The new phone books are out AND ... the listings for the library are wrong.
Well, not completely. But despite our best efforts, year after year, we have yet to get it all to come out the way we've asked for.
Yes, we do give Qwest the exact information we want to be displayed. But somehow, by the time it hits the four phone books that serve the county (Denver, Highlands Ranch, South Jeffco and Castle Rock/Parker), that information has morphed in four different directions.
Here's what we were shooting for. In the business white pages our listing should refer to the government section. Under "government county," the Douglas Public Library District should be listed with all the phone number of our branches. We also requested that our listing under the "government city" section, which is where the special
districts are normally listed, be replaced with a referral to the county section.
A bit of background here. The Douglas Public Library District is in fact an independent entity. We broke off from the county in 1990. For the past dozen years we have been publicizing our name through countless columns, ads, fliers, bookmarks, posters, and brochures – not to mention
the tens of thousands of library cards floating around the county.
Nonetheless, the plain truth is that hardly anybody knows our right name. They look for us under Douglas County.
OK, so got that? Our name is the Douglas Public Library District. We put a listing under Douglas County to help people find us based on the way we know they look for us.
Here's how things came out: the Highlands Ranch and South Jeffco business white page and government county listings are fine. These two phone books also have a detailed listing under the government city section.
In the Castle Rock/Parker phone book, the business white pages refer to the government section. However, they also, inexplicably, list the Literacy Hotline and the Parker Library. Under the government county section, Literacy Hotline and Parker are missing. The other branches are
there – but listed in a peculiar order. (Librarians HATE it when people don't alphabetize.)
In the Denver phone book, the business white pages refer to the government section, with the government county section also failing to list Literacy Hotline and Parker. But then they do show up with a partial listing of numbers under the government CITY section!
In both the Castle Rock/Parker and Denver phone books' business white pages our maintenance facility is showing up as "Douglas Public." This number shouldn't have been listed at all, as it's for purely internal use. But we're used to that. Last year, the Administration number was the only one that showed up in somebody's book. I used to get, and still
get on occasion, calls from people asking me to renew their books. (I just renew them – it's easier than explaining.)
In the yellow pages I believe all the phone books display our ad correctly under "Libraries," except for Highlands Ranch, which fails to include the telephone renewal/hold number.
Oh, and as a consequence of listing the district under Douglas County, we just found out that the caller ID for the library is now identified as the county. This is, of course, very misleading to patrons. We have been assured that this can and will be fixed.
It would be easy to get discouraged, but I'm an optimist. I have confidence that all will be made right. For instance, I just know that the bill for our phone book listing will go to Douglas County. Or possibly Parker.
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Wednesday, January 8, 2003
January 8, 2003 - Literary Hoaxes
The story will break your heart.
Told in his own words, the tale of Tony Godby Johnson is appalling. He was beaten and starved by his parents. When he was very young, his parents loaned him to a gay adult who "had his way with him sexually."
By the age of 11, Tony was at the end of his rope. He called a suicide prevention hotline.
Then, his luck finally turned. The hotline referred him to a counselor. She checked him into a hospital. There the woman counselor fell in love with the hotline counselor, who came to visit. The two counselors married, then adopted Tony. Meanwhile, his real parents were brought up on child abuse charges -- and jailed.
Just when the warm family life Tony had always wanted was at last coming together, he suffered another blow. He had AIDS.
The book about all this, written when Tony was 14, was published in 1993. It's called, "A Rock and a Hard Place." The story so moved people that it even featured a glowing foreword by author Paul Monette, and an afterword by Mr. Fred Rogers of TV fame. All praised Tony's astonishing
optimism and courage.
HBO showed interested in doing a special on his life. ABC mentioned him in a documentary sponsored by Oprah Winfrey. Tony's website flourished -- where there were many testaments to him by famous people.
But here's the kicker. There was no Tony.
The whole thing was a fraud, the elaborate hoax, according to writer Terry Anderson, of one Vicki Fraginals Zackheim, the "Vicki Johnson" who supposedly adopted Tony.
