📢 Here it is, Library Champion: Our 2020 Annual Report 📝
Library Champion,
I have really been looking forward to this. In January/February, we collect all of the previous year’s information, data, and stories, put it all together, and share it with different groups. I send a report to the state library in Harrisburg that is pretty much all numbers-based. I present a report to the Juniata County commissioners, illustrating how we put their generous funding to work (44% of our overall funding in 2020 came from them.) I share a version of the report with local civic groups. And now I present to you, Library Champion, an exclusive version 🔓 of our annual report.
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Our library building closed in March 2020 and remained closed until June. We were faced with extraordinary times, but we stepped up and provided extraordinary service. It helped that we have a supportive community that is flexible, patient and understanding.
There was a recurring theme throughout 2020: we had to strike a balance between protecting our library staff, serving the community, and remaining financially responsible. We threaded the needle and accomplished them by, among other things, applying and receiving a PPP loan, installing cough guards around our front counter, and finishing the year with a budget surplus.
But we didn’t just stop there. We creatively and safely served our community both virtually and in-person. Here is a closer look at how that happened:
Virtually
To be honest, I believe we were well prepared to handle the sudden shift to virtual service and programming and the high demand that has continued since.
- Before the pandemic, we totally re-designed our website into one that is robust, responsive, and user friendly;
- We continued to lend out mobile hotspots that let you take Wi-Fi internet with you. We have offered this service since 2017, so it’s well established and was ready to meet the needs of our community. We even purchased more of these devices last year. We now have 25 of them;
- We beefed up our digital book collection to nearly 30,000 titles, giving our readers more books to choose from;
- We started this weekly email newsletter and;
- Started lending out Chromebooks, which give full screen access to the internet that’s not possible from a phone
We had 10,702 digital book checkouts in 2020, a 41% increase from 2019. We had readers tell us that this content helped them not go stir crazy during the time we were closed.
We had 42,302 views and interactions with our virtual storytimes and other digital content. That we could offer our programming virtually gave flexibility to families so that they could watch (or rewatch) the content on a schedule that worked for them.
The hotspots and chromebooks were used 104 times. Patrons told us these really came in handy when multiple kids needed to complete schoolwork at once or when they moved to a new home and needed internet.
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In-person
We certaintly didn’t forget about readers who prefer a physical book in their hands or don’t use the internet.
- In 2020, we added 2,016 new physical items to our collection;
- We created lists of all of those new releases and included staff reviews and recommendations;
- We spent more time than usual back in the book stacks retrieving books for readers. This helped raise our awareness of what types of books we have so to offer better service. In one instance this helped us quickly get a law textbook for someone who wanted to look up very specific legal code.
In the end, the community responded by checking out 25,650 print items in 2020 and 270 people signed up to get a library card.
It is because of many people and groups, including library champions like you, that our library was able to adapt and serve our community. Your needs changed, so we changed.
13% of our overall funding in 2020 came from donations. Every dollar counts. Stepping up and donating today to the library ensures our library continues to not only transform the community but express your values and your life purpose. You want your community to thrive now and in the future. Your library can make that happen and your donation will make a positive change not tomorrow but today.
We created a gorgeous visual of our annual report (PDF). Follow this link to view it on our website: https://www.juniatalibrary.org/about-the-library/annual-report
Here is one book I am reading and a book that I just bought for the library’s collection.
One book I am reading: Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah (Adult fiction)
This book wouldn’t be my typical cup of tea, but we started watching the Netflix adaptation and I wanted to read the book.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma.
In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend.
Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry.
Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully.
In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Bottom line: Career versus motherhood and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness. Check it out even if you don’t plan on watching the TV-version.
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One of the books I purchased that you should check out: Dark Horses by Susan Mihalic (Adult Fiction)
Debut novelist Mihalic takes us inside a life of extreme privilege, equestrian “eventing”—a kind of horse-based triathlon—and sexual predation with Roan Montgomery, a feisty 15-year-old Olympian-to-be who confides her story in a cleareyed narration.
From the outside, Roan’s life looks too good to be true. She’s the youngest competitor in her high-stakes equestrian world, attends a ritzy prep school, and lives on the sprawling grounds of her family’s Rosemont Farms in the picturesque Shenandoah Valley, complete with an extensive staff, multiple horses, and a father-cum-trainer who’s working to make her the next Olympic gold-medal winner in their family. Look closer, though, and the cracks appear. Her mother’s an addict/alcoholic with no bandwidth to care for Roan, sleeping with the headmaster at her daughter’s school. Her father, meanwhile, has been sexually abusing her for years.
From the moment Roan gets to know Will Howard, one of her classmates, and feels the first tug of genuine connection, the fireworks start. Her father wants to keep Roan all to himself, and Roan craves her father’s undivided attention and the goals he’s set for her while also wanting to escape his abuse. To the author’s credit, this is no poor-little-rich-girl story. Rather, Mihalic complicates the narrative at every turn, creating a disturbing and flinty picture of what abuse, psychological control, and rage look like.
The emotions Roan feels toward her father are multilayered and confusing, speaking to the gnarled nature of their relationship. When he tells her before an interview to “Just be yourself,” she knows that’s code for inhabiting the persona he’s created. Though the narrative occupies taboo terrain, it does so with great heart and thereby honors Roan’s love-hate experience in all its bewildering and inscrutable nature.
Bottom line: A searing examination of love and lust, power and control, as the narrator’s rising sense of self yearns to take the reins.
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Did you know? Lists of our new releases are available in-person at the library and online so that you never miss a new release.
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Your support ensures that a library card is incredibly valuable and remains free.
For the littles
đź’– February Take & Make Kits đź’–
ELEMENTARY (or preschool): Mystery Craft Kit âť“âť“
GRADES 6-12: DIY Dry Erase Frames đź–Ľđź–Ľ
Take & Make kits are available while supplies last during our business hours beginning Monday, February 8th. Since we’re doing contactless service right now, if you’d like any kits please message Jocinda (jrhinier@juniatalibrary.org) or call and ask one of us and we will be sure to set your kits out in the lobby. One kit per person, please.
You can make a donation to the library in under 2 minutes. Click here to do just that.
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Thank you for being a library champion. You make a difference each day!
–Vince Giordano
Librarian and Director of the Juniata County Library.
P.S.- You don’t need to make an account or jump through any hoops to be a library champion. I wouldn’t say this if it wasn’t true. You can make this happen in less than a minute. Just click here.