Recently, Kandi Wilson and I attended the Kansas Library Association’s annual meeting in Wichita. This is a great conference to hear about all the wonderful things Kansas librarians are doing and bring back some of their great ideas to our library.
One idea was to remind folks about Giving Tuesday. Giving Tuesday is Tuesday, November 29th, and encourages people to donate to organizations and charities. You can donate to large national organizations, or you can keep your donations local and give to Chanute charities and organizations, like the library!
Library donations can general donations or for specific purposes, like purchasing new children’s books or for adult programming. Our biggest projects include installing new security cameras and saving up for a better HVAC system. Both will cost a pretty penny but will ultimately serve our patrons and community by keeping the library safe and ensuring we can stay in our beautiful building for years to come.
In other library news, we are continuing our Food for Fines program. If you have fines from the Chanute Public Library, bring in a non-perishable food item or three ramen type noodle packages, and get $1 off your fines! Expired items will not be accepted and only count for Chanute Library fines. Food items will be distributed to food pantries throughout Chanute. Food for Fines ends December 3rd.
We’ve also had some changes in library staff. I am the new library director and Kaleigh Feldman is our new Children’s Librarian Assistant. We’ve also added some new part-time and full-time hires so stop by and say hello to all our new faces!
Some upcoming events: Story Time on Tuesday at 10 am (ages 3 & 4, must be signed up); Rhyme Time on Fridays at 10 am (babies and toddlers, come and go); weekly children’s programs every Thursday at 4 pm; adult crafts on November 8th at 5:30 pm; Writers Group on November 10th at 5:30 pm; Teen Crafts and Select-It-Yourself Book Club (we’re doing food memoirs!) on November 15th at 5:30 pm. We will close early at 1 pm on Wednesday, November 23rd, and be closed Thursday, November 24th, and Friday, November 25th, for Thanksgiving. We will start holiday programming after Thanksgiving.
We have a bunch of new books coming soon, including delicious cookbooks and cozy Christmas stories but I’m mostly excited for the new Tom Felton and Alan Rickman memoirs (if you know me, you know I’m a huge Harry Potter fan!).
Here are some other great new releases: Racing the Light by Robert Crais; No Plan B by Lee Child; Thief of Fate by Jude Deveraux; The Last Chairlift by John Irving; The Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham; Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng; Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver; Livid by Patricia Cornwell; Triple Cross by James Patterson; Going Rogue by Janet Evanovich.
Since I was a children’s librarian, I don’t know adult books nearly as well, so if anyone has suggestions for adult books, magazines, graphic novels, etc., let me know!