Things started to unravel when Newsweek (in 1993), and the New Yorker (in 2001) started checking up on the facts. For one thing, nobody had ever seen Tony. He was just a voice on a phone, an email. And his voice, according to one audio expert, was identical to "Vicki's."
There is no record of such a child abuse case hitting the courts. Criminal records of this type are not sealed.
Most recently, Armisted Maupin -- who also had an intimate telephone relationship with "Tony" -- came out with his own fictionalized version of the story, called "The Night Listener." You'll find it at the library.
You'll also find "A Rock and a Hard Place." But we cataloged it the way it came to us -- the non-fiction biography of Anthony Godby Johnson. Who doesn’t exist.
This isn't the first time such things have happened. We also have "The Education of Little Tree," the acclaimed story of a Native American boy, hailed as so true, so authentic, it has been used as a text in university cultural anthropology classes. Until it, too, was exposed as
a hoax.
You have to wonder why people go to the trouble. You can make quite as much money from an outright lie as from the truth. You just call it a novel.
On the other hand, there's a weird psychology to all this. Many of have known at least one person who took us in. Told us stories about their often bizarre troubles. Relied on us for friendship. Lived for the terrible drama of the moment. And along the way, seemed to have lost track of the dividing line between what was real, and what was made up.
I remember a most compelling woman back in college who faked a heart attack in the middle of a literature class. I believed her. And it did liven up the lecture.
Vicki still maintains that Tony is real, by the way. And still alive, despite tuberculosis, an amputated leg, and a perpetual fever, not to mention the AIDS diagnosed 10 years ago. Vicki is still the only one who has seen him.
At any rate, if you were wondering what the library does when we’re confronted with strong evidence that our books are wholly imaginary, here’s the skinny: we’ll be recataloging "Rock and A Hard Place" under "fiction." It's quite a story.
Told in his own words, the tale of Tony Godby Johnson is appalling. He was beaten and starved by his parents. When he was very young, his parents loaned him to a gay adult who "had his way with him sexually."
By the age of 11, Tony was at the end of his rope. He called a suicide prevention hotline.
Then, his luck finally turned. The hotline referred him to a counselor. She checked him into a hospital. There the woman counselor fell in love with the hotline counselor, who came to visit. The two counselors married, then adopted Tony. Meanwhile, his real parents were brought up on child abuse charges -- and jailed.
Just when the warm family life Tony had always wanted was at last coming together, he suffered another blow. He had AIDS.
The book about all this, written when Tony was 14, was published in 1993. It's called, "A Rock and a Hard Place." The story so moved people that it even featured a glowing foreword by author Paul Monette, and an afterword by Mr. Fred Rogers of TV fame. All praised Tony's astonishing
optimism and courage.
HBO showed interested in doing a special on his life. ABC mentioned him in a documentary sponsored by Oprah Winfrey. Tony's website flourished -- where there were many testaments to him by famous people.
But here's the kicker. There was no Tony.
The whole thing was a fraud, the elaborate hoax, according to writer Terry Anderson, of one Vicki Fraginals Zackheim, the "Vicki Johnson" who supposedly adopted Tony.
Things started to unravel when Newsweek (in 1993), and the New Yorker (in 2001) started checking up on the facts. For one thing, nobody had ever seen Tony. He was just a voice on a phone, an email. And his voice, according to one audio expert, was identical to "Vicki's."
There is no record of such a child abuse case hitting the courts. Criminal records of this type are not sealed.
Most recently, Armisted Maupin -- who also had an intimate telephone relationship with "Tony" -- came out with his own fictionalized version of the story, called "The Night Listener." You'll find it at the library.
You'll also find "A Rock and a Hard Place." But we cataloged it the way it came to us -- the non-fiction biography of Anthony Godby Johnson. Who doesn’t exist.
