A couple of weeks ago the teens at the Annex were participated in our first ever "Rock Band" competition organized by Annex staffer Kali Merina. If the success of an event can be judged by the noise levels, this was a chart-topper (Apologies to our neighbors, especially the PV Board of Realtors who have the misfortune of being directly below the Annex. Next time we'll do it after normal business hours!)
Looks like fun, doesn't it!
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
Anyone visiting the Peninsula Center Library yesterday would have smelled the delicious odor of crepes wafting through the library as we celebrated our second annual French Film Festival in partnership with the Chadwick School International Cinema club (CHiC). Thanks to that partnership we were able to offer two days of wonderful film events coupled with a student art show and culminating in a full-house showing of La Vie En Rose.
A Chadwick -Merci!
Anyone visiting the Peninsula Center Library yesterday would have smelled the delicious odor of crepes wafting through the library as we celebrated our second annual French Film Festival in partnership with the Chadwick School International Cinema club (CHiC). Thanks to that partnership we were able to offer two days of wonderful film events coupled with a student art show and culminating in a full-house showing of La Vie En Rose.
A Chadwick -Merci!
Saturday some of our intrepid staff and volunteers did their best bug impersonations at the Rolling Hills Estates Holiday Parade. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures from the parade itself, but you can see some of the costumes in these photos from the associated party!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathyanddongould/sets/72157603375393062/show/
The photos have also been added to the PVLD photo album to the right of this post….
Now I'm off to one of our two Holiday Music concerts this evening!
We are heading into an incredibly busy December here at PVLD. I am amazed at what the staff and volunteers are attempting:
Today (December 1st)
9AM – Laura Henry and Kathy Buchsbaum told holiday stories for well over 150 people at the Avenue of the Peninsula (local shopping center) breakfast with Santa
10AM – Fire Safe Landscaping program at Peninsula Center Library AND all-ages Knit-a-thon at the Annex. Well over 50 people attended each.
1PM – "Swazzle" puppet show at Miraleste Library. Its 1:45 as I write this, so I have no idea how many attended but my guess is a lot!
5PM – Staff and volunteer holiday party, including marching in the Rolling Hills Estates Holiday Parade
December 4th
10 AM – O.W.L. program on buying holiday gifts for grandchildren at the Annex
7 PM -- Holiday Music series kicks off with "dueling concerts"! Trio featuring Harpist Ashlin at Peninsula Center Library AND the Miraleste Intermediate School vocal ensemble at Miraleste Lib
December 5th
7 PM – Holiday music concert with jazz pianist Dan Platus AND Peninsula Friends of the Library biennial meeting. Both at Peninsula Center Library
December 6th
7PM – Les Choristes. Part of our foreign film series in partnership with Chadwick School
December 7th
3:45 PM – Holiday Music concert with the Palos Verdes Intermediate School Pep Band at Malaga Cove Library
December 8th
11 AM – "Reggie: My Story" Book talk and signing with author Angi Ma Wong at Peninsula Center Library
1 PM – Windows to Vietnam: A Journey in Pictures and Verse at Peninsula Center Library
December 10th
7PM – Holiday Music Concert with JJ's Sunset Syncopators at Peninsula Center Library
December 12th
4:30 PM – Holiday Music Concert with the Amuse Brass Ensemble at Malaga Cove Library
December 14th
4 PM – Holiday Music Concert – Piano Recital with Darlene Vlasek and students
December 15th
10 AM – American Girls holiday tea at Peninsula Center Library
2 PM – Reception and unveiling of our new public sculpture "Balancing Knowledge" at Peninsula Center Library
December 17th
7 PM – Holiday Music concert with Mark Fitchett and the Peninsula School of Music at Peninsula Center Library
December 18th
3 PM – Holiday Music Concert with Los Cancioneros Master Chorale at Peninsula Center Library
December 19th
4:30 PM – Carols and more with Stanford University a capella group "Testimony" – Afterwords Café at the Peninsula Center Library
December 20th
4 PM – Special holiday story time and visit from Santa at Malaga Cove Library
December 21st
4 PM – Holiday Music Concert with renowned pianist Anli Tong and students at Peninsula Center Library
WHEW! And that doesn't include our regular schedule of 15 story times each week, book discussion groups, chess club, history discussion group and everything else that goes on every month! It also doesn't include the many community activities that some of us participate in.
Wonder what we'll be doing between Christmas and New Years? Keeping the library open and trying to catch our breath!
This was on the "Gather No Dust" blog today - http://gathernodust.blogspot.com/
http://gathernodust.blogspot.com/2007/09/so-what-would-20-library-look-like.html
I loved the ideas for how to put control into the hands of our customers!
