March
2004 NEWSLETTER
Volume 9, No. 3
Youth Council
Youth Council meets every Monday from 6:00-7:30 p.m. On video nights, meetings
dismiss at 8:00. Grades 4-6 met Feb. 16 and viewed SINBAD. Youth in grades 7-12
met on the 23rd to view Radio. Parents/Caregivers must sign consent forms and
return them to the library giving permission for their child/children to view
PG or PG 13 videos/DVD’s. On March 1st both youth council groups, grades
4-6 and grades 7-12, are excited to have a combined meeting to listen and learn
about the Special Response Team/Swat Team from Tyson Warmoth. March birthday’s
will be celebrated following a very short business meeting.
TASTE
OF HOME SAMPLER – March 1 food selections include Pecan Chicken
Casserole, Salmon Casserole, Meatloaf for a Mob, Beefy Cornbread, Colcannon
Irish Potatoes, Beansprout Spinach Salad, Colby Hashbrowns, Pink Bonnet Gelatin,
Raisin Waldorf Salad, Apple Nut Coffee Cake, Green Onion Biscuits, and Artichoke
Nibbles.
The next Taste of Home Sampler will be May 3 at 6-7:00 p.m. Let us know what
recipe you will bring from the current issue of Taste of Home, Quick Cooking,
or Light and Tasty. Bring your own table service. The library provides beverages
and copies of all recipes.
BUILDING OUR FUTURE ON THE FOUNDATION
OF THE PAST: BUILDING PROJECT UPDATE
When the interior temporary lights were on during recent evenings, you were
able to see through newly installed windows. The drywall has been hung, and
taping/spackling is in progress. The big box on the east side is the transformer,
and the underground conduit for phone service and underground electrical service
has been installed. The addition to the library is being connected to the town’s
water supply. Most of the work for the next two weeks will not be visible but
will include work with HVAC and plumbing equipment, installation of gas service,
and more drywall work. A brick mock up will be constructed so that the best
colors of brick to match our Carnegie 1914 library may be determined. The library
staff is planning to move into the new addition during the last week of May
(no later than June 4-22, which is the scheduled move). You will want to put
Tuesday, May 11, 7:30 p.m. on your calendar. That is the annual Friends of Thorntown
Public Library membership meeting. This year’s program will include election
of officers, TOUR of the almost finished addition to the library, plant swap,
book sale, and refreshments.
PAVER DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MARCH 15
If you did not get your reservation in for the engraved paving bricks that will
be placed on the east side of the expanded library, there is still time. The
cost is $23.00 for three lines of type, 14 characters per line. This is a good
way to be sure that 100 years from now your name/organization is remembered
in the community. We were able to secure an extension of the deadline and still
meet our installation timetable. Payment should be made to the Friends of the
Thorntown Library.
Spring Storytime
The National Education Association celebrates READ ACROSS AMERICA annually on
Dr. Seuss’s March 2nd birthday. This year the program coincides with Dr.
Seuss’s 100th birthday. On March 2, everyone is challenged to wear a Dr.
Seuss hat or any hat to promote reading and the importance of motivating children
and adults to make reading a life-long commitment. Library storytime programs
for March will celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday and a love for reading his
books and all of our favorites. The April Program theme is “The Magic
of Three”—stories that use 3 characters, events, or wishes. Storytimes
are being offered for children ages 3-5 on Tuesday afternoons from 1:00-1:45
p.m. and Wednesday mornings from 10:00-10:45 a.m.
CHESS PLAYERS WANTED: Chess for all ages – on the second Tuesday of each month, 6:30-8:00. If you want a partner or you want to learn the game, join us on March 9.
Adult Book Discussion – March 15, 2:30-3:30
p.m.
The March 15 novel will be The Five People You Meet in Heaven and discussion
will be led by Karen Niemeyer. In this book Eddie dies on his 83rd birthday
while saving a little girl from a falling cart. He learns that heaven is a place
where your earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it.