This isn't the first time such things have happened. We also have "The Education of Little Tree," the acclaimed story of a Native American boy, hailed as so true, so authentic, it has been used as a text in university cultural anthropology classes. Until it, too, was exposed as
a hoax.
You have to wonder why people go to the trouble. You can make quite as much money from an outright lie as from the truth. You just call it a novel.
On the other hand, there's a weird psychology to all this. Many of have known at least one person who took us in. Told us stories about their often bizarre troubles. Relied on us for friendship. Lived for the terrible drama of the moment. And along the way, seemed to have lost track of the dividing line between what was real, and what was made up.
I remember a most compelling woman back in college who faked a heart attack in the middle of a literature class. I believed her. And it did liven up the lecture.
Vicki still maintains that Tony is real, by the way. And still alive, despite tuberculosis, an amputated leg, and a perpetual fever, not to mention the AIDS diagnosed 10 years ago. Vicki is still the only one who has seen him.
At any rate, if you were wondering what the library does when we’re confronted with strong evidence that our books are wholly imaginary, here’s the skinny: we’ll be recataloging "Rock and A Hard Place" under "fiction." It's quite a story.
Wednesday, January 1, 2003
January 1, 2003 - New Castle Rock Library Construction Questions
Lately, everywhere I go in Castle Rock, people ask me the same two questions.
The first one is, “What's holding up the roof on the new library?”
The new library, a former Safeway building on Castle Rock's Wilcox Street, is indeed startling from the street. The building used to be a large, dark box – the classic big box construction, where "classic" here means "tilt up concrete."
Over the past several weeks, the Cambria Construction company has been doing just what the plans tell them to do. And at this point, that means they are removing most of the concrete panels on the west side of the building.
How come? Because we need to let some light into that space. By the time we're finished (October-November of this year!), we'll have a lot of glass on the west side. We'll also have a large glass tower on the northeast corner of the building, and at least one large glass panel on the north. The rest of the light will come from windows cut in the walls, as opposed to replacing the panels altogether.
Of course, the removal of all that structural support is what leads to that first question. And here's the answer: the scaffolding. We have structural steel braced under the exposed western roof. It stays until we get the replacement walls up.
The second question people ask me is, “Wouldn't it have been cheaper to scrape it all down and start over?” The answer to that one is, No. We figure we've saved about $50 per square foot by using existing floors, walls, roof, utility connections, and more. Multiply $50 by the approximately 40,000 square feet we're re-using, and that's $2 million. Renovation, generally, is cheaper than new construction. It is unquestionably the case that using the old building lets us build a much better library than we could have afforded otherwise.
A few folks have also asked me a third question: was there any asbestos in the old building? The answer to that one is, Yes, on the back of some of the floor tiles.
We had hoped to disturb so little of it that we could just encapsulate it. Finally, however, we decided to have it all removed – a three day operation involving a sort of Zamboni machine, except instead of grooming the ice, it scraped up the tiles. This was all done under the most careful circumstances, at a cost of $50,000.
But the good news there is that it's all gone. We won't have to worry about it in the future, if we should ever need to cut through the slab.
A fourth and final question that people (mostly old-timers) have posed to me is "Isn't the soil under that building 'funny?'" And the answer to that one is also a Yes. Particularly under the north side, there is very dank, peaty earth that goes to some depth. Because of that, the engineer who designed the expansion to the building some years ago used an innovative under-floor system. Beneath the concrete are 5 foot-deep blocks of styrofoam.
At first, I was worried that this couldn't possibly be strong enough to support the weight of all of our books. Library floors need to stand up to some 125-150 pounds of pressure per square foot. However, to my astonishment, the styrofoam system supports twice that – and has the added advantage of just “floating” over the soil, as opposed to sinking.
What's the bottom line? Older buildings have different problems than newer ones. But we're confident that when we're done with this one, it will be considerably better than it is now. In fact, it will be beautiful.
The first one is, “What's holding up the roof on the new library?”
The new library, a former Safeway building on Castle Rock's Wilcox Street, is indeed startling from the street. The building used to be a large, dark box – the classic big box construction, where "classic" here means "tilt up concrete."
