Directors from the Clackamas County libraries met in Sandy on January 10th for a day-long retreat. We are united in our missions to provide information services and library materials in our communities, and have common issues and concerns with the database we share. It is a lively group and we do enjoy getting together.

On the first Tuesday of the month we offered a Technology Tools class to assist participants in learning to use their electronic devices. Over the last few months we have helped folks with Kindles, Nooks, laptops, printers, phones, notebooks, and general internet searching.

On January 16 Monica offered a Henna tattoo program. The teens had a lot of fun making beautiful “tattoos” on themselves and each other.

On January 22, a group met in the community room to view the movie Numen: the healing power of plants. The host partnered with Organic Sandy and there were about 20 people present. Our community room was a great venue for this successful program.

The family movie on January 25 was City of Ember.

The library offered another Technology Tutoring class on December 3. We had a small group of participants. There is always something new to learn and we are happy that word is spreading that we can help those with questions.

A wonderful mixed media art show was installed the first week in December, and will be in place through March. The artist, Nina Bradford, is from the Spiral Gallery in Estacada.

Monica presented two fun programs. A Teddy Bear Tea was held on Dec. 7. Children brought their teddy bears in for story time and a tea party. The bears stayed overnight at the library and the children picked them up the next day and were able to see pictures of what their bears were up to in the night; climbing trees and riding on the book cart.

A family movie was shown on December 28: Home Alone, a real holiday classic.

The Library board met on Dec. 18. I provided a light supper for them to thank them for their generous contribution to our community.

Library programs concentrated on Food Awareness in November. We offered two free programs: “We Are What We Eat” a conversation project program from Oregon Humanities, and we offered a film, “Nourish : Food + Community”. These programs called attention to the strong bonds that are formed around food, and about how our food choices can affect our health and our environment.

Another aspect of our Food Awareness Week was to consider those folks who live with food insecurity and are not able to make choices about their food. Donations of cash and food were collected for the Community Action Center food bank in Sandy and Neighborhood Missions in the Hoodland area. One half of all overdue fines collected during the week of 11/17 – 11/23 was donated as well.  In total we collected $452.13 for the Action Center, $91.35 for Neighborhood Missions in Welches and also a lot of food!

On the first Tuesday we welcomed people to come and learn about their technology tools with the help of librarians. Maureen Skinner has also been working with some residents at Avamere, assisting them with their technology questions.

A “people counter” was installed at the front door of the library. An estimated 425 people come into the library each day, and there are approximately 70 computer logins per day. These statistics measure the community’s library use better than mere circulation counts.

There were fun kid activities at the library during October. Our retired “pirates” Ric Sward, Judy Evans and Marcia Warren came back to guide students with a scavenger hunt in the library. Students from Cedar Ridge walked over and had lots of fun searching for “treasure” and learning how to use the library at the same time.

On the 26th for the Trick or Treat Trail,  and again on the 31st, we handed out Halloween treats to costumed ghouls and goblins. The library staff got into it and had fun wearing costumes too.

On October 1st, we started a new program that we hope to offer on the first Tuesday of each month. We call it Technology Tools Tutoring, or T3 for short. We invited folks to come in to the community room with their electronic devices such as Kindles, iPads, laptops, phone, etc. We helped them to figure out the questions that they had with their device. Many people are confused about downloading digital materials, using Facebook, and other technologies. It is satisfying to know that we can help them to learn more about them.

When Kathy Draine retired, we not only lost our Reference Librarian, we lost our art curator. Kathy coordinated shows with artists, and organized the display of each show. Her skills in this area will be missed. In order to fill the void, we have entered into a contract with the Clackamas Arts Alliance, which will hang new art pieces in Sandy and Hoodland each quarter. The first show, a beautiful collection of photographs by Bill Brant of West Linn, was hung on Sept. 3.

Susan Winsinger and I manned the Library table at the ice cream social on Sept. 12. It was fun to share information about the library, and to apply tattoos to the kids and some adults.

Rudy Ubaldo, our newest employee, accepted a job with Multnomah County Library. We asked Ashley Kritzeck, one of the finalists for the job, to take the position and she gladly accepted. We also lost Trevor McMaster, one of our shelvers, who left for college. We received 50 applications for his job, and hired August George as our new shelver on Sept. 16. August is a college student at PSU and is speedily catching on to the job.

Library staff has begun training on our new public software, Enterprise. This new program will be used on the catalog computers in the library, and will be the interface when logging in from home. Most of the staff like it, and its functionality, as well as some of its innovative tools. The target date to go live with the new software is Oct. 22.

Monica offered a teen program with “rhythm facilitator” Cinda Tilgner. Participants enjoyed beating on drums and keeping time with other rhythm instruments. More programs designed specifically for teens are being planned, and we are partnering with the high school and the AntFarm to create a Teen Advisory Board. This board will assist Monica in programming and materials selection for teens.

