library. That picture was taken last spring. This is the patron services desk. Behind each of those white box looking things on the ends of the desk is a computer. When I am working, you will most often find me here standing behind one or the other of those two computers. From this desk, I check materials in and out to the patrons, place holds on items, take and fill o...

I had a long day on Saturday. I was at the library from 8:30 in the morning until 11:00 at night except for lunch break. That's a pretty long day, don't you think? Perhaps I should explain. Our director decided to create a "Haunted Library" for the area kids and parents to tour through. It was similar to the haunted house attractions that sometimes pop up this time of year where visitors can walk through the building seeing spooky decorations, hearing scary sounds, and having people costumed as monsters and such pop out to frighten them. The library was open as usual in the morning. I worked at the circulation desk from 8:30 until noon as I was scheduled to do. Normally, the library is open until 5:00, and I usually am also scheduled to work the afternoon. This past Saturday, though, the library closed at noon so that we could set up decorations for the Haunted Library. We worked the entire afternoon hanging up battery-operated ghosts, spiders, and bats all of...