Over the past several weeks, the Cambria Construction company has been doing just what the plans tell them to do. And at this point, that means they are removing most of the concrete panels on the west side of the building.
How come? Because we need to let some light into that space. By the time we're finished (October-November of this year!), we'll have a lot of glass on the west side. We'll also have a large glass tower on the northeast corner of the building, and at least one large glass panel on the north. The rest of the light will come from windows cut in the walls, as opposed to replacing the panels altogether.
Of course, the removal of all that structural support is what leads to that first question. And here's the answer: the scaffolding. We have structural steel braced under the exposed western roof. It stays until we get the replacement walls up.
The second question people ask me is, “Wouldn't it have been cheaper to scrape it all down and start over?” The answer to that one is, No. We figure we've saved about $50 per square foot by using existing floors, walls, roof, utility connections, and more. Multiply $50 by the approximately 40,000 square feet we're re-using, and that's $2 million. Renovation, generally, is cheaper than new construction. It is unquestionably the case that using the old building lets us build a much better library than we could have afforded otherwise.
A few folks have also asked me a third question: was there any asbestos in the old building? The answer to that one is, Yes, on the back of some of the floor tiles.
We had hoped to disturb so little of it that we could just encapsulate it. Finally, however, we decided to have it all removed – a three day operation involving a sort of Zamboni machine, except instead of grooming the ice, it scraped up the tiles. This was all done under the most careful circumstances, at a cost of $50,000.
But the good news there is that it's all gone. We won't have to worry about it in the future, if we should ever need to cut through the slab.
A fourth and final question that people (mostly old-timers) have posed to me is "Isn't the soil under that building 'funny?'" And the answer to that one is also a Yes. Particularly under the north side, there is very dank, peaty earth that goes to some depth. Because of that, the engineer who designed the expansion to the building some years ago used an innovative under-floor system. Beneath the concrete are 5 foot-deep blocks of styrofoam.
At first, I was worried that this couldn't possibly be strong enough to support the weight of all of our books. Library floors need to stand up to some 125-150 pounds of pressure per square foot. However, to my astonishment, the styrofoam system supports twice that – and has the added advantage of just “floating” over the soil, as opposed to sinking.
What's the bottom line? Older buildings have different problems than newer ones. But we're confident that when we're done with this one, it will be considerably better than it is now. In fact, it will be beautiful.
Wednesday, December 25, 2002
December 25, 2002 - A Gift Suitable for All Ages
For the past several years, I've been reprinting what I've come to think of as "my Christmas column" -- a tradition. I hope you enjoy it.
***
What we really need is an all-purpose gift that will satisfy everybody. It should be suitable for all ages. It should require no assembly. It shouldn't need batteries. You shouldn't have to feed it. It should last forever. It should be constantly entertaining. The more the recipient uses it, the more he or she should like it.
And of course, it should be free.
No such animal, right? Wrong. I'm talking about a library card.
Note: all Douglas Public Library District libraries will be closed on December 25. We will also be closing at 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve.
I'll never understand it. Most adults these days carry cards of every description; most of them DON'T have library cards. So for the woman or man who has everything, why not offer everything else? -- access to the total accumulated knowledge of the human race, not to mention the most wonderful stories ever told.
Of course, the real winner of a gift like this is not an adult. It's a child.
Here's all you have to do to make your holidays a success. First, come down to the library and fill out a library card application for your child. Then, check out three of four books. Wrap the card and the books and set them under the tree. Save this very special package for last.
When the child rips it open, say that this unassuming little card will let him or her get presents all year long. Then read your child to sleep that night with one of the books.
After your children have gotten bored with all their expensive toys, read them (or have them read) the other books, then trot them down to the library in that slow week after the main event. Teach your children about exchanging one present for another.
At the library, every day is Christmas. Behind every book cover there are riches. After introducing your kids to a treasure trove beyond Aladdin's wildest dreams, why not mosey over to the adult section, and browse through the latest offerings yourself? You know you deserve it.
