š„ Library Champion: What your donation will accomplish āļø
Library Champion,
I am fortunate enough to work somewhere where I love the work I do each day. Everyone else I work with loves what they do, too. Each day brings us a new challenge, a regular library user, and a new story to tell later on. Your donation accomplishes great things each day. Here is a glimpse of what a typical day at the library (pre-pandemic) looks like.
Library staff arrive at 8:30 AM. We bring in returned materials from the outside book drop, check those materials in, turn on the computers, get a quick cup of coffee, and mentally prepare to open for the day. I check my email and see I have 15 unread emails. I get through a few of them but I now have to go unlock the doors and let people in. There is a line of people outside waiting to come into the library.
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9:00 AM has us greeting those who come into the library, directing families to where the morningās storytime is located, getting people signed up to use a public computer and answering the phone. Someone comes to the front desk asking if we have a few Fern Michaels books. We have one of them but donāt have the others. We tell this person we will buy them. A lot of the books we buy are recommended to us by patrons.
Mid-morning (10:00 AM-11:00 AM) has us assisting families who come back through the library after storytime. Parents are checking out materials while their children run and play. One of the kids knocks over some toys and makes a loud noise. We all laugh a bit š. Someone on a public computer needs to print something from their email but they canāt get into their account because they forgot their password. The phone is ringing and the mailman comes in with a stack of mail for us, which includes magazines we subscribe to, bills, and some junk mail.
Mid-day (12:00 PM-1:00 PM) gives us some time to grab lunch and take a breather. I check my email again and see I now have 25 unread emails. I quickly scan through them and reply to 2 of them but see most can wait till later. Someone comes to my office door. The patron who forgot their email password went to the bathroom and says they clogged the toilet š¤Ø. Meanwhile, someone comes in, speaking little English, and needs to do something with a document they have in their hands. We canāt quite make out what they are saying they want to do, but we eventually figure it out together. The phone starts ringing again.
Mid-afternoon (2:00 PM ā 4:00 PM) brings in a fresh set of library staff to relieve the morning staff. They continue where the morning staff left off and are now helping someone who I have never seen before find tax forms. They said theyāve never been to the library before and a friend told them the library has tax forms. They are looking for the rent rebate form, but we havenāt received that form yet. They ask why. I say that I was told they are coming in February but thatās all I know. Irritated, they remind me it is February! I ask if I can call them when they come in. They say yes and give me their contact info. The UPS truck arrives and brings us some boxes of new books we bought and some smaller packages, of which a few include books we borrowed from other libraries (also know as interlibrary loan.) I check my email again and now have 40 unread emails. I get 10 uninterrupted minutes and work through 15 of them. The phone rings again and I pick it up. It’s a regular patron who is asking for some books. She is handicapped and can’t drive into the library, so she calls and requests books and her caregiver comes and picks them up.
Evening (5:00 PM ā 6:00 PM) brings us the after-school/work crowd. This can include students in search of Wi-Fi or a place to hang out as well as adults coming home from work and picking up/dropping off their materials (which can often include DVDs and not books.) We get some more people needing to print, but this time its off their phone and itās a picture that was texted to them. This would normally be a head scratcher, but we have a solution for that: an app they can use to wirelessly print to our printer.
Closing time (6:30 PM ā 7:00 PM) can often vary between having no one in the library or a rush of people right before the library closes. We tell those on the public computers they have 15 minutes left before the computers automatically turn off. One says they still need to apply for another job and another says they found a nice-looking person on a dating site. I say that we have mobile hotspots and Chromebooks that they can borrow so that they can take the internet with them. All of the patrons have now left and we clock out. We enable our security alarm but make sure it allows people to be in the downstairs part of the library where there is a meeting room. A church is holding two services this weekend in that room.
After reading all of the above, does that sound like the library you knew growing up? If you said no, please take some time and stop in! A lot has changed but a lot has stayed the same. We still have tons of books, but we are helping people learn and succeed in a variety of ways. Sometimes seeing is believing.
