Our very popular Summer Reading Program ended in August. Monica reports that over 30% of the children who started with the program were “finishers”. We had more finishers than last year and anything above 25% is considered good.

Library outreach to children, summer reading programs and early literacy training for parents and childcare providers are the three best practices defined by the state library. Sandy library made the list of “Best Practices Libraries” because of our Vista Program, Summer Reading Program, and the projects Monica did as part of the Reading for Healthy Families.

We’ve been perfecting our laptop check out procedures and are just about ready to begin that program. The Friends of Sandy Library provided funding for us to furnish our community room, including 13 laptops to use for presentations and for classes.  When we learned that RFID (Radio frequency Identification) is probably not an option in the near future, we had to figure out other methods to secure the laptops. Those details have been worked out and soon those laptops will also be available for use by library patrons within the building. The library will double its capacity for access to the internet without having to give up room for “wired” stations. The laptops can be used in the library anywhere there is an anchor point.

In response to a request from a community member, we added JAWS to one of our laptops. This is a text-to-speech program designed for use by people with a vision impairment. We will schedule the use of this laptop along with our study room so that the audio can be heard by the user without disturbing other patrons.