Former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett urged every child to obtain and use a library card. It was good advice then; it's good advice now.
Besides, at prices like these, who can argue? If you are not fully satisfied after a lifetime of learning and pleasure -- I'll cheerfully refund your money.
Trust me, this could be the best Christmas card you'll ever send.
***
What we really need is an all-purpose gift that will satisfy everybody. It should be suitable for all ages. It should require no assembly. It shouldn't need batteries. You shouldn't have to feed it. It should last forever. It should be constantly entertaining. The more the recipient uses it, the more he or she should like it.
And of course, it should be free.
No such animal, right? Wrong. I'm talking about a library card.
Note: all Douglas Public Library District libraries will be closed on December 25. We will also be closing at 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve.
I'll never understand it. Most adults these days carry cards of every description; most of them DON'T have library cards. So for the woman or man who has everything, why not offer everything else? -- access to the total accumulated knowledge of the human race, not to mention the most wonderful stories ever told.
Of course, the real winner of a gift like this is not an adult. It's a child.
Here's all you have to do to make your holidays a success. First, come down to the library and fill out a library card application for your child. Then, check out three of four books. Wrap the card and the books and set them under the tree. Save this very special package for last.
When the child rips it open, say that this unassuming little card will let him or her get presents all year long. Then read your child to sleep that night with one of the books.
After your children have gotten bored with all their expensive toys, read them (or have them read) the other books, then trot them down to the library in that slow week after the main event. Teach your children about exchanging one present for another.
At the library, every day is Christmas. Behind every book cover there are riches. After introducing your kids to a treasure trove beyond Aladdin's wildest dreams, why not mosey over to the adult section, and browse through the latest offerings yourself? You know you deserve it.
Former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett urged every child to obtain and use a library card. It was good advice then; it's good advice now.
Besides, at prices like these, who can argue? If you are not fully satisfied after a lifetime of learning and pleasure -- I'll cheerfully refund your money.
Trust me, this could be the best Christmas card you'll ever send.
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
December 18, 2002 - Shop Locally
One of the surprises of the Internet was the discovery by thousands of libraries across the country that the hottest information commodity was ... what was going on in our own back yards.
Think about it. You won't use your local library as a portal to Google. You just go to Google.
Certainly, many of the people who use library terminals do go on to search a host of World Wide Web search engines and big databases.
But a close analysis of our logs shows us that the biggest demand on library websites is for local information. That is, people are trying to find local statistics, local contacts, local history.
And, after years of poohpoohing our own catalogs as kind of boring, the truth is, they actually generate brisk traffic. Why? Because it's a local asset, pointing to something people can stop by and pick up on the spot.
There's another reason this local focus is logical. It happens that we employ a host of highly competent librarians. Good as they are, though, there's no way they can be experts on the literally millions of websites out there.
They CAN be experts on Douglas County.
In other words, the idea that libraries are your "doorway to the world," while technically true, pretty much misses the point. Your local library is your doorway to your own neighborhood -- and that's a real service, because it takes a lot of work to get all that information in order.
What goes on in just one town is almost inconceivably rich. Just try, as newspapers do, to track all the club meetings in a single week, or the business of just one governmental entity.
Local libraries have the ability to mine the real depth of some of that data, to reveal its "granularity" -- the fine grit of real stuff, as opposed to the big picture, seen from a distance.
It happens that this insight has a seasonal connection. I got to thinking about all this because of Christmas shopping. Here's what I've concluded. Just as it makes more sense for libraries to try to be local experts than global experts, it makes more sense to shop locally than to shop on the Internet. There are three reasons.
First, shopping locally employs my neighbors. A lot of good people work very hard to make their businesses successful. If I buy their goods and services, I'm helping to ensure the economic well-being of them and their families. That makes for a more stable community.
