It's beginning to look alot like - SPRING!!!!

Yeah! Springtime! It couldn't come soon enough. For this area we had a lot of snow this year, maybe not in inches, but in frequency!

But I can tell Spring must be just around the corner because already activity is picking up. I have hired JM's replacement (see last post), and gotten her started on her training. (JM has also come back 2 times to train DS and she will come one more time.) Then the end of February we had our annual booksale. We did all the usual advertising, but we had very poor results this year - the least since I started working here. Now this weekend is "Campus Preview" (where highschoolers come and look us over) and our annual play. (This year it's Pirates of Penzance.)

I had my bi-monthly library committee meeting last week. We are working on our department manual - or I should say - I am. Then I take it to the committee for review, discussion and/or approval. I was hoping I had it all done, but alas, no - I need to take our objectives and plug them into the feedback and assessment procedure page.

I have been trying since I came to get the Friends of the Library revived. It has been to no avail. I'm not good at marketing and really don't know what I can do or do differently that would solve the problem. This institution being a private, christian school (Bible College) really limits me as to who I can go out to and bring in. The booksale is technically an FOL project to raise money. If I disband FOL, and continue the sale - what will happen to the money? Will the library be able to keep using it for special projects? Or will the administration step in and say (in essence) 'hand it over.'? If that happens it will be put in the Big Black Hole called the Pot and disappear! It won't stay compartmentalized.

Now, on top of that, I have a buyer who wants to buy the inventory I have left over from the sale. He wants to purchse it for 10 cents a book! We normally hold over the books from one year to the next as we do not get enough in, in one year to really make it worth having a book sale. We have about 7000 books, so I need to decide: do I want "this" or do I want "that." I have been picking the brains of fellow Christian librarians to see what is done in other colleges. It pretty much runs the gamit.

I just finished a meeting with our current (for one more day) webmaster. Our whole method of updating content is being totally overhauled and is becoming much more managable. For me that means I need to do some thinking of what I want on the library's page - what is most useful to our students today. I love computer/internet/website/technology. So I am looking forward to working on this task.

I have also gotten my budget for next year worked on and done. Procrastinator that I usually am, I have it already turned in - 9 days ahead of time. That must be a first. I also have an IPEDS report to finish. It is a report we make every 2-3 years to the government's Department of Education. It's due by the end of the month. I would have it finished but I am waiting on one bit of information on our Reserves transactions. When I get that I can go back into the IPEDS page put that in and another tidbit and, Voila!!, I'M DONE!

On a personal note, I did get to go to Anthony, Kansas last Saturday with my family to attend the Kansas wedding reception of a friend and fellow librarian. It was wonderful to see CG now CM and meet her new husband JM. They are into clogging and basically that's how their romance got its start. They were able to do a little demo for us with a third friend of theirs. It was really fun to watch. Only disappointment - CM didn't clog in her wedding dress like she did at the the reception following the wedding. She did have it on to start with, and she made a lovely looking bride. I hope to see her again at our annual Association of Christian Librarian's annual conference in Grand Rapids, MI in June.