In a similar vein Helene Blowers of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County passed on an great comment about the learning libraries at http://www.librarybytes.com/2007/09/more-thoughts-on-learning-libraries.html
Yesterday at our Peninsula Center Library Advisory Committee ( a group of community members interested in the library) One of the committee members, a retired librarian, made an eloquent plea for us not to abandon the systems and structures (her example was the structure of a catalog that can be searched very much like a traditional card catalog) that older adults are familiar with. This generated an enrgetic energetic discussion about the challenge of serving the needs, skills, and learning/information seeking behaviors of our older community members vs the very different needs and behviors of other groups such as kids and teens. In this context I particularly appreciated the comment from Helene:
"A learning library should empower users to achieve their goals, not provide libraries with a means to push forward our own personal objectives (and yes, admit it... every organization has personal objectives that sometimes counter customer's needs - it's only natural).
I think the challenge here for many us in libraries is to realize that when we can abandon our own personal agendas in favor of our user's needs (and put them first at the top of the pyramid), we not only make our libraries more valuable to our community, but we also create a cascading effect that saturates the insecurities that drove those personal agendas in the first place.
BTW: The pyramid I see here is inverted with users filling up the the top plateau and library staff at the tiny pointed base, supporting this huge community through a flexible and adaptable balancing act that allows everyone to achieve success."
Now there's a challenge!
PVLD celebrated international Talk Like a Pirate Day today. The idea to celebrate originated from the Malaga Cove and Miraleste libraries and they had the biggest celebrations with staff in costume, games and prizes, and lots of nautical language. The pirate theme was less obvious at Peninsula Center, but still had pirate-themed story time and at least one piratical librarian. Thanks Jennifer Addington and branch staff for coming up with this idea. We hope the idea will catch on and more people will participate next year..and hopefully my day won't be so full of meetings outside the library that I can join in the fun! Stay tuned for Tattoo Day – coming soon!
Here are Branch Operations Manager Jennifer Addington and Young Readers Assistant Manager Kathy Buchsbaum –
It's hard to believe that a year has passed since the Annex opened! Yesterday the Annex staff celebrated with a birthday party - and I got the following email from Ali Orr last night -
"FYI today’s Annex Birthday Party was a huge success. We had 61 attendees! They ate 10 pizzas, played lots of games, 4 of them won cool prizes and (the best part of all) they even helped us clean up the popcorn which was *everywhere*. There were two boys who wanted to use the vacuum. We had to have them alternate so they both got to do it!
We also had quite a few new patrons – I would estimate around 10-12. I talked to a few parents who were quite excited to learn about the Annex and 3 seniors who said they had heard about the Annex and wanted to check it out. (Of course, I encouraged them to come back tomorrow morning for the OWL event.) "
As you can see from Ali's email older adults also think the Annex is cool! Today we are having our third event for OWLs (Older Wiser Livelier adults) at the Annex.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to making the Annex a success - especially the Peninsula Friends of the Library for providing funding and being willing to take the risk of a new venture, our partner Freedom4U who does such a great job of running the Annex on the weekends, the Annex staff past and present (Ali, Justin, Kristen, Kali, Ji, and Melanie), the Facilities staff for not only doing the construction work to create this fabulous space but also keeping it clean, and the Adult Services staff who have created the OWL program (especially Debra and Louise). THANK YOU!
On Tuesday PVLD hosted its inaugural event for "seniors" at the Annex (I hate that term but we've yet to come up with a better one...in our Strategic Plan we say "Boomers+"). About 35 people came to enjoy refreshments, video games, prizes, and more. The event made the front page of our local paper, the Palos Verdes Peninsula News - http://www.pvnews.com/articles/2007/07/26/local_news/news2.txt
It is great to see this space used for multiple purposes and since I was unable to attend I enjoyed seeing these photos of participants playing Wii and just enjoying the event!
http://www.slide.com/r/ezasaplZ5j95Z62aTWOq6u8ghXqOdSea?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original
Participants were asked to complete a brief survey to help us plan for future programs for older adults at the Annex and in our libraries. We're all looking forward to more events like this, and to collaborating with our local Seniors group, the Peninsula Seniors, to explore joint programs and multigenerational program opportunities.
Thank you to the dedicated staff members who planned this event - Debra Petersen, Phil Wesley, Ali Orr, Louise Beebe, and Erik Adams. Great job!
Helene Blowers of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County, and the originator of "Learning 2.0" is currently in Europe giving presentations on "Library 2.0". I thought the following presentation was a terrific overview of what is possible for libraries in the 21st century, and it is chock-full of great examples of what other libraries are doing. Enjoy - but bear in mind it is a BIG presentation and takes some time to download!
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