December 7, 1994 - one million books

On the eve of my 13th birthday, my favorite aunt asked me to sit down for a little talk. "Tomorrow," she said, "something horrible will happen to you. It will last for about 7 years. Please don't take this personally, but I really don't want to talk to you for that period."

I laughed. "Aunt Edith," I said, "just because I'll be a teenager doesn't mean that I'll be any different."

"Oh yes it does," she said. "And it's awful."

I don't know how to explain this, but the very next day, I had an uncontrollable urge to buy a polka dot sweatshirt and shades. At almost precisely that moment, I developed strong musical preferences that seemed -- at least to those around me -- predicated on how offensive they were to my parents.

In short, my aunt was right. The teen years were, even for me, mostly horrible. It's that time when you're no longer allowed to be a child, but nobody will let you be an adult. It was a time, I do believe, when what I really needed was some kind of special rite of passage. Our culture isn't very good about providing those.

It was a time of transition, a time of development and/or reinvention of a personality. Therefore, life often felt awkward. I made mistakes, then struggled to learn from them.

It isn't surprising that public institutions -- being founded by people, and consisting of nothing BUT people -- mirror human growth. The Douglas Public Library District has in just four years gone from being among the quieter public libraries in Colorado to being the fifth busiest (after Denver, Jeffco, Pikes Peak, Arapahoe, and Aurora, all of them serving a much larger population base). This is a lot like growing 4 inches a year. We've had growing pains, right down to our bones.

This month, probably sometime around the 17th, our library will celebrate the checkout of our one millionth item in 1994. Since we won't know exactly where that will occur, we'll plan some kind of surprise for whoever checks out the millionth item AT EACH BRANCH.

If you'd like to help us track how quickly we're approaching this milestone in our development, you can get a daily update. From any of our computers, type BB (for Bulletin Board) from our main menu. I'll post the date, the current circulation count, and how many checkouts still remain.

A million items: that's a lot of books, magazines, videotapes, and books on tape. Over a quarter of those will be children's picture books. Almost a hundred thousand will be audiocassettes. As always, however, the overwhelming majority of our business continues to involve books.

Reaching the million mark represents both a quantitative and a qualitative change. Libraries that do that volume of business cannot quite operate the way smaller libraries do. Changes will be with us for a long time to come.

For instance, next year, we're going to be making some adjustments in our loan periods. I got many calls, e-mail messages, and letters about my proposal to go to a 3-week loan period for most materials. To date, all my public messages endorse the change; none oppose it. So come January, we'll do it. We'll also lengthen our loan period for videos.

As a result, in 1995, it's likely that our circulation count will drop back below a million. The shorter loan period makes items move faster.

Nonetheless, we won't be moving backward. We're just going to have to get used to being one of the bigger -- and better -- libraries in Colorado.

November 26, 1994 - thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. It has that cozy feeling of settling in for the winter, touching base with friends and family, and not to be overlooked, building up the reserves of body fat. You never know when you might need some extra body fat.

Unlike Christmas, Thanksgiving hasn't been so commercialized. You don't have to buy anybody anything. Although you usually bring food to the occasion, so does everyone else, and you all get to eat it.

Besides which, the holiday has a nice message: let us be thankful. On behalf of the Douglas Public Library District, let me say that we have much for which to be thankful.

* Our patrons. You so clearly love books, and not a day goes by without one of you taking the time to tell us something nice. You bring your children to see us, you trust us to provide solid information, and you're always interesting to talk to. On top of that, you pay our salaries. No business has better customers.

* Our Library Board of Trustees. Here's the roll call: Maren Francis, Cindy Hegy, Juli Lester, Tom McKenzie, Bob McLaughlin, Sue Meacham, and Jerry Poston. These people donate many, many hours of their time to oversee library finances, set library policy, establish long range planning objectives, make sure I'm doing the things I ought to be doing, and much more. Douglas County is fortunate to have one of the best public library boards in the state: fiscally conservative, actionoriented, and thoroughly convinced of the need for strong library services. Most of our Trustees are also regular customers, and bring a sharp service perspective to all our operations.

