Spring 2010 Newsletter being mailed.

Spring 2010 Newsletter being mailed.

The Friends' Spring 2010 newsletter (we publish one every six months) is in the hands of US Post Office.   The printed copies came from the printer last Friday, the mailing labels were printed yesterday and applied, along with first-class postage.  Your board did the affixing, and now they're all in the P.O.'s hands.

All paid-up members will be getting theirs in a few days. All members who have given us their email addresses will also receive a copy of the newsletter in their email inbox, as a .pdf file.

We'd like to have all persons interested in the Eager Free Public Library, whether members of the Friends or not,  to please send us their email address.  We'll be happy to include your email address in the list of those getting Friends' information by email.  It doesn't cost a thing to put a few more names on our email distribution list.

If our effort to send email newsletters is well-received, we may phase out sending paper copies of the newsletter.  Those who aren't connected to the internet in some fashion can still receive their paper copies as long as they're paid-up members, but we'd like to save on printing and postage costs.  Email allows us to do this.

All newsletters and meeting minutes will also be available on our web-page at:
http://www.als.lib.wi.us/EFPL/Friends.htm

And, of course, you can be even more up-to-date just by reading this blog.  Thanks for doing so.

Bookshelves IN!

Bookshelves IN!

Today Harlin Miller and I finished the last two of the five new bookshelves that we're building for the downstairs hallway at the library.  They're to be installed on Monday when the Library opens after the weekend.  Then we'll have plenty of space for all our used books to go back on display.   Just shelving all the books in some reasonable order will take a while, but soon you'll be able to come to the library and buy used books again.

Check out our constantly changing selection of books, videos, etc., both for adults and kids.

And if you have books/videos around your place that are just taking up space, consider donating them to the Friends of the Library.  You'll get a tax deduction, because we're a non-profit organization, and we can put your donations up for sale to raise money for library programs and services. Just bring your donations to the library and put them in the big blue donation box in the basement hallway.  Thanks!

Stuff that's coming up soon

Stuff that's coming up soon

1.  Third Quarter Finals: High School Study Night is Wednesday, March 24, 8 pm to 11 pm.

2.  Spring newsletter will be mailed on April 1st to all paid-up members.  Members who have email addresses in our database will also get an electronic version.

3.  Spring Family Game Night is April 14th: 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm.  Yes we know it's the night  before taxes are due, but you've got yours done by now, don't you?  Bring your kids and play board games.

4.  Library Spring Cleaning Blitz.  Volunteers are needed to do Spring cleaning on Saturday April 24th, from 1 PM until about 4PM.  The more volunteers, the quicker we get done!  We're hoping to have about 15 people dusting, cleaning windows, spot-cleaning carpets, and other tasks.

If you want more information about any of these events or if you want to volunteer for the cleaning blitz, please email us at libraryfriends@charter.net.

Friends' Board Meeting

Friends' Board Meeting

The Friends' Executive Committee (that's its formal title, but we call it the "Board") meets on the third Tuesday of each month (except December) at 6 pm in the library.  All meetings are open to all Friends.  You're welcome to join us, if you like, to see what's going on.  If you have a particular item or issue you'd like to discuss, please contact us to have the item put on the next meeting's agenda.

The next Board meeting is tomorrow night, March 16th.

In addition to the monthly Board Meetings, there is an annual meeting held in October.  This meeting is also open to all Friends.  The President makes an annual report to the membership, proposed changes to the constitution and by-laws are discussed and voted on, election officers is held, and general discussions of the activities of the Friends come about.

New "Used-Book" Shelves

New "Used-Book" Shelves

Well, they're coming along, but slowly.  One of the five is complete and installed in the basement hallway, to the right of the double doors leading to the meeting room.  There will be four more lined up against the wall opposite the History Room.  Each set of shelves has three fixed and as many as six adjustable shelves. When the project is complete, it will increase our used-book storage capacity by 40% or so.

We're recycling the old 2 x 4 shelves by putting that unit inside the furnace room for extra storage.  And for many of the adjustable shelves, we're using boards and L-brackets that were found when cleaning out the former coal bin inside the furnace room.

The construction of the four remaining units is progressing.  All the uprights are done, and one of the four sets of horizontal fixed shelves is ready.  What remains is to cut the other three sets to length,  glue up all four frames, put the backs on, stain and varnish them, haul them to the library and fasten them to the wall.  It's been a slow process, but the end is in sight.

Sound Off!

Sound Off!

Recently the Friends purchased a computer/dvd projector for the Eager Free Public Library.  The projector can be used for illustrating programs that various speakers present at the library.  The reason for the purchase was our noticing that two recent speakers had to borrow or bring their own projectors to the library: Barb Dorsey when she illustrated her talk about her trip to Mongolia, and Ruth Ann Montgomery, who showed off her extensive work at digitizing images of historic Evansville.

Almost immediately the Friends recognized another possible use for this projector: showing movies.  All that was lacking was a decent sound system that could reproduce the audio in the basement meeting room, at an appropriate volume for the room's size. 

Fortunately Sandy Konkel's son (you know Sandy for her great work in both the Children's Room and the upstairs circulation desk)  her son Joe works at the Evansville Radio Shack.  He was able to recommend a good system for us and purchase it using his employee discount.  Thanks to his kindness, our library now has the capability to show DVD movies and even do streaming video (with sound!) from the internet. 

I'm sure it's only a matter of time before we see new library programs using this new technology.

Membership

Membership

I've been vexed for quite a while by the large number of names in our Friends' database whose annual memberships have expired.  We've been sending them Friends' newsletters twice a year nonetheless, and requesting in the newsletter that they renew their memberships -- to little avail.

Since our spring 2010 newsletter is coming up, and it costs us about 85 cents to print, address and stamp each one, our Board decided to try a new tack.  We sent out postcards (about 32 cents each) to all expired members last week,  requesting that they renew by Mar 15,  or we wouldn't send out a newsletter to them until they did.

The results so far have been very good.  We got some renewals, with membership-donations well in excess of the cost of sending the postcards.  And equally important, those who ignore the request to renew will not get the expensive newsletters, saving us that cost every six months.  As a result more of our funds will be available to support the library.

We'll purge our membership list of expired members as well.  The Friends' group will still have almost 200 members in the Evansville area, a smaller but more committed group of volunteers supporting the Eager Free Public Library.