Celia’s Eleventh Blog for Library Systems Class - THANK YOU, Dr. Ball

This week proved to me that I am gaining not only knowledge from my MLS classes but also confidence in my ability. A patron came in who is a powerful mover and shaker in the town and who for a long time did not approve of me as Library Director. He said that he had a research question for me. "Why are barns red?" I thought that I would have time to find the answer but he wanted me to come up with an answer on the spot. I was able to stay calm and look it up on my computer. He was impressed when I gave him his answer in a short time. (In case you are wondering, it started in the 1800's when they added blood from slaughtered animal or rust (to prevent mold and ivy from growing on the barn walls) to the stain (linseed oil) that was put on the barns to protect it. This thus turned the barn a red /orange color not the bright red of today.) After I read this to the patron, he asked me to print it off so he could take it with him since he wanted to share it with the people he got into the discussion with while driving a man to his doctor's appointment and those working in the doctor's office. The page I printed off for him happened to have a picture of a barn on it that was very decorated so he wanted me to find out why barns are decorated they way they are so I went back to the website I found the original barn information from and with some further digging found that there are two areas of thought on this. One is that they are decorated purely for aesthetic purposes and the other is to ward off evil with the hexagonal shapes. With these answers, I think I was able to actually impress the patron. For a man who gave me a very, very hard time when I was first started this is a real boost to me and to the library. So a big Thank You to Dr. Ball and her Online Searching Class for giving me the confidence to pull this test off.

I spent most of the week working on designing and implementing a website for kids at the Roanoke Public Library. I am adding pages to promote the programs, events and other items that we have available. I am collecting permission and information from area organizations to add to the site also. I have asked all the area schools, the boy and girl scouts, 4-H, visitors' bureau, local chambers, and sport organizations. So far they have all been very cooperative. I don't want to add links without permission. Everyone that I have shown the site I'm making are excited about it. One of my board members is especially pleased as he has been asked many questions about the library and its events as he has been volunteering at the American Legion. This process has been fun, frustrating, and very informative. I can't believe how much I am learning and how much is actually possible. I find that I am really getting into wiki. I love how they allow interactivity and make the pages come alive.

The circulation computer at the library has Microsoft Office 2007 on it which the library was able to purchase at $20 a computer from TechSoup. I have used Publisher to make the library's brochures but not much more. My assistant was using Word to make a paper to insert into a kit we were sent for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners to prepare them for entering school. These are the first kits that the library has that it is planning to circulate. The point of this is that the Word only has a very few fonts on it. It doesn't seem to be downloaded correctly. I have tried to repair it and tried to add more areas to it. Neither of these has worked. I think that I am going to have to completely remove it and then download it again and hope that the bugs in it go away. Computer and computer programs are great when they work and such a major pain when they don't!!!