Second, when I buy goods and services locally, I'm also paying local sales taxes. Those taxes support a variety of services that are important to my well-being and quality of life. I recognize that "no taxes!" is supposed to be one of the great values of online shopping. But often, shipping charges cancel out the economic advantage. More importantly, those purchases do nothing to make MY town better.
Finally, online shopping is a little solitary. I like to see the faces of the people who sell me my groceries, my books, and my meals. It turns the business of living into an actual life.
So that's my tip from the world of library information technology, eminently applicable to the practical politics and economics of living in a real community: think globally, but shop locally.
Think about it. You won't use your local library as a portal to Google. You just go to Google.
Certainly, many of the people who use library terminals do go on to search a host of World Wide Web search engines and big databases.
But a close analysis of our logs shows us that the biggest demand on library websites is for local information. That is, people are trying to find local statistics, local contacts, local history.
And, after years of poohpoohing our own catalogs as kind of boring, the truth is, they actually generate brisk traffic. Why? Because it's a local asset, pointing to something people can stop by and pick up on the spot.
There's another reason this local focus is logical. It happens that we employ a host of highly competent librarians. Good as they are, though, there's no way they can be experts on the literally millions of websites out there.
They CAN be experts on Douglas County.
In other words, the idea that libraries are your "doorway to the world," while technically true, pretty much misses the point. Your local library is your doorway to your own neighborhood -- and that's a real service, because it takes a lot of work to get all that information in order.
What goes on in just one town is almost inconceivably rich. Just try, as newspapers do, to track all the club meetings in a single week, or the business of just one governmental entity.
Local libraries have the ability to mine the real depth of some of that data, to reveal its "granularity" -- the fine grit of real stuff, as opposed to the big picture, seen from a distance.
It happens that this insight has a seasonal connection. I got to thinking about all this because of Christmas shopping. Here's what I've concluded. Just as it makes more sense for libraries to try to be local experts than global experts, it makes more sense to shop locally than to shop on the Internet. There are three reasons.
First, shopping locally employs my neighbors. A lot of good people work very hard to make their businesses successful. If I buy their goods and services, I'm helping to ensure the economic well-being of them and their families. That makes for a more stable community.
Second, when I buy goods and services locally, I'm also paying local sales taxes. Those taxes support a variety of services that are important to my well-being and quality of life. I recognize that "no taxes!" is supposed to be one of the great values of online shopping. But often, shipping charges cancel out the economic advantage. More importantly, those purchases do nothing to make MY town better.
Finally, online shopping is a little solitary. I like to see the faces of the people who sell me my groceries, my books, and my meals. It turns the business of living into an actual life.
So that's my tip from the world of library information technology, eminently applicable to the practical politics and economics of living in a real community: think globally, but shop locally.
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
December 11, 2002 - Libraries & Economics
The longer I'm in the library business, the more I realize how deeply the public and private sectors are interconnected.
It's clear that in 2002, Colorado libraries have taken a hit financially. In some ways, this reflects what's happening in the business world. Many commercial operations are suffering a drop in sales, thus in revenue. Those libraries that are dependent on city sales taxes (as in Denver), are also seeing a sharp decline in revenue.
But here's the contrary part: even those libraries that are losing money are at the same time experiencing a steep increase in use. Less money; more demand for service. In business, that just doesn't happen. More use means more money.
Is library use rising in Douglas County? You bet. Two years ago, we broke all our previous circulation records when we checked out 2 million items. This year, we'll check out over 3 million.
But that rise in use is happening all over Colorado. How come? There are lots of reasons.
Let's take the more negative situation first. If you've lost your job, you go to the library to retool: to learn how to write a resume, to borrow a word processor to produce it, to scour newspapers for job ads. Or possibly you use the library as a sort of temporary office, a place to meet people and investigate prospects. Or maybe you use the library as a place to look into alternate careers, to find out which careers are recession-proof.
Libraries provide resources -- already paid for by the general public -- that you can least afford when you most need them. Here we see the great investment value of cooperative purchasing agreements!
