Can it be done?

The fifth week of the library’s summer reading program is slipping away and the reading totals are slowly inching up. There has been significant changes in the leader board since the last post, but there hasn’t been a tremendous jump in total minutes as many library staff members were hoping to see. The current standings are yellow in first place with 52,246.5 minutes, blue in second with 50,0470.5 minutes, purple in third with 50,299 minutes, and green in fourth with 47,844 minutes.  The minutes combine for 3,348 hours of reading, which is quite a respectable number. However, before any of us take a break from reading we must remember this year’s reading goal is 8,000 hours. Thus, we at the library ask the question: Can it be done?

Last year approximately 7,000 reading hours were recorded by the end of the program. With so many hours recorded we thought that 8,000 hours would be a challenging but obtainable goal this year. If we are to reach the reading goal by the end of the program next week Friday, each team needs to read 1,163 more hours or each individual needs to read about 10.5 hours. That’s about an hour a day of reading until next Friday arrives. The math shows it can be done so we believe our reading program participants will rise to the challenge. We know there are many minutes floating around yet to be turned in and there are always those determined readers who never give up. So please turn in minutes if you haven’t yet, and to those determined people I speak of, keep reading hard! Also, the reading title can still go to any team – blue proved this week they weren’t out for good after being down by almost 8,000 minutes recently. The end will be exciting and your minutes could make all the difference!

We have lift off!

A sleek silver rocket glints on its launch pad. The crowd anticipates hearing the roar of takeoff and seeing the beautiful trail of white smoke marking the rocket’s progress into the atmosphere. The countdown begins: “five … four …  three … two … One! The wait is over and the rocket streaks away on its mission. Unlike many of its bigger counterparts, this rocket isn’t taking off from an air force base or Cape Canaveral, nor is it headed to space to drop off a satellite or convey astronauts, it’s mission is to entertain.  For more than a decade model rockets have been lifting off and touching down on the Orange City soccer fields to the applause of adults, parents and children alike. In fact, between three hundred fifty and four hundred model rockets have taken to the skies since the library began its annual rocket launch night. Tonight, Tuesday – June 30, that tradition continues at 7:00 at the Orange City soccer fields by the community pool.

Launch night has always been entertaining and interactive for families and kids. While library staff load rockets and oversee the launch pads, children press the launch buttons and retrieve the rockets that slowly glide back to earth on their parachutes and streamers. Usually the flights go off with out incident or mishap, but every once in awhile a rocket takes off never to be seen again after being carried away by the wind or from falling into a pond near the golf course. Yet, this year will be even more entertaining as local model airplane enthusiasts will be flying their planes at the start and middle of the program. Between the rockets and the airplanes, it will be an exciting evening of flying.

On a completely different note, the summer reading minutes are adding up. Over 153,964 minutes or 2,566 hours have been read so far! Yellow leads with 40096.5 minutes, purple closely follows with 39887 minutes, green has 37,180 minutes, and blue is still dragging its feet in last place with 36800.5 minutes. Blue and green need to make up some ground and come on stong in the last two weeks of the reading program. We watched as the reading packets were handed out and noticed that blue and green have good readers on their teams, which means it will likely come down to the wire in the last week. We are all excited to see who can claim to be the 2009 summer reading champions!

A Lesson Learned

In the last post about the summer reading program I chided the purple reading team for a slow start, but times and totals have certainly changed. Purple now has a lead on the rest of the teams with 21,859 total minutes, green remains towards the top with 19,587 minutes, yellow has 16551.5 minutes, and blue claims last place at 14,610.5 minutes. The lesson I learned since the last post was to not be hasty in counting teams out. Thus, I won’t say anything about the blue or yellow teams and their totals. I know everyone is reading hard and doing their best to squeeze reading into busy summer schedules. Also, many adults amass minutes and wait until later to turn those in. So if you’re hoarding minutes please turn them in so we can keep the updates as accurate as possible.

The combined hours read as of Monday (6/22) morning is 1210.13. The library staff is looking forward to seeing the new totals by the end of the week because we would like to see the combined reading surpass 3,000 hours. That will be quite a jump from the current total but to be on pace to hit the goal of 8,000 minutes we need a big week.

Thanks for all your efforts so far and keep up the good work! Check back for an update at the end of the week!

The color purple…

Purple. What do you relate to the color purple? What words describe the color purple to you? The most common answer is royalty, wealth, or majesty. Other descriptives are warmth, wisdom, gentleness, and power. In Roman culture, only the emperor and highest dignitaries could wear purple. This was because purple dyes were very rare and hard to obtain, which made purple garments expensive and the perfect color to set apart someone of importance.  In American culture, purple is seen as a sign of valor and sacrifice since members of our armed forces are awarded the Purple Heart if they receive wounds in service of the country.

So why all this talk of purple and its descriptions? Well, as it stands currently, the purple summer reading team is last in minutes and has yet to crack the thousand minute reading mark. At the time of this post, Green team leads with 2,045 minutes, Yellow follows with 1,640, Blue has 1040, and Purple has logged 360 minutes. Since its only the first week of the reading program, purple doesn’t have to be extremely concerned, but the other teams have more than doubled purple’s total. My hope is that Friday and Saturday will bring a change and there are purple readers out there hoarding their first week minutes. However, if that isn’t true, then I’m afraid purple’s long standing tradition as a color of royalty, wisdom, valor, and dignity will be tarnished. Perhaps green will have to be the new purple or even yellow. I guess we’ll see what the future brings.

