Library users frequently ask whether the library sponsors any book clubs. Up till now, the answer has been no, but Adult Services Librarian Richard Groves is having a get together on August 5 to explore the idea with like-minded people. If you think you’d like to be part of a book club, or if you just want to meet other readers, come to the mixer. It will start at 7 p.m., in the Hewlett Room.

The Books for Texans Book Club has been meeting for several months now and they always welcome new participants. The next meeting will be on Tuesday, July 15, from 7-8 p.m., in the Hewlett Room. The book this month is J. Frank Dobie’s Tales of Old Time Texas. Feel free to attend the meeting even if you haven’t read the month’s selection. But, start reading now to get ready for September. The selection is Isaac’s Storm, by Erik Larson. The “storm” is the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and Larson’s book is based on the diaries of Isaac Monroe Cline.

Chess players of all ages and skill levels are invited to attend the initial meeting of what is expected to become a chess club that will meet regularly at the library. Herb Baumann is leading this effort. He envisions regular meetings to learn, play, and improve your skills along with occasional day-long tournaments. The library is cooperating to help get this group going by providing space for the meetings.

The first meeting will be on Tuesday, July 15, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., in the library classroom on the second floor. For more information, contact Herb Baumann at 512-743-8908 or herbbwon@yahoo.com.

For complete details, see the calendars on the library website, or pick up paper copies of the calendars in the children’s room. Some of the programs for the younger set (up through age 12) include:

· Trixie Bond’s magic show on Wednesday, July 9, 10:30 a.m.;

· Mad Science on Wednesday, July 16, 10:30 a.m.;

· Scott Sutton’s drawing lessons on Wednesday, July 23, 10:30 a.m.; and

· Jungle Jim’s bugs on Wednesday, July 30, 10:30 a.m.
The grand finale this year will be on Saturday, August 2, beginning at 2:00 p.m. Jungle Jill and the Jaybird Band headline the afternoon’s entertainment.

Teens

An exciting event for the teens will be the rocket launching program on Friday, July 11, from 4-6 p.m. A special Parks Department team with lots of experience will provide the materials and expertise for building the rockets and then will be in charge of the launches.

Quieter teen entertainment will take place from 4-5 p.m. on Wednesday, July 23, when chocolate tasting will be the event. Chocolate and drinks will be furnished.

Inspired by National Public Radio’s StoryCorps program, Eric Lashley, director of the Georgetown Public Library, began thinking more than six months ago about how the library might take the lead in creating and storing oral histories from Georgetown’s residents. The difficult question, though, was where to begin such a major undertaking—should there be a unifying thread to the first people to be interviewed, or should capturing the memories of our community’s oldest members come first, regardless of what their area of expertise might be?

Then, in February, Mr. Lashley attended Marsha Farney’s presentation, based on her newly completed doctoral dissertation, about the history of Georgetown’s schools. Her presentation focused on the school that existed until the 1960s for African-American children. Judging from the discussion that took place after the presentation, it seemed clear to Mr. Lashley that there were many people who wanted to share their memories of the old Marshall/Carver School.

A short time later, Mr. Lashley presented his idea of an oral history project focused on the black school and desegregation to Ms. Farney, Chris Dyer, director of the Williamson County Museum, and Paulette Taylor, who attended the school. As a result of their enthusiastic help, knowledge of the school’s history, and suggestions of people to contact, the library will host a kickoff program—Personal Reflections on Desegregation in Georgetown–on Saturday, August 16, at 2:00 p.m. in the Hewlett Community Room of the library.

The program will consist of a panel discussion, moderated by Ms. Farney, among five members of our community who have graciously agreed to share their memories: Birdie Shanklin, Harvey Miller, Paulette Taylor, Doug Benold, and Norman Spellmann, all of whom were personally touched by Georgetown’s struggle to desegregate its schools. After the panel discussion, the forum will be opened to the audience for questions and comments. The primary purpose of the kickoff program, though, is to identify persons who are willing, at a later date, to participate in recorded individual interviews that will focus on the history of the black school, the issues that affected desegregation in Georgetown, and the experiences of the students, both black and white, as the schools were integrated.

After the kickoff program, the library will rely on more volunteers to make the oral history project a success. Mr. Dyer, who has professional experience doing oral histories, will train people to conduct the interviews. The interviews will be recorded in digital format, to give them the longest possible technological life, and they also will be transcribed to create a hard copy. Volunteers will be needed to do the interviewing, handle the recording process, and to do the transcriptions.

For more information about the August 16 program, to volunteer to be interviewed, or to volunteer to help with any aspect of the interviews, contact Judy Fabry, the library’s administrative assistant, at 512-930-3552, or by email at jkf@georgetowntx.org.