August is typically a quieter month at the library. The Summer Reading program is winding down and school is not yet in session. But this year we had our adult summer reading program “Let’s Talk About It” on August 20th. Bob Welch, an author and journalist from Eugene, spoke to the group about his book “Cascade Summer : My Adventure on Oregon’s Pacific Crest Trail”.  In addition to this very interesting and entertaining program, Bob presented a program for children earlier in the day. He read and talked about his newest published book “Keyboard Kitten: An Oregon Children’s Story”. This is a charming book with many references to Oregon locations and happenings.

In our summer reading program, Monica served over 400 children and over 200 adults. The kids have so much fun, and are encouraged to read all summer, a great plus for when they begin school again in September.

After some careful editing to keep them in accord with the city’s municipal code, the Library Board adopted their Bylaws and their Policies documents. Both documents are now available on the library’s webpage.

Kathy Draine did an excellent job of finding and displaying art in the library for many years. I’m happy to announce that beginning in September, that job will be done by the Clackamas County Arts Alliance, an organization that installs artwork all over the county.

On July 19, the Sandy and Hoodland libraries closed so that most of the circulation staff could attend the Oregon Library Association’s Support Staff Division conference in Hood River. Reports are that it was fun and informational, and that the Hood River library is beautiful!  The management staff stayed home and performed fix-up work in the library. Upholstery was cleaned, paint was touched up, and rooms were reorganized. A good time was had by all.

Monica has been very busy with the summer reading programs. In July 93 people were served at the Hoodland library, and 175 at the Sandy library. The programs have included story tellers, music makers and reptiles (oh my!)

Our First Friday events in May and June were successful, as usual. Our performers were Josh and Belinda (May) and Brady Goss (June). The library is really transformed during these events and we love it!

Two new art shows were hung, a selection of weavings by the Damascus Fiber Arts School, all depicting the Columbia River, and a photo show of scenes and history of Mt. Hood.

Ramona and Beezus and Percy Jackson and the Olympians were the movies shown to families during May and June. And the kids at Vista had a talent show for their final activity for this year.

I interviewed and hired three new on-call library clerks: Katie Murphy, Stephanie Betts, and Caitlin McDowell. We also hired a new library clerk to take over Ruth Sobota’s duties. When Kathy Draine retired, we lost our only bilingual employee, so we advertised for someone who could speak Spanish, but we also wanted someone who is bi-cultural, who will be a great asset for outreach to the Spanish speaking community. Rudy Ubaldo was hired to take Ruth’s place. He started on the job on June 17, and has already had opportunities to use his bi-lingual skills with our Spanish speaking patrons.

We celebrated Ruth Sobota’s Retirement on June 27 with a luncheon. Ruth has worked at the library for 18 years. She has been a good friend to all of us and a hard worker. We’ll miss her, and wish the best for her.

Long term trends for all libraries have been tracked. The chart below shows 10 years of data. Data values are shown for Sandy (purple) and Hoodland (green) libraries only.

The library’s First Friday event on April 5 was a huge success with Boy and Bean, performing songs from the 20s, 30s and 40s. It was great to start up with the monthly programs again. Library patrons love it!

To celebrate National Library Week (April 14 – 20)  and Poetry Month (April), we tried something new on April 18. We had a Poetry SLAM in our community room. Katie Murphy organized this event which turned out to be a BIG success! Scott Poole, from the Live Wire Radio program was our guest emcee. There were over 40 entries in three categories: poets under 16, poets over 16 and readers of non-original poems. The Friends of the Library sponsored the entire event, prizes, refreshments, honoraria, etc. We are already making plans for next year, but it won’t be held in our community room — it was too small!

Monica showed the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie to families on April 13. On April 20, a community member used the community room to show a movie about endangered tigers. The community room is being used for many purposes.

The Oregon Library Association held its annual convention with the Washington Library Association in Vancouver on April 25 and 26. Maureen Skinner, Chris Wilhelmi, Monica Smith and I attended. It was fun and interesting. I got a lot of information about creating library programs.

We honored Kathy Draine’s 16 years of service as Reference Librarian with a staff breakfast on April 30. We will miss Kathy very much, but we are fortunate to have filled her position with a very capable Reference Librarian in Maureen Skinner.

Maureen Skinner (left) and Kathy Draine (right)

Theodor Seuss Geis would have been 109 years old this year. He is better known as Dr. Seuss, and Iibraries everywhere celebrate his birthday at the beginning of March. Our annual celebration of Dr. Seuss’s birthday took place on Saturday, March 2. Monica read Horton Hears a Who! and the movie The Lorax was viewed. It was a great time with over 40 kids and adults.

In partnership with the Wy’East Artisans guild, “Music in the Coffee House” the theme of this years’ annual library art show, was hung and will run mid-March through mid-April. The theme fits will with the program we will present on our first “First Friday” on April 5.

During our popular First Friday Coffee House programs, we move shelves around to make room for musicians and viewers. We requested help from the Friends of Sandy Library to purchase three new mobile book cases for our young adult and children’s areas. They were ordered from a local craftsman, and put in place in March. Not only are they beautiful (see the picture) but we can easily roll them around, even though they weigh about 800 lbs when full of books. We get by with a LOT of help from our Friends!