Column 6.30.09
Latah County Library District
By Anne Cheadle
Director

Let your library surprise you

Does your library have anything besides books?

Yikes!  I heard this question last week from a houseguest visiting from the Netherlands.  We were driving around the county and I had just pointed out the beautiful Potlatch library.

How could he ask that?  I wondered.  Libraries work like crazy to spread the word about what they have “besides books”.  OK, so Vlady maybe had an excuse but what about the people who live right here?

I gave Vlady a rundown of amazing library resources, but then considered that it’s too easy to believe that everybody must know what they can expect from their library.  I started to wonder what kinds of things had surprised people about libraries in Latah County.  When I started to ask patrons that question I found I was even a little surprised myself by the things they shared.

Bonnie, who has used the Moscow library for over 40 years, said it was hard to think of surprises at this stage, but then remembered that she used to like to check out jigsaw puzzles from the kids’ area.  She was surprised when I told her we still have jigsaw puzzles back in the picture-book room, and that our afterschool crowd will sometimes put one together.

A patron named Janet was happy to answer my question: “We were surprised by the tie-dye!  My granddaughter is so proud of her shirt!”  Janet was talking about a summer program the library had last week.

Lindsey, who started working for us recently through a youth employment program, said she was surprised to learn that she sings the alphabet song to herself to help her when she’s putting books away.  (I learned she’s not the only one.)

Cody, who was using a library computer and looked like a recent college graduate, said that he hadn’t thought the library would have as good a DVD collection as it does.  A nice compliment for the collection librarians.

Bonnie came back to find me to say that people are often surprised when she tells them the library has a cart where they can buy used books through the Friends of the Library.  Two dollars for a hardback book; people were very happy.

Sara, who was volunteering at our Summer Reading program signup desk, said that she had been surprised to find that there were always people waiting outside the library before it opened.

Brigitte, another longtime patron, said that she had been surprised by how consistently original and well-timed the displays in the glass case were.  Always fitting to the occasion, she said, and something she always stops to enjoy.

Wendy, one of our shelvers in Moscow, reported that many first time visitors express their delight at how nice the library is.  They “like the whole thing,” she said—the historic Carnegie rooms, the big windows, the warm atmosphere.

Jan from our Juliaetta library said that her patrons are often amazed at all the library has to offer.  She said the one comment she hears over and over is how wonderful it is that they can check out items in Juliaetta and return them to any other VALNet library and vice versa.  This matched what longtime library user Claire mentioned; how surprised and impressed she was by how interconnected the Latah libraries were to other libraries.

I collected a lot of stories about surprises and these are just a few.  It was nice to see how eager people were to share their memories and impressions, and of course nice to hear how many of those were positive ones.  If you yourself haven’t used the library in a while, why not come in and let it surprise you?  Turns out my Dutch friend did and he had a pretty good time.