On April 4th the library hosted Good Morning Sandy. It was our first “official” event in the new meeting room. The attendance was amazing, and everyone was very impressed with the building.

Two days later we participated in First Friday, offering live music by members of the Pagan Jug Band, along with library services and dessert. Our concerts have grown in popularity and we welcome all to attend these “not-so-typical-for-a-library” events.

The Friends of the Library caught First Friday Fever and offered a used book sale in the new community room during our First Friday concert. The sale continued all day Saturday. This time the focus was on non-fiction, and they hope to continue to offer sales during future First Fridays. These sales are in lieu of the Giant Book Sale which they have offered for many years during Mt. Festival.

I attended a meeting of the Sandy Women’s Club in April. This group has been in existence for 100 years! They created the Sandy Library in the 1930s. For many years they would celebrate the anniversary of the library’s beginnings with a silver tea, but they haven’t done that in many years.

To commemorate the organization’s 100th anniversary, they have asked if they can hold a silver tea in the library’s new meeting room. It will be open to the public, and is planned for Saturday, September 22nd.

On April 25 – 27, Monica Smith and I attended the Oregon Library Association conference in Bend. We both had a great time, agreeing that this was the best conference we’d been to. In addition to the informative sessions that we attended, we both had opportunities to get to know Kwang Kye, the new Network Manager for the LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County) consortium.

We started our move out of the First American Title building on February 20. The library staff worked very hard and very efficiently getting us moved. I’m very impressed with the dedication and perseverance displayed by the entire staff. Nevertheless, by the February 28^th we knew that we couldn’t get the library up and running by March 5^th, which was our target date. We sent out notices and emails to let folks know that we had to postpone our opening till March 7^th.

Kathy Draine and Chris Wilhelmi deserve special recognition for “above and beyond the call of duty” work that they did in organizing the move. It was difficult to plan how to recombine items from two different locations and keep them in order, not to mention how
to keep the interlibrary loan processes from bogging down while we were closed.

Our opening day was incredibly busy. Like moving into a new house, we were still struggling with finding places to put things and then looking for where we put them. The chart attached shows how significant the increase was over the circulation on the same day the past two years. We were above 200 circulations each hour, whereas we are usually under 100 per hour. I take this to be an indication of how our community loves the library.

On March 9^th I conducted our first official tour with a group from the Senior Center. They were happy to see the improvements and had many interesting questions.

The Grand Opening on March 10^th was an extremely successful event. We had approximately 400 attending! We did run out of food, but we had live music by a harpist, and the Friends of Sandy Library provided door prizes for the drawings that occurred throughout the evening.

On March 23 we had to have the front doors replaced. This was a planned fix. On the 23^rd I also met with the new Director of the Library Network office, Kwang Kye. After a year and a half without one, it is such a relief to finally have a manager in the Network office.

By the time February rolled around, we had been preparing for our move back to the library for many months. Thanks to Kathy Draine and Chris Wilhelmi for their excellent organizational planning, we were ready to roll on Feb. 21.

But before that happened, Alex Farnham came to reinstall the glass mobile in the skylight, and we had new shelving installed in the adult area.

On Tuesday morning, the entire staff met for breakfast and a meeting to discuss moving plans. By 10:00 we were loading up book carts. The move was very demanding, but it would have been much worse without the excellent planning that had been done, and the fact that we did not have to move and reset as many book cases since we bought new ones. We still have bookcases to deal with at the former Radio Shack. We are considering selling them.

Once again the library staff were all dedicated and hard working throughout. We had several volunteers helping as well. On Feb. 29 we were completely out of the First American Title building, but we realized that we could not be ready to open to the public by March 5^th as we had planned. We put out notices and a mass email was sent out to library patrons that our new opening date would be March 7^th.

We received a total of $7200 in donations specifically for the Children’s Forest.

CITY OF SANDY STAFF REPORT

FROM:                                Beth Scarth                               

SUBJECT:                         Library Activities, January 2012

In addition to our regular work serving the public, we have been very busy planning our move back to the renovated building. Library patrons are asking lots of questions. During January we had meetings with shelving installers and movers, and weekly construction meetings on site.           

December’s weather continued to be nice for construction! The renovated library is looking more complete and we are beginning to make final arrangements for our move back.

Weekly construction meetings are held on Wednesdays, and I tour each week. Walls are painted, carpeting is down, and the fireplace is in. It is really looking great.

After an all-staff meeting on December 14, we delivered homemade goodies to the construction workers at the library site. We wanted to show our appreciation for the beautiful work they are doing, and they appreciated the goodies.

When we began the grant writing process, I asked the Friends if they would supply the funds for the equipment in the community room. I gave them a rough estimate of $30,000. They agreed to that amount, and we were all pleased to see that my estimate was double what is actually needed. I met with board members of the Friends of Sandy Library to present my “wish list” on the 14^th. The Friends board will meet in early January to OK these expenditures.

On two occasions, Joe Preston found empty, broken DVD cases in the garbage cans at Meinig Park. In all, 28 DVDs were stolen, cases broken open and dumped in the park. In order to try to stop these thefts, we have rearranged the collection somewhat so that we can make sure that a staff member is close by the DVDs at all times.