* Our staff. They're friendly. They're knowledgeable. They're interesting in their own right, and interestED in the lives of our patrons. In general, they're a lively bunch of people who clearly care about library service. Every single accomplishment the Douglas Public Library District has made is directly attributable to the high standards of service they have established, and they maintain, day after day, right at the "front line," which is where it counts. I am VERY thankful for them.

* Our collection. The growth in our collection of materials (books, videotapes, audiocassettes, magazines, pamphlets, electronic reference tools) is amazing. Over 10 percent of our purchases are direct requests from our patrons. This gives us the chance to let our collection grow in areas that the people who use the collection most want it to grow.

As a result, the collections of our branches aren't very much like one another. They reflect the unique interests and needs of the areas they serve. They have character, and are as fascinating and unpredictable as the communities they mirror.

* The opportunity to serve. While all the above are significant, we are especially grateful for the chance to deliver library services to county residents. We have a product that absolutely cannot be beat. We have people who want it, and tell us, and thank us for doing it.

From all of us at DPLD, have a great holiday.

November 16, 1994 - 3 week loan period

It all started when a patron came in to talk to me about our children's videos. His young son liked to watch most of the videos he borrowed from us at least three times. But with a two day check out period, that was difficult. Sometimes, one of the parents remembered to phone in a renewal. But the family found itself hit with fines fairly frequently.

The father had obviously spent some time thinking about this. Usually, he said, the videos his son wanted were in, which meant that the selection was broad enough that people didn't have to wait long to get the one they wanted.

Would we be willing to consider a 4 day checkout for children's videos?

I told him that I really wasn't sure where the two day loan period had come from, but that I'd look into it, and get back to him.

Well, it turns out that the loan period was a carry-over from the days when the library really didn't have that many videos, and we were trying to keep them moving. But the parent had a point: times have changed.

I took a poll of all the staff, and the majority opinion was that a four day loan period was in fact a better loan period for those materials. So effective January 1, 1995, we'll make the change. (January is the beginning of our new statistical period.)

But all this got me thinking about the loan period for most of our other materials. That's two weeks. Would three weeks be better?

This year -- probably around the second week in December -- the library will check out a million items. As I've mentioned before, this puts us in the big leagues of Colorado public libraries. In addition, over the past four years, our collection has grown from about 65,000 volumes to almost 200,000.

Consider:

* Most metropolitan libraries, especially larger libraries, have a loan period of 3 weeks. Most smaller libraries have the 2 week loan.

* Many surveys in public library literature indicate a strong patron preference for a 3 week loan (as opposed to 2 or 4). Most patrons claim that 2 weeks is too short to work through several books, but that 4 weeks is so long that people forget what they have.

* Most people do keep out their materials till near the end of their loan period. In other words, a three week loan means slightly fewer books are on the shelf at any given time. The advantage to the library is that this eases the space constraints. The library can accommodate more materials with the same shelving.

* Moving from a two to a three week loan period tends to have two short-term effects for a library. First, it lowers the number of checkouts. People may well read (as in, "actually finish") more books, but they don't have to make so many visits to get them. This tends to lower the work load for staff a little bit.

Second, fewer checkouts and longer loan periods translate to fewer overdues. In turn, that means a drop in the production of notices (and the time it takes to print, fold, and run them through our postage meter). Postage is expected to have at least a 10% hike in 1995, and some sources have predicted a 71% jump.

My staff has raised the issue of a 3 week loan period several times over the past couple of years, but it just may be that the time has come to do it.

Why now? Because we've come to the end of our first planning cycle. With the renovation of our Philip S. Miller and Oakes Mill libraries, the establishment and subsequent expansion of our Highlands Ranch Library, and the purchase and future remodeling of our new Parker Library, the library has done about all it can do for new facilities.

If we continue to buy new materials at our current rate -- and in fact, we expect to increase that rate slightly -- we'll reach building capacity at most locations in just a few years. By stretching out the loan period, I hope to stretch out the period of time before our building (and financial) needs become acute.

