Wanted: A Scrapbooking Enthusiast

We are looking for a volunteer to carry on the Friends scrapbook.

If you are a scrapbooking enthusiast and would like to take this on,
please contact president Wanda Hedrick at
the Olympia Library - 360-352-0595.

Jean Finely and Winnifred Olson will be glad to work with you
and Winnifred has many photos to sort and use.

Jodi Reng Visits Friends Board Meeting

Timberland Regional Library Director, Jodi Reng, joined the Friends Board for their October meeting. She gave an update of programs, facilities, and goals. Timberland has 27 libraries in five counties. A Timberland library card is good at over 200 libraries in Washington State. There are over 329,000 cards in use and over 15,000 people a day use the Timberland services. Over 50,000 children will attend programs during 2006. At the Olympia Library, 1,300 people use the services daily, and the number is increasing. Jodi also told about Timberland’s new Foundation Director, Victoria Wortberg, and her success in helping Chehalis attain their new library. Victoria could be a valuable resource of information and help for the Olympia Library in the future.

Highlights of September and October Board Meetings

• Friends who have volunteered for two hours or more should fill out a registration sheet with the Volunteer Center because total hours are considered when grants are awarded.

• Book sale fliers are being placed with businesses and school districts in person. Newsletters will be placed in bookstores and exchanged with other Friends’ groups.

• The Year in Review was given by Wanda for the 2004-2006 term. In keeping with our goal of greater community involvement, we provided books for the Fleetwood Apartments, Rosie’s Place at Community Youth Services, Bread and Roses, Avanti High School, Media Island, Olympia Senior Center, and Books for Prisoners. We also supplied grants to the Mother Goose program and the Child Care Action Council. We partnered with the library in presenting Community Chats, Sand in the City, Latino Youth Summit, Thurston County Reads, PageTurners, and many programs and events for adults and children.

• Friends will provide funding for workshop leaders in the Olympia Poetry Network workshops, which are free to the public and held monthly at the library.

• Friends will join Friends Of The Library U.S.A. It is a good source of information, including working with foundations and techniques to acquire a new library.

• Friends funded the library’s Fall 2006 Youth Services program, as presented by Youth Service Librarian Carrie Dye, for $2940.00.

• Jean Finely suggested updating job descriptions. Cheryl suggested they should be what each person really does, which could be a source of ideas for other Friends’ groups.

• Larry Bauman is keeping inventory control of Friends assets on a computer program.

• A kiosk on the westside would help to stretch library facilities. Each unit is $5,000. It is important to find partners, business or other, for locations and help in supervising the kiosk. Cheryl Heywood is currently working on identifying possible locations.

• Sara Pete was recently hired as Adult Services Librarian/Supervisor. Kelsey Smith has been hired as the new Adult Services Librarian.

• Sara, Kelsey and other staff attended the Latino Youth Summit on Oct. 13th. at the Worthington Center.

• Sara and Carrie Dye were at the SeaMar Clinic on
Oct. 12th for the Bi-national (Mexico-U.S.A.) Health Day.

• Cheryl and Kelsey will attend monthly Senior Action Network meetings on the 4th Tuesday of every month at 7:30 a.m. (!)

• Westwoods Assisted Living residents were at the library for a tour on Oct. 5th, and will return for a series of computer classes in November.

• The Olympia Ethnic Celebration is planned for Feb. 10th, 2007 and will be at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts. Cheryl is working with Stephanie Johnston, City of Olympia Art Director, to schedule a series of ethnic programs at the library the week following the Ethnic Celebration.

• My Antonia by Willa Cather will be the book for the Spring 2007 “Timberland Reads Together” program.

• Potential plan for the Summer Reading Program 2007 is to work with Ann King from Capitol Playhouse, featuring the book, Wizard of Oz.

Calendar of Events Brochures for Fall

Three brochures which describe all of the Fall activities are available now at the library. They are: Fall Youth Events, Fall Teen Events, and Fall Adults Events. Each brochure describes events for Lacey, Olympia, Tenino, Tumwater and Yelm libraries.