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Book shots
Here is one book I am reading and a book that I just bought for the libraryās collection.
One book I am reading: Divided we fall: America’s secession threat and how to restore our nation by David French (Adult nonfiction, political)
I began reading David French in 2010 when he was a writer for the National Review. He has since left the National Review and joined The Dispatch, a center-right subscription-based and advertisement-free online magazine. I subscribe to French’s weekly newsletter, titled The French Press.
Over the past few years I have begun getting my news via email newsletters. I feel it saves me time having to go out and find the news. I subscribe to a few different ones so to get a balanced take on world events. I enjoy French’s newsletter as he gives a Christian take on things that is always not what you would expect. It was from his newsletter that I learned he wrote a new book: Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.
In Divided We Fall, French laments conspiracy-minded rhetoric from both the right and the left in this incisive examination of contemporary political polarization. A longtime conservative commentator and pro-life advocate who now claims that heās āa man without a party,ā French castigates both Republicans and Democrats for advancing political and cultural narratives portraying their opponents as not merely wrong but evil, authoritarian, and a threat to American society.
He calls for a new political consensus built around unifying ideals that have historically served to shape public discourse, including an embrace of Madisonian pluralism (āa broad diversity of interests and groups across a federal union helps prevent any one interest or group attain dangerous dominanceā); a belief that tolerance of divergent opinions is a political virtue; and a regrounding in the Constitution, in particular the Bill of Rights.
French enriches his political and historical analysis with reflections on his 2007 deployment to Iraq as an Army Reserve captain and the harassment of his wife and adopted Ethiopian daughter by alt-right trolls.
Bottom line: This well-informed and often moving account provides an antidote to the ills of political partisanship.
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One of the books I purchased that you should check out: Everybody (Else) Is Perfect: How I Survived Hypocrisy, Beauty, Clicks, and Likes by Gabrielle Korn (Adult nonfiction, memoir)
Though Korn, the former editor-in-chief at Nylon Media, worked at womenās magazines throughout her 20s, their constant use of thin, cisgender cover models often collided with her ideals of diversity, inclusivity, and body positivity. Before the concept of being āwokeā gathered steam, the author promoted change, penning viral columns on subjects like body hair. āAs womenās media grapples with how to be more positive and inclusive while covering topics like fashion and beauty,ā writes the author, āI frequently find myself caught between two worldsāthe world of empowerment culture and the world of perfectionism.ā
In addition to chronicling her rapid rise to the top of Nylon Media, Korn offers intimate forays into her struggles with anorexia, coming out as a lesbian, and finding meaningful love. The narrative serves as a poignant insiderās look at women’s digital media as well as a tender retrospective on growing into adulthood in the early 2000s.
The author is honest about her enviable position as a tastemaker, though some readers may not muster sympathy for her depictions of salary negotiations or dressing for Fashion Week. Particularly incisive is Kornās essay on feminist language being co-opted for profit while one of the authorās themesāthat feminism and aesthetics needn’t be at odds but that the beauty and fashion industry still need to changeāis keenly observed, if familiar. Korn also offers darker reflections about personal and wider pressures on women.
Bottom line: A confident, confessional modern account of breaking free from image obsession.
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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. We have added 179 new books to our collection since January 2021!
Is your library card current? If not, click here to see. It’s one of the most powerful things you can have.
Your support ensures that a library card is valuable and free to all!
Grab and go!
To simplify the process of borrowing materials from the library, items you request are placed on a bookshelf right when you enter the first set of doors.
Everything is organized by the last name of the person who requested it (last names begging with A are at the top and go down.) The slip sticking out of the book has part of your name on it. This way you can tell if its yours but it doesn’t give away to others your full name. We value your privacy!
If you requested a lot of materials, we place them in a bag.
Also, items now check out for 3 weeks instead of 2 weeks.
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.