TwentySevenLetters / B

With activities and programs for all

Today is the end of school vacation week, and the one day this week I don’t have a program. (Monday was a state holiday—Patriot’s Day—so the library was closed.) Tuesday and Wednesday were Dungeons and Dragons, with a pretty good crowd both days. Interestingly, we now have some fairly damning circumstantial evidence that there’s one particular kid (I’ll call him J) who eats all the food and causes the usual ruckus.

Tuesday, J was one of 11 kids at the session, and we went through 2 bottles of soda, 3 pitchers of Kool-Aid, a bag of Doritos, 2 big bags of potato chips, and a full package of cookies. Another kid dropped a full plate of chips on the floor. Kid Number 3 (whom I’ll call P) tipped his chair over backwards and fell. (These are both usual occurrences, to the point that it hardly seems a session is complete without these two events.)

Wednesday, there were 13 kids, and J was not among them. Despite the net gain of 2 bodies, we went though almost exactly half as much food—just over a pitcher of juice, almost two bottles of soda, a box of Oreos, and half a bag each of Doritos and Cheeze Doodles (which usually disappear). Nobody fell out of their chairs. Nobody dropped plates of chips on the floor (boy in question claims it’s when he has to yell at J for something, that he knocks the plate off the table).

Things don’t look good for J, but I’m not going to kick him out of the group. It's an interesting phenomenon to witness, though.

Thursday was my big craft blowout—a 3-hour session, with all the odds and ends from other crafts available to be combined in any way imaginable. I’d expected—well, not a crowd, but a handful of kids. The weather’s been icky all week (it’s monsoon season in New England; did you know?), it’s school vacation and kids are bored… I really thought half a dozen kids would show, we’d make stuff, and everyone would go home happy. Except the weather turned against me and yesterday brought the first spring-like day we’ve had—blue sky, not pouring, reasonably warm. I had one girl show, and she’s someone I recognize from other crafts. She’s painfully shy, doesn’t like to talk to people much, and keeps very much to herself. It was a long 3-hour workshop, the two of us quietly working independently. Eh. These things happen.

Obviously I have time to plan several programs and blog about it, so I’ve been thinking of ways to fill my time. I think I found a way: I’ve volunteered my services to the adult programming committee, specifically with the goal of planning programs for young adults—not meaning teens, but meaning adults who are young-ish—the 20- and 30-somethings. I tossed off a couple of ideas in conversation with the adult reference librarian and the director, just minor things like “hold a monthly café night—get a tray of Danish or cookies, put on a big pot of coffee, and invite people in to read and/or socialize.” They both just stared for a moment, and then the reference librarian turned to the director and said, “we need her on the committee.” So apparently I’m now being added to that committee. Um… hooray!

I’m planning on doing some minor things in the current teen area, to give teens something before the summer rolls around. I can’t move any shelving or anything before summer, and therefore I can’t put in more seating or anything, so I’m hoping I can make it a little more interactive, at least. I found 3 small sets of Magnetic Poetry, and I’m going to put those up on the end of a shelf. There’s a book of visual puzzles I found in the collection; that’s been moved to a table. I mentioned to the children’s librarian that I was thinking of buying a couple of cheap, quick-to-play board or card games, like Set, Quiddler, Trivial Pursuit cards… anything that has pieces that will affect gameplay if lost (i.e., the cards for Clue) will have said pieces kept in baggies behind the desk, to be checked out with a library card. Anyway, I’d tossed this off as something I’m thinking about, and she kind of freaked a little: “If you’re doing that, then I’m going to get some toys for the children’s section!”—as if this had been some kind of ongoing battle, where I’ve been saying she mustn’t have ANY toys for the kids EVER. I think I walked into a weird scene, but I’m going to give it a week and revisit it when she’s had some time to calm down. Because I honestly don’t think a deck of Uno cards is really a hill I’m prepared to die on.

All this stuff that should make me great, and the middle school teachers are complaining that the programs here at the library are “a bunch of crafts, and nothing literary.” Never mind that my total attendance at 6 book discussions was 4 kids, and only two of them had read the book. So now I have to find a way to placate them by explaining the upcoming science programs, and hope that they go for those even though they’re not actually literary, even if they are academic.

Tricks are for Kids

Minutiae

My reading log is mostly moved over to GoodReads. I'll probably keep with that, and just mention the highlights (and lowlights) here. Right now: more people need to be reading Amelia Rules; Carolyn Haywood's Betsy books still occupy a soft spot in my heart (and perhaps in my head), despite being kinda poorly written; and Tom Robbins is officially Not For Me.

Non-reading updates: the renovation of the adult department is just about done, and it looks pretty good. This bodes well for my renovation of the teen department this summer. I'm going to a meeting next week on Teen Standards: Facilities (that's the fancy-pants name of the meeting, actually), where I should learn more about creating good teen spaces. The problem: most of the books and meetings tend to assume teen rooms are much bigger than mine--I only have 12 feet across to work with. Part of me desperately wants to be the jerky neighbor when I get my new shelving, and move the fence line between the teen and children's departments over about six or eight inches.

RefGrunt: I don't mind helping patrons with the computer. I'll even try to patiently explain that if they want to email a resume for a job, they need to have an email address. But could the people who need this help please, please bathe and brush their teeth? I had to sit with a man yesterday who smelled, all over, like morning breath. Basic hygiene should not be too much to ask. Yikes.

The middle school has confirmed the summer reading titles for sixth and eighth grades: Eighth is sticking with Where the Red Fern Grows; sixth is abandoning Hatchet (after something like 10 years) and doing Crash instead. Seventh is tentatively looking at Loser. Someone in the English department is a big Spinelli fan!

Lastly: I'm told that comments aren't working consistently. Eventually that will get fixed, I guess. Let's have a round of applause for Blogger's upgrade, which only broke most of the features I use!