Coming youth events at the Olympia Library include a date with a real-life Curious George on Nov.16th, time with the Beatles on December 9th, and a puppets holiday show on Dec. 11th. Adults can enjoy a talk by author Laila Lalami on Nov. 4th and a talk by local author Fritz Wolff on Dec. 2nd. The art of model airplanes will be the topic with Bob Benjamin on Nov. 29th. All PageTurner meetings are also included. Pick up your copies of these brochures to learn about each Fall event in detail.

Book Sale Money Helps Library

Occasionally folks will ask what the book sale proceeds are used for.

“The staff and I are very grateful and thankful for all the support the Olympia Friends have given us over the years; together we are able to offer a much higher level of library service!” commented Cheryl Heywood, Olympia’s Community Librarian. “It is an honor and a privilege to work with the Friends to make the library a welcoming place for the community and a great place for the staff to work. Thank you!”

$10,000 Remodel project in 2000
$26,000 Shelving units for adults, juveniles, teens
$4,000 Public announcement system
$8,000 Framing/lighting of Sylvester’s Window paintings
$2,000 Microwave, fridge, dishwasher, picnic table
and umbrella for staff use
$500 Plants and posters to beautify the Library
$4,500 Eight emergency preparedness boxes
$400 Special books
$1600 Bike racks
$6,000 to $7,000 annually for children, family, teen,
and adult programs

Amy Pavletich, the Olympia Library Volunteer Supervisor, is accepting applications for the Adopt-a-Shelf program. Contact her at apavletich [at] trlib.org or 352-0595, Ext. 2358.

PageTurners Kick Off New Season

PageTurners meetings are held in the meeting room at the Olympia Library, and have now been divided into two groups. Cheryl Heywood serves as facilitator for both. Group 1 meets the first Friday and Group 2 meets the third Friday of each month. The time for both groups is 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon.

Olympia Senior PageTurners meets at the Senior Center on the third Tuesday of each month from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. Cheryl is also the facilitator for this group, as well as Sara Pete and other Adult Services staff. To participate, simply read the book for that month and attend the meeting. You will expand your thinking as you participate in the lively exchange of ideas and opinions that each book generates.

Groups 1 and 2 PageTurners selections are:

November - The Circus in Winter by Cathy Day
December - The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
January - Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations -- One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
February: 40 Stories by Anton Chekhov, translated by Robert Payne
March - The Plot Against America by Philip Ruth
April - Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
May - A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews

Senior PageTurners selections are:
September - The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland
October - Persepolis 1 and 2 by Marjane Satrapi
November - Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
December - Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Paintings Illuminated

The eight Sylvester Window paintings, depicting Olympia’s Sylvester Park area from 1841 through 2001, are now beautifully framed and illuminated in the Library.

Do revisit them - your appreciation of Bob Chamberlain’s fine artistry and your knowledge of early Olympia will increase even more as you view these fine paintings in “a whole new light.”

Look for a bear in every painting, reflecting that the Native Americans called the area “Place of the Bear.”

The frames set off the paintings perfectly, and the recessed bullet-style can lighting give excellent illumination. Friends of the Olympia Library provided $8,000 for this project, another example of your Board’s careful stewardship of book sale proceeds.

Right Tree, Right Place

A very special event took place on September 30th at the Olympia Library with the installation and celebration of a new utility-friendly tree demonstration site which will surround the library. Attendees learned about a variety of small trees that are appropriate to plant under power lines and joined in hands-on planting workshops. Cake and other refreshments highlighted the gala day. Children helped to plant a tree picked out just for them and enjoyed watching a puppet show, “Once Upon a Tree.” It was great for the library grounds, and a great example of community spirit.

Treasures In Your Email

If you enjoy reading book reviews in the Sunday paper but haven?t yet discovered the TRL Great Reads E-Newsletters, you are in for a treat. This new program has more than twenty free e-newsletters to choose from. Your choices will periodically arrive in your email box with all kinds of fresh information. You can even reserve the books in the library catalog from your emails. Some of the choices are: Business, Best Sellers (New York Times), Children?s Picture Books, Fiction Hardcover Best Sellers, New Fiction, Mystery, Science and Nature, and Teen Scene. Sign up for as many as you like by going to www.trlib.org and clicking on Great Reads E-Newsletters.