I'm still exploring this issue, and won't make a decision until December. If you have thoughts about this, write me at 961 S. Plum Creek Blvd, Castle Rock CO 80104, call me 688-8752, or (for you Internet, American Online or CompuServe travelers) e-mail me at jlarue@csn.org. I'd like to hear from you.

October 26, 1994 - Highway Trash and Arnold Schwarzenegger

I call it "LaRue's Law of Unintended Consequences:" what you study is not necessarily what you learn. For instance, since joining Rotary, I have a much greater appreciation for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Here's how it started: last Saturday morning I went out to pick up trash under the "Adopt a Highway" program. The Rotary is responsible for a patch of I-25 between Ligett Road and the Meadows turn#Doff.

I learned:

(1) I'm a little out of shape. Picking up trash is stoop labor. It started to hurt after awhile.

(2) Nonetheless, the Adopt A Highway program is a very good idea. There's a lot of trash on the highway. Some of the volunteers brought their kids, demonstrating in a very practical way that it's up to ALL of us to look after the environment. I'm told that most of the children become extremely indignant about the garbage people throw around, as if somehow it might be collected by the Trash Fairy, instead of real people. This is an important lesson.

(3) People throw a lot of strange stuff out of their cars. Some of the things you'd expect: 4 tons of cigarette butts, a gross of soft drink cartons, a platoon of straws, and about a case of beer cans and bottles. But what surprised me was all the clothing: 4 hats, 6 mismatched gloves, one shoe, two shirts, three bath towels, and, most alarming to me personally, ONE leg of a pair of corduroy pants.

(4) I am VERY out of shape. After three and a half hours of picking up trash, I made a painful drive back home, where I had to ask one of my neighbors to pick up the newspaper from the driveway for me. Then I staggered up the stairs and spent the rest of the day whimpering in bed, until the late evening when I made myself some dinner and watched "Terminator 2."

And that takes us back to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some years ago, I joined a health club, and spent three days a week "bombing" my muscles. As Arnold himself explains it in one of his books, what weight-lifting does is to stress the muscles of your body so hard that your body goes into emergency repair mode. It concentrates all its energies on building up the tissue that you have just destroyed, "reasoning" that more stress may be on the way.

I stopped weight-lifting because I finally realized that the body's blood flow can either go to your muscles or to your brain. My muscles were getting smarter, but I was losing about 30 I.Q. points per workout. This is a popular weight-lifter's cheer: "Gimme a D! Gimme a U! Gimme a H! Whaddas it spell?" Long silence.

But this does not apply to Arnold Schwarzenegger. It turns out that his entire weightlifting and film careers, not to mention his real estate dealings, his political aspirations and consequent marriage, are all part of a carefully worked out plan, conceived decades ago. And now Arnold not only has biceps the size of Pikes Peak, but he is also a top-drawing film star, a very wealthy man, and, most amazing of all, a member of the Kennedy family. In other words, he's smart.

So there you have it: how Rotary made me a fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger. If this has piqued your curiosity, check out some of the following books: "Arnold Schwarzenegger: No. 1 movie star in the world," by Sue Hamilton, "Arnold Schwarzenegger: larger than life," by Craig Doherty, and "Arnold: an unauthorized biography," by Wendy Leigh. All are available from the Douglas Public Library District.

I can also recommend the first "Terminator," perhaps the best science fiction movie ever made. (Terminator 2 is worth it, too, both for the effects and Linda Hamilton's stand-out performance.) They're available from your local video store.

Finally, do pick up after yourself on the highway, ok? Even when it's painful, it's the smart thing to do.

October 19, 1994 - Alzheimers Disease

In recent months, Douglas County organizations that serve seniors and their families have seen a sharp rise in the number of cases of Alzheimers Disease.

To help the many people who have to cope with this illness, the library has pulled together several fact sheets, articles, bibliographies, and other informational material. All of these are available at the Philip S. Miller Library, or by fax to any of our other branches.

#What is Alzheimers Disease (AD)?# It's a progressive, degenerative disease that attacks the brain and results in impaired memory, thinking and behavior. It is also the 4th leading cause in death in adults (after heart disease, cancer, and stroke). More than 100,000 people die of Alzheimers annually. One out of three of us will face this disease in an older relative.