Future meeting dates will be April 19, May 17, June 21, July 19, August 16, September 20, October 18, and November 15, 2004.
Home Repair 101 - March 13, 2:30-3:30 p.m.
The first in a possible series of programs on basic, minor household repair
skills will be taught at the library on March 13 at 2:30 p.m. Planning for the
program began when single women began saying, ‘I wish I knew how to use
a drill in order to insert those plastic things in the wall so I could hang
heavy pictures” and “One of my wise men has lost his head; how do
I fix him?”
The class is being coordinated by Thorntown resident John Klyce, who is involving other area handymen and local hardware store owner Joe Martin. It is anticipated that a list of available home repair services will be included, and names of businesses are being sought for this listing.
Library Director Karen K. Niemeyer states, “Like most women, I want to be able to hang pictures safely without doing major damage to walls. I want to be able to replace caulk around the tub or shower when necessary. I want to be able to re-glue a loose piece of laminate. Note that there are five operative words: want to be able to. I may not choose to do the work, but I want to be able to do so, should I make the choice to do it myself rather than trouble a neighbor or hire it done. I have been fortunate to have learned how to use a drill, but I was nervous about inserting a molly into the wall. How do I match the screw size to the molly when they are not in a prepackaged set? I got it done, but the second pilot hole resulted in the drill jerking out of my hand at head height. When I finally got it reversed and started backing it out of the wall, pink plastic stuff (insulation) started coming out also. A year later, the mollies are still in the wall and the heavy picture is safely hanging, but when a local female business owner called and said, ‘I wish you would offer a class on home repair for women,’ the die was cast.”
“As we talked about the possibilities for such a series, we soon discovered that there is an additional market to consider: senior citizens or others with small or weaker hands. Some of the men who will be the trainers met during a recent Taste of Home Sampler session at the library, and we there discovered that there was yet another market: men who said, ‘I don’t know how to do that—I’d like to come too.’ We refuse to call it ‘Home Repair for Dummies’; ‘Home Repair for the Inexperienced’ seemed klutzy. It obviously had passed beyond our initial ‘Home Repair for Women.’
I had been reading ‘Dare to Repair’, written by two women for women and other novice repair persons, but we did not want to steal the book title, so we are selecting the very unoriginal title ‘Home Repair 101: When and How to Make Repairs and When to Call for Help.’ “
Reservations for this program will be appreciated but not required.
KNITTING
There are two opportunities to learn knitting at the library. Betty Brackemyre
teaches knitting every Tuesday from 6-8:00 p.m. We need to know if a beginner
is planning to attend so that supplies may be provided. This group usually meets
by the library fireplace.
On the first Monday of every month (March 1, April 5, May 3), 6:30-8:00 p.m., Melanie Lietz will offer an opportunity for area residents to enrich their knitting and crocheting lives with new friends, help with current projects, and a pattern every month. The cost of this “Knitting and Crocheting Club” is $5.00 per month. Melanie will answer questions, give hands-on help, and provide original designs (patterns) each month. Special classes will be taught by arrangement.
Winter Reading Celebration
On Monday, March 15 at 4:00 all preschool youth to and including sixth grade
participants in the It’s S’no Time Like Winter For Reading Program
will meet in the youth department to celebrate their reading accomplishments.
Youth will enjoy making a craft and sharing stories. Prizes will be awarded,
snacks enjoyed, and a surprise visitor will appear!
YOUTH CLUELESS MYSTERY CLUB
Club members and their guests will meet for an interactive mystery on Thursday,
March 18th in the youth department. New Mexico is the setting for the History
Mystery, “The Puzzle at Pecos”. Four different groups of people
influenced New Mexican culture: Native Americans, Mexican, Spanish, and American.
Each of these groups enriched our country and that region’s culture. Solving
clues to this mystery will be easier by knowing another language and having
the ability to crack codes. Clue members are asked to think of an artifact that
has been passed down to them or one that they would like to pass on to future
generations. Write a description of your artifact and share with the club the
importance of the artifacts to you and your family. You may want to read about
the Rio Grande and the History of New Mexico before coming to the program. Pueblo
Indian snacks will be provided.