Of course, there are lots of more positive reasons to use the library. Libraries help you spend the money you do have more wisely, whether you're planning to make a significant consumer purchase, or are trying to explore investment opportunities.
In addition to all our more traditional offerings -- informational and recreational materials of all sorts, reference assistance, and children's services -- libraries also offer a rich tapestry of free family programming. You can explore everything from history to crafts, right here in your backyard.
What is the fiscal picture for the Douglas Public Library District? Well, we are not dependent on sales tax. Almost all of our revenue comes from property taxes. Property values are less volatile than sales. So when the economy slows down, library districts get enough notice to prepare themselves.
Here's how I size up our changing fiscal climate: revenues, while still growing, are flattening. Next year, we'll see a real increase of about 8.9% in tax receipts -- but balance that against over a 30% increase in use.
What does that mean? We have just about wrapped up all the capital projects we promised voters back in 1996 -- and have in fact done better than our promises. But once we open our storefront in Roxborough, and once we complete our new Philip S. Miller Library in Castle Rock, our capital reserves will be gone.
At this point in the library's development, our focus has begun to shift from outward expansion (capital) to internal infrastructure and productivity (operations). Incidentally, that's exactly what we said would happen when we last went back to the voters: we'd build some libraries, then have enough money to run them.
The challenge of the next several years will be how to stay focused on growing community needs, with an eye toward wringing maximum use from existing resources.
But, you know, libraries are pretty good at that.
It's clear that in 2002, Colorado libraries have taken a hit financially. In some ways, this reflects what's happening in the business world. Many commercial operations are suffering a drop in sales, thus in revenue. Those libraries that are dependent on city sales taxes (as in Denver), are also seeing a sharp decline in revenue.
But here's the contrary part: even those libraries that are losing money are at the same time experiencing a steep increase in use. Less money; more demand for service. In business, that just doesn't happen. More use means more money.
Is library use rising in Douglas County? You bet. Two years ago, we broke all our previous circulation records when we checked out 2 million items. This year, we'll check out over 3 million.
But that rise in use is happening all over Colorado. How come? There are lots of reasons.
Let's take the more negative situation first. If you've lost your job, you go to the library to retool: to learn how to write a resume, to borrow a word processor to produce it, to scour newspapers for job ads. Or possibly you use the library as a sort of temporary office, a place to meet people and investigate prospects. Or maybe you use the library as a place to look into alternate careers, to find out which careers are recession-proof.
Libraries provide resources -- already paid for by the general public -- that you can least afford when you most need them. Here we see the great investment value of cooperative purchasing agreements!
Of course, there are lots of more positive reasons to use the library. Libraries help you spend the money you do have more wisely, whether you're planning to make a significant consumer purchase, or are trying to explore investment opportunities.
In addition to all our more traditional offerings -- informational and recreational materials of all sorts, reference assistance, and children's services -- libraries also offer a rich tapestry of free family programming. You can explore everything from history to crafts, right here in your backyard.
What is the fiscal picture for the Douglas Public Library District? Well, we are not dependent on sales tax. Almost all of our revenue comes from property taxes. Property values are less volatile than sales. So when the economy slows down, library districts get enough notice to prepare themselves.
Here's how I size up our changing fiscal climate: revenues, while still growing, are flattening. Next year, we'll see a real increase of about 8.9% in tax receipts -- but balance that against over a 30% increase in use.
What does that mean? We have just about wrapped up all the capital projects we promised voters back in 1996 -- and have in fact done better than our promises. But once we open our storefront in Roxborough, and once we complete our new Philip S. Miller Library in Castle Rock, our capital reserves will be gone.
At this point in the library's development, our focus has begun to shift from outward expansion (capital) to internal infrastructure and productivity (operations). Incidentally, that's exactly what we said would happen when we last went back to the voters: we'd build some libraries, then have enough money to run them.
The challenge of the next several years will be how to stay focused on growing community needs, with an eye toward wringing maximum use from existing resources.