On Saturday, August 16, at 2:00 p.m. in the Hewlett Room, five generous long-time residents of Georgetown—Douglas Benold, Harvey Miller, Birdie Shanklin, Norman Spellman, and Paulette Taylor–will share their memories about life in this little town during the 1950s and ‘60s. The main topic will be the school system, which until 1967 was segregated.

Marsha Farney, who in 2007 completed her doctoral dissertation, “Promoting the Progress of Education: The History of Georgetown Public Schools, 1850-1966,” will be the moderator for the panel discussion. After the panelists respond to some specific questions, the audience will be invited to participate with questions and comments.

The library is sponsoring this event to kick off a larger oral history project focusing on Marshall-Carver and Westside Schools and the political, economic and social issues that affected desegregation. The library director hopes that the panel discussion will encourage others to volunteer to participate in recorded interviews, sharing their experiences and memories related to these subjects. Other volunteers will be needed, including persons willing to conduct interviews (training will be provided), help with the recording equipment and processes, and transcribe the recorded interviews (training will be provided). If you are interested in sharing your memories or helping preserve them, contact Eric Lashley at 512-930-3551 or epl@georgetowntx.org, or Judy Fabry at 512-930-3552 or jkf@georgetowntx.org.

Have you noticed the “You Asked…We Responded” section on the large bulletin board in the lobby near the checkout desk? You’ll find posted here the responses of the director or other staff persons to comments that are left in the Suggestion Box. And, in case you’ve missed the Suggestion Box, it’s a low-budget acrylic cube with a slot, located on the table next to the book return, right below the bulletin board.

Reading through the responses to others’ comments is a good way to learn more about how the library operates. These comments and suggestions help the staff to realize that what seems obvious to us is often a mystery to our users. In most cases we’re delighted to be able to share information with you that we probably don’t realize you need or desire. Other suggestions make us think about how we do things—and why—and we realize there might be a better way.

The best comment or suggestion is very specific, or explains in some detail the event that occurred that prompted the comment. Just saying “too noisy” isn’t very helpful if we don’t know when the comment was written or in what area the writer encountered the noise. The fact is that some areas of the library will always be noisy, but we’ve tried to create quiet areas, too, so we need to know exactly where you were when you decided the library was too noisy.

The one comment we receive over and over is about the shortage of parking for the library. We are very well aware of this problem and have done what we can to alleviate it. We now have permission for library patrons to park in the grass lot at 8^th and MLK when our parking lot is full. We realize this may not be the solution you had in mind—and we certainly hope it’s not the final solution—but it’s the best we can do right now.

The library has always had to depend heavily on gifts, primarily from the Friends of the Library and the Dell Foundation, to provide the hardware for our public access computers. Recently, completely unsolicited and to our great surprise, the Dell Foundation made us an offer we couldn’t refuse—as many flat-screen, LED monitors as we wanted, in whatever size we wanted. We didn’t have to write a grant proposal or give evidence of any particular need. All we had to do was pick up the monitors at the Dell warehouse. The offer seemed so amazing that we checked back with the contact person to make sure we’d understood correctly.

This great stroke of luck provided the new monitors that we were expecting to have to purchase later this year, when our contract with the vendor who supplies our public access hardware and software, will be renewed. Under that contract, the vendor supplies the CPUs and the keyboards for our thirty-eight workstations, but we have to furnish the monitors. By November, many of our monitors will have been in use 10-12 hours per day for three years. Already they are beginning to fail, so Dell’s gift couldn’t have come at a better time. We are grateful beyond words.

In May we inaugurated the Welcome Desk—that movable desk that presently is located next to the checkout queue area. Its primary purpose was to make a friendly staff member easily accessible to anyone who comes through the entrance and is uncertain about where to go to find a specific resource, whether it is a new library card, a book, the restroom, or directions to the County tax office. Lines at the checkout and information desks are often long and there is no reason for someone to have to wait in those lines for what is, perhaps, a one word answer to a simple question.

Two months later, reality has set in. We quickly learned that most people who come through the library’s doors don’t need immediate help and, in fact, some seemed downright annoyed when the staff person at the Welcome Desk greeted them. Staff who worked the Welcome Desk had great difficulty balancing trying to look “available” while doing anything besides just sitting and smiling at everyone. So, we added a computer, to make it possible for the Welcome Desk person to answer reference questions or questions about materials in our collection. Once the computer was available it didn’t take long until staff at the Welcome Desk also were checking out materials for people when both of the regular checkout stations were busy.

Today, the smiling person at the Welcome Desk will help you with nearly all library services—except pulling the book you have on hold. That task still must be done by the staff members behind the circulation desk. (However, our entire system for handling holds will be changing this fall, in a way that we believe will be an improvement you’ll applaud. Watch the newsletter, our website, and the local newspaper for more details about that in the very near future.)