Assignment Alert
The youth department (and adult staff too) are buzzing around helping youth
meet their assignment requirements. Our staff has been busy helping students
locate information for their reports on Native Americans, Decades, Science Fair
Experiments, Countries, and Pioneer Days. Our goal is to provide library materials
that will be good resources for the students. Alerting us to the upcoming assignment
is appreciated and helps the staff prepare to meet their needs. Our hats are
off to the teachers and students who keep us informed.
Youth Cook
We had 9 children participate in Youth Cook in February. The children made Strawberry
Shortcake, and Valentine Dessert for Two. Our next Youth Cook will be Wednesday
March 3rd at the Thorntown United Methodist Church from 4-5:30 p.m.
REFERENCE DEPARTMENT RAMBLINGS by Fern
Over the weekend the information seekers at my house discussed how unusual it
is to have 5 Sunday’s in February. It had to be a Leap Year, we knew,
but how often does it occur? Off to the trusty World Almanac, a book full of
all kinds of information in the Reference area. In the index in the back, I
looked for Calendar, perpetual. There it was—a series of 12 calendars
(in very tiny print), accompanied by a chart which lists the years and to which
numbered calendar to go. There I found that 5 Sunday’s in February occur
in 1824, 1852, 1880, 1920, 1948, 1976, 2004, 2032, and 2060. A Perpetual Calendar
is also good for finding what day of the week you were born. You might not want
to plan your wedding on April 1, no matter if it does fall on a favored weekend
time. You can find when your anniversary will fall again on the same day of
the week you were married. No question is too strange for us to try to answer!
IVAN CD-ROM PACKAGE: an expanded service
Every other month the library receives a Package of CD-Rom’s to loan to
our customers. The size of the package has increased from 20 to 35 titles! If
you are not familiar, an individual title contains a notebook, one or more CD’s,
a User’s Guide, and accompanying material. If you discover that some pieces
are missing, be sure to let us know. When you return these, we appreciate if
you carefully check to be sure all the components are included—because
after two months here, they are rotated to another library. This is one of the
fine services the library pays for.
Package 24 (received about mid-February) will be available until April 5. These CD-Rom’s circulate for 2 weeks, and will incur a 50 cents per day late fee. The package includes items for all ages. Many of the titles are by popular producers, such as Disney, using the characters Aladdin, Mickey Mouse, and Winnie the Pooh. Hoyle Card Games, Healing Herbs, Star Trek, Einstein, World’s Greatest Classic Books, and Backyard Football are titles which will appeal to a different audience.
An annotated list of the titles is posted close by the display near the other new materials. Look for some of this collection to be housed in the Children’s Department. Due to limited space in both departments, we have divided the loan—but you may check out CD-ROM’s from both locations. The library also owns a permanent collection. The rental collection was designed so that you could preview titles that you might want to purchase for your home.
Secret Garden Club
The youth department has scheduled the first meeting of the Secret Garden Club
for Monday, April 12 at 4:00-5:30 p.m. and will continue to meet April 19, 26,
and May 3rd. Copies of the first selection, THE SECRET GARDEN by Frances Hodgson
Burnett, are available through the youth department. In The Secret Garden, Mary,
Colin, and Dickon all loved the peace and solitude of having a place like the
garden as their own secret place. Where is your secret place? Why would you
go to your secret place? When would you go to your secret place? What would
you do in your secret place? Would you tell anyone about your secret place?
What does your secret place look like? Please sign up in the youth department
and read the book prior to our first meeting. Activities relating to the book
and the characters favorite foods from the SECRET GARDEN COOKBOOK will be enjoyed.
NEW MATERIALS
Adult Videotapes
Adult DVD’s
Adult - Fiction
Recorded Books
Juvenile DVD’s
For a more complete
list of new materials including books-on-tape, music CD’s, etc. go to
the library’s web site at:
Updated 2 March 2004/ llw