LIBRARY LOUNGE

Make your own Mini Read Poster here. Then upload it to the Flickr Read Poster Group.

Anyone can count the seeds in an apple;
no one can count the apples in a seed.
Anonymous

Here is another new cool and free tool from Google:
Dial from any phone 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411)
State Your Location and Business Type you are looking for (pizza, plumber, hardware store, etc.)
The “voice” will list your options, you choose one and then it dials it for you for free.

The Rangeview Library District has a new mission statement and I think is is absolutely perfect!
“We Open Doors for Curious Minds”
It is short and sweet and every employee can easily remember it. It gives us so much to build on. Now down to the hard work of creating our values and goals ;0)
Mindy

After a long year’s work (for me - many years for the Board & others) it is finally finished - now the real work begins as we break ground this Summer!

Rangeview Library District Closes on $43M in Funding for Capital Projects

Adams County, Colorado — The Rangeview Library District successfully completed the sale of $42.9 million of certificates of participation (COPs). The district will use the funds to finance construction of four new branch libraries and the renovation and expansion of three other branches in its system, located in Adams County. Rangeview’s board of trustees authorized the issuance of the certificates in early May. All the certificates sold soon after they were put on the market on June 4 by Stifel Nicolaus, underwriters of the Rangeview Library District’s capital construction project.

Rangeview Library District’s COPs are for a 22-year term with an average interest rate of 4.4 percent. The current low interest rate environment, plus an increase in Rangeview’s bond rating of A1/A+ in January 2008 from Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service, allowed the library district to borrow at very favorable terms.

Certificates of participation are lease-purchase funding vehicles where investors purchase a share of the lease revenues of a program rather than the bond being secured by those revenues. COPs have become a popular way, other than traditional bond sales, for municipal authorities to fund capital projects. Built facilities are leased back to the municipality until the lease is paid off.

The library system is funded separately from the county, by an earmarked property mill levy. In 2006, Adams County voters approved a mill levy property tax increase for the projects. The successful passage of the tax increase allowed Rangeview to go forward with its plans to borrow money for construction and expansion project.

The new constructions include a 7,000-square foot branch located in the town Bennett on the eastern plains, a 20,000-square foot downtown branch in the city of Brighton, a 25,000-square foot facility located at 94th Avenue and Huron Street, and a 45,000-square foot library at 120 Avenue between Jasmine and Holly Streets in the City of Thornton, that will also function as the district’s support services hub. The new buildings are slated to open in late 2009.

The district’s Commerce City, Perl Mack and Thornton branches are scheduled to benefit with a program of significant renovations and some space expansions in 2010, also funded through the COP sale.

The Rangeview Library District currently serves 415,000 people in Adams County with six branch libraries and a bookmobile. The county, situated northeast of the City and County of Denver, is the fifth most populous in Colorado. It is predicted to be the fastest-growing Colorado county over the next 20 years. The library district has not had a new library branch since the late 1970s.

Some days I wonder if I am in the right job in the library. I became a librarian because I wanted to help people and make a difference in their lives. Once in a while I get to actually help a customer in the library and it feels really, really good but it is not what I do best. What I do best is manage a part of the Library and sometimes it is a very lonely and disconnected feeling/job. Then I read the perfect article like Mary Pergander’s Living the Dream (Working Knowledge column, page 69) in the May 2008 issue of American Libraries. The whole article is a good wake up call but my favorite part is this, “Whether serving patrons directly or in support services out of the public eye, the work we perform matters, and we make a difference in the lives of those served by our efforts.” I think I’ll post this quote on my wall so that I can look at it when I am struggling to find the money in the budget to make everyone happy.

“You don’t become a librarian when you get a library degree. You become one when you decide that’s what you are.”

Jamie LaRue
The Next Chapter: Reinventing Myself at the Library
Colorado Libraries v. 34 No. 1 2008

From my Starbucks Cup this morning:

“So-called “global warming” is just a secret ploy by wacko tree-huggers to make America energy independent, clean our air and water, improve the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, kick-start 21st-century industries, and make our cities safer and more livable. Don’t let them get away with it!”
Chip Giller
Founder of Grist.org

Can’t come to Washington? You can still participate in National Library Legislative Day by organizing library supporters in your state to phone, fax, and email Congress on May 13 and 14.

Virtual Library Legislative Day communicates the needs of libraries to Congress and increases the impact of the National Library Legislative Day in Washington, DC. Organizing is easy!

Go to http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washevents/nlld/virtuallibrarylegislativeday/vlld.cfm for more information.

“James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone. James Karl Buck sent a message using Twitter which helped get him out of an Egyptian jail. …a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested April 10. On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter. The message only had one word. “Arrested.” Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt — the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted that he was being held. Twitter is a social-networking blog site that allows users to send status updates, or “tweets,” from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook in less than 140 characters.”

Mallory Simon, CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/25/twitter.buck/index.html