By the way, the Summer Reading Program is off to a decent start – it’s Thursday and almost 85 hours have been logged. Yet, the pace will need to be quickened in order to reach our goal of 8,000 total hours. So keep up the good work and read hard! The library staff is excited to watch the minutes accumulate and some of us have even picked our favorites to win. In spite of poking fun of purple, it would be exciting to see the team pull ahead and make a match of it. We’ll keep you posted on each team’s minutes and current standings.

You Scream… I Scream…

We all scream for ice cream.!  Shhh, you’re in the library!

This upcoming Monday, June 8th, marks the kickoff of our summer reading program, and we are celebrating with a magic show at 6:30  pm and an ice cream social at 7:30 pm.  The magician, Rick Eugene, will amaze kids and adults alike with his magic act and balloon creations.  Afterwards, everyone can perform magic of their own by making several pails of ice cream disappear, along with numerous toppings.

Since Monday is the kickoff, anyone who wants to participate in the reading program can stop by to sign up and receive all the materials starting in the morning.  Be sure to stop by and pick up the reading program information soon if you can’t get in on Monday.  We are excited to begin counting minutes and keeping track of the leading teams. If you are interested in how your reading team is doing compared to the rest, stop by the library and look at our display behind the counter or ask one of  our summer reading program assistants to show you the  minute by minute up-to-date graph.

We hope to see you soon!

Oh, and by the way, we still need people to bring in candy wrappers and cereal boxes (both clean please) so we can have one of our summer activities.  Your help is appreciated!

Summer Reading Program

Heat, wind, dust, odor, and allergies – summer must be arriving in our corner of Iowa.  In fact, with two days already over ninety-degrees, it seemed odd to many of the library staff that we weren’t helping children and young adults turn in their summer reading minutes to collect prizes.  However, the rising temperatures have been increasing our anticipation for another season of reading.  This summer’s program with the theme “Be Creative at Your Library” will be unique, eventful, and exciting!

 The changing theme from year to year lends to the program’s uniqueness, but this year is especially different because all participants will be randomly assigned to one of four teams. In the past, we had age groups compete against one another to read the most minutes, but the third through fifth graders consistently shamed all other age groups.  So we broke up that dream team by putting all ages together into the blue, yellow, green, and purple teams. The winning team will receive this year’s reading title with all the bragging rights that go with it. If you win, feel free to let people know you were on the team that read the most– maybe they’ll be impressed or maybe they won’t.  In any case, you can experience the self-satisfaction of winning or at least letting the third through fifth graders carry you.

An important thing to remember is that the reading program is open to all ages.  Our motto is: If you can breathe, you can participate. We would especially like to see more adult participation this summer as it sets a good example for children and it will help contribute to the library goal of reaching 8,000 minutes. If participants achieve 8,000 minutes (everybody’s totals combined), the library, assisted by local businesses, will purchase a Wii for all ages to use. So everyone, but adults especially, need to be reading hard this summer to win the Wii and to help their team win the reading title! In order to keep a close running total we ask that adult participants try to turn in their reading minutes on a bi-weekly basis. It would be nice to see this reading competition come right down to the wire.

In addition to the reading, all ages can be entertained throughout the summer by attending our numerous events. Along with the usual kick-off ice cream social and the rocket launch later in June, we will be hosting a magic show, the Spoon Man, IPTV’s Dan Wardell, the Noise Guy, the whittler Rich Ahrenholtz, and Gary Harbo, who will be offering an instructional class on how to draw. With these activities and programs, the library will surely live up to its summer reading theme.

Be sure to stop in June 8 (opening day) to pick up your reading logs, or if you wait until that evening, you can check out the magic show at 6:30 and consume some ice cream afterwards.  For more information about the summer reading program and exact details, please go here.

Another GREAT Benefit to being OUR Library Patron!

I am just SO excited to share this with you.  We were granted a license from Sylvan Dell Publishers for all of our card-holding patrons to access their books online.  As parents, this is fun – you can pull up their titles and read the books right online with your children.  As teachers – you can make your screen full-size and read them with your entire class, or set them up individually to read the stories.  Sylvan Dell is known for it’s strong emphasis on Science and Math titles AND many are also in Spanish.  There are also links for more ideas to do with each title.  I am just so excited about this service we can offer you.  To acces it from anywhere you need to click HERE.  Now, you will also need a code to access it – to get that code either call or email us here at the library.  We will confirm you are a card-holding patron and then give you the access code.  Enjoy!!

At the Library…

In these tough economic times – it is good to be reminded that books are free at the library!!!  And if for nothing else – it’s a catchy tune!

Adult and Young Adult Winter Reading Program

It’s that time of year again!!  We don’t want your winter to be too cold and lonely so we are holding our annual Adult Winter Reading Program – except this year we threw in Young Adults for good measure!  It will run Feb. 2 through April 4.  And, for new excitement this year, we are having you keep track of what you read – BINGO-style.  So, stop in and pick up a BINGO sheet or download one HERE.  Once you’ve completed a BINGO – bring in your sheet for a prize AND an entry in our Grand Prize Drawing!!  So what are you waiting for – START READING!!

Usborne Book Fair

Did you know we are having a book fair!?!?  We are!!!  It started Nov. 7 and runs through Nov. 21.  This is an awesome way to purchase Christmas gifts AND support your library.  We have MANY books available to purchase right here OR you can also order from the catalog.  ALL orders are NO TAX AND NO SHIPPING.  AND, the best part is that all orders will be here in a few weeks – so IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS!!  Stop in – the library benefits by receiving free books for the percentage of sales.  You can also purchase books from the library’s wish list if you’d like to give the library a gift this Christmas.  Hope to see you in for the book fair!