#How does AD differ from normal aging?#

Here are some comparisons:

Normal: You forget PARTS of an experience. AD: You forget the entire experience. Normal: You forget events from long ago. AD: You forget what happened a few minutes ago. Normal: You forget a person's name but the face is familiar. AD: You forget not only the name, but the person. Normal: You may need to have directions repeated. AD: You start in the general direction and are likely to lose your purpose. Normal: You're able to self-orient: you can awake in a strange place and be able to gather clues to identify where you are. AD: You lose the capacity to search and use clues to help orient yourself. Normal: You lose your keys and retrace your steps. AD: You can't remember the last time you had your keys.

As one person put it, "The normal adult forgets, remembers that she forgot, and later may remember what she forgot. An AD patient forgets, forgets that she has forgotten, and couldn't care less five seconds later."

There's no single test for AD. Often, memory loss may be caused by something else. But when everything else is ruled out, AD may be diagnosed. But again, AD isn't just normal aging: there are real, pronounced changes in the brain itself.

Caring for an AD patient is demanding. Among the symptoms are hallucinations and delusions, "catastrophic reactions" or lashing out, and "sundowning" -- the tendency of many AD patients to become extremely restless just after dark.

However, for every kind of behavior, there is a coping behavior even when there isn't a cure.

For instance, don't try to talk the AD patient out of a delusion. Instead, be reassuring: say, "I'm here. I'll stay with you." Validate their fears: "That must be really scary." When a patient overreacts, try to distract him with something new. To deal with sundowning, offer sensory stimulation: a doll, stuffed animal, a ball; use soothing music.

There are other troublesome areas of caring for an AD patient. Human beings are sexual creatures. This persists even when patients are so mentally damaged that they no longer understand what is appropriate.

Among our information is some frank talk about how to deal with masturbation, unwelcome sexual attentions, and the sexual and social needs of the caregiver.

The greatest trap in caring for an AD patient is inappropriate expectations. We think they "should know better," "they meant to do that." But the truth is, they don't and they didn't.

While no cure has yet been found for Alzheimers, there is encouraging new research that points the way, perhaps, toward prevention and treatment.

Meanwhile, any family dealing with this difficult, exhausting, and often heart-rending illness should read up on it. Again, all of the information contained in this article, and much more, can be found at the library.

October 12, 1994 - Software upgrades and moving furniture

If you've ever lived in a place too small for your stuff, you know the problem. One night, usually at about 10 o'clock, you decide you want to make just one change in your living room. A small change. You think, "This won't take long."

But before you move the one thing, you have to move something else to make room for it. And then the thing you moved is in the way of something else, so that has to be moved, too. And then -- assuming that the three things you've moved so far actually fit -- you realize that now the whole room is out of whack aesthetically or functionally. More moving.

By the time you're done, every piece of furniture in the house has been touched and you haven't slept in 62 hours.

This is much like what happens when you do a library system software upgrade. Originally, the small change we wanted to make had to do with running indexes. The idea was that we would buy magazine indexing from a company called EBSCO. They would send us tapes, and we would load them onto our system each month. Voila! Monthly updates to periodical indexing, available from every terminal.

The problem was, EBSCO didn't ship indexes, it shipped raw data. The only way for us to get the indexes on our system was to have our automation vendor -- formerly Dynix, now Ameritech Library Systems -- create them for us. Another problem was, so many libraries liked this idea that Ameritech Library Systems was completely overwhelmed. Voila! ANNUAL updates.

Then Ameritech Library Systems announced a new system software upgrade. It would allow us to build any of our indexes on any of our data files anytime we wanted to. Best of all, there was no cost for this. In exchange for annual maintenance contracts, most library vendors provide free software and documentation upgrades. This upgrade, Release 140, had a host of other improvements, too.

So we put our name on the list of clients to get the upgrade. Finally, two weeks ago, we got the software and started loading it.