But, you know, libraries are pretty good at that.
Wednesday, December 4, 2002
December 4, 2002 - A Child's Christmas in Wales
The library has a tape of Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet, reading his "A Child's Christmas in Wales." I've been listening to it as I drive.
Thomas, the preternaturally gifted wordsmith, is mesmerizing. On the one hand, he's definitely telling a story, the story of many Christmases in Wales, from the standpoint of a young boy. It's funny and charming.
On the other hand, the sheer, compelling beauty and strangeness of the language sometimes overwhelms the listener with phrases like these:
"All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea" "We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows -" "I mean that the bells the children could hear were inside them." "...sometimes two hale young men, with big pipes blazing, no overcoats and wind blown scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up an appetite, to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves until nothing of them was left but the two furling smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars."
We Americans often lose track of the real meaning of poetry. It's too easy, particularly in the holiday season, to relegate it to greeting card sentiments. Real poetry -- and anything by Thomas certainly qualifies -- is about something else. It's about a heightened sense of reality, of language so pure and powerful that it changes us as we listen to it.
To celebrate this fine work, published in 1955, the Douglas Public Library District's own theatre troupe, Page to Stage Productions, will present several performances of "A Child's Christmas in Wales" around the district. The show will be presented by library staff in a reader's theater setting. All of the performances are free.
Here are the places and times:
December 3: The Lone Tree Library at 6:30 pm
December 4: The Highlands Ranch Library at 7 pm
December 5: The Parker Library at 7 pm
December 11: The Philip S. Miller Library at 7 pm
Page to Stage Productions presents theatre performances based on treasured literature throughout the year. The performances are recommended for anyone from the age of 8 and up.
It's my hope that such programs will encourage families to dig out more treasures from our collection. In fact, I hope they take it one step farther, and actually read them aloud to each other at home. While there's something to be said for gathering around the television in your pjs to watch yet another, "It's a Wonderful Life," there's something even more engaging about reading to each other by the fireplace, or the Christmas tree.
The season is a time to build memories, and what better memory than the sound of beloved voices, probing the rhythms and insights of great literature?
Thomas, the preternaturally gifted wordsmith, is mesmerizing. On the one hand, he's definitely telling a story, the story of many Christmases in Wales, from the standpoint of a young boy. It's funny and charming.
On the other hand, the sheer, compelling beauty and strangeness of the language sometimes overwhelms the listener with phrases like these:
"All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea" "We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows -" "I mean that the bells the children could hear were inside them." "...sometimes two hale young men, with big pipes blazing, no overcoats and wind blown scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up an appetite, to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves until nothing of them was left but the two furling smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars."
We Americans often lose track of the real meaning of poetry. It's too easy, particularly in the holiday season, to relegate it to greeting card sentiments. Real poetry -- and anything by Thomas certainly qualifies -- is about something else. It's about a heightened sense of reality, of language so pure and powerful that it changes us as we listen to it.
To celebrate this fine work, published in 1955, the Douglas Public Library District's own theatre troupe, Page to Stage Productions, will present several performances of "A Child's Christmas in Wales" around the district. The show will be presented by library staff in a reader's theater setting. All of the performances are free.
Here are the places and times:
December 3: The Lone Tree Library at 6:30 pm
December 4: The Highlands Ranch Library at 7 pm
December 5: The Parker Library at 7 pm
December 11: The Philip S. Miller Library at 7 pm
Page to Stage Productions presents theatre performances based on treasured literature throughout the year. The performances are recommended for anyone from the age of 8 and up.
It's my hope that such programs will encourage families to dig out more treasures from our collection. In fact, I hope they take it one step farther, and actually read them aloud to each other at home. While there's something to be said for gathering around the television in your pjs to watch yet another, "It's a Wonderful Life," there's something even more engaging about reading to each other by the fireplace, or the Christmas tree.
The season is a time to build memories, and what better memory than the sound of beloved voices, probing the rhythms and insights of great literature?
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