But just as the couch is the centerpiece of your living room, indexes are the centerpiece of a library database. Suddenly, EVERYTHING was different: our search screens, our passwords, our network security, our overdue notices, the way some of the keys on our terminals behaved.
Some of the changes were both surprising and surprisingly good. For instance, from our public terminals, you'll now see the option "Shortcut" from the main search menu. When you type "S" and press Enter, you'll see all kinds of fast new ways to launch a search.

It used to be, for example, that when you wanted to do an alphabetical keyword search, you had to work through the menus, a two or three screen process. Now, from almost any point, you can just type "-tl huckleberry finn" (without the quotes) and go straight to the screen listing our record for Twain's classic. The same idea works for the other kind of searches, too.

Another good thing is that you can now take a look at the list of current bestsellers -- and then pick the ones you want to place reserves on.

But other changes have been surprisingly bad. Suppose you do a more general search -- say a subject keyword search on "England." It used to be when all the subject headings came up -- 633 of them -- you could select them all. It was a quick and easy way to pull up everything we had about something.

That doesn't work anymore. Some bright fellow at Ameritech Library Systems decided that people should only be able to examine the subject headings shown on screens they've actually looked at -- and our system only displays 7 to a screen. On top of that, if you were to choose items 1-7, you'll only get the first seven TITLES, not all of the titles associated with the seven SUBJECT HEADINGS.

I've complained about this "enhancement" ("It's not a bug, it's a feature," they told me) long and bitterly. Ameritech Library Systems has assured me that this problem will be addressed. In the next upgrade.

What do we do in the meantime? Okay, you know the chair by the new books? Suppose we put it ..

October 5, 1994 - Tattered Cover bookstore

For the past several weeks, I've been working on a document for a Colorado Library Long Range Planning Committee. The idea is to pull together some of the trends affecting library development and use. Then, this committee will try to describe some approaches for getting out ahead of the trends, instead of lagging behind them.

I have discussed some of these trends in previous columns: the emergence of technologies that tend to obliterate local boundaries to information access, the increasing cultural intolerance that has lead to a rise in challenges to library materials, and the growing expectation of public libraries as a key player in elementary and secondary education.

But one of the trends I haven't discussed is the synergy of libraries and bookstores.

On the face of it, it would seem that we're clearly competitors. Why buy a book when you can check it out of the library?

But the fact is, the better the library, the more books people buy. Similarly, the better the bookstore, the more people use the library.

I've also mentioned in this column that the sharp rise of library use in Douglas County, and to a somewhat lesser extent the whole metropolitan area, is in vivid contrast to the rest of the country. How come?

Certainly demographics play a part. We have a high proportion of well-educated white collar workers, many of whom have small children. The combination of education and young parenthood often makes for a library-oriented community.

But another factor, not to be overlooked, is the presence, reputation, and effect of Denver's Tattered Cover bookstore. Joyce Meskis, owner of the Tattered Cover, opened her first bookstore in the Parker area back in the 70s. It failed -- a victim of a commercial development that never took off.

But the Tattered Cover, her second venture, did not fail. It is regarded not only as the best bookstore in the Denver area, but the best bookstore in the country. My friends who travel overseas tell me it's among the best in the world.

Why has Tattered Cover been so successful? It doesn't hurt that it has an inventory of some 100,000 titles on shelf -- larger than that of many libraries. Too, its knowledgeable staff (among them many former librarians) is a plus.

But beyond that, the Tattered Cover is an unusually civilized and welcoming place. You can stroll in with your lunch, read all afternoon, and walk out without buying anything. In some respects, it's like a library.

But it's hard to sit in a place surrounded by all that interesting stuff without wanting to take some of it home with you. So by it's low key approach, Tattered Cover manages to earn a lot of fierce buyer loyalty.

But if part of its success has to do with the ways in which it is like a library, the more successful libraries have tried to adopt some of the features of this prominent retail operation: more attention to display, more specific staff training in customer service, environments that are less stodgy, more comfortable than the libraries of old.

So, much as you often find a 7-Eleven or Circle K near a large grocery store, you also find the Cherry Creek branch of the Denver Public Library just a few blocks from Tattered Cover. They generate business for each other.

They also share more than customers: they share a love for books. And the partnership is good for all of us.