266 Express
Welcome to the 266 Express, your official podcast of Sanger, TX.
In every episode, we paint a picture of life in this beautiful North Texas town.
You will gain insight into everything from our rich history, community events, and the rapid growth and development of Sanger. Welcome to the 266 Express.
266 Express
Redefining the Small-Town Library: Laura Klinke's Vision for Sanger
Laura Klinke, Director of the Sanger Public Library, envisions her institution as "the living room of the community" – a vibrant gathering place where residents dance, watch movies, study, and connect. Far beyond traditional book lending, Sanger's library offers an expanding array of services from hotspots and STEM kits to cognitive care resources and board games.
With Sanger's growth bringing young families alongside longtime residents, Klinke and her passionate staff have strategically developed programming for every life stage. While preschool story times have always been popular, they've expanded to serve the "awkward years" of middle school, high school students planning their futures, and adults in their 20s through retirement. Their innovative offerings range from Kids Can Cook classes and puzzle races to aluminum pours and period parties in collaboration with TWU Nursing.
What library school never prepared Klinke for was the significant social work component of modern library service. Staff regularly help patrons in crisis access essential services through partnerships with organizations like Denton County United Way. This personal touch defines Sanger's approach, where staff pride themselves on knowing patrons by name and witnessing families grow over time. Digital resources like Cloud Library and Peterson's career prep materials complement their physical collection, while participation in a six-library consortium allows resource sharing across communities. Anyone – not just Sanger residents – can get a library card and access these valuable resources.
Looking ahead, Klinke dreams of an outreach vehicle to bring library services directly into neighborhoods. Whether through volunteering, joining Friends of the Library, or simply spreading the word about available resources, community members can help support this vision of a library that truly serves everyone from birth through retirement. Visit SangerLibrary.org to discover everything your community living room has to offer!
You have been listening to The 266 Express, the official podcast of Sanger, TX. IF you have comments or suggestions, please send them to dgreen@sangertexas.org
Welcome to the 266 Express. I'm John Knoblet, with my co-host, donna Green, donna, who we got with us today.
Speaker 2:We have Laura Klinke. Is that pronounced right? She is the director of the library here in Sanger.
Speaker 1:Hey, Laura, hey how are you? Good, good to see you.
Speaker 3:Glad to be here, here in Sanger. Hey Laura, hey, how are you?
Speaker 1:Good, good to see you, glad to be here. Well, tell us a little bit about the Sanger Public Library and how it serves the community.
Speaker 3:So we offer traditional services like books and movies and etc. To have resources available to them. And then we have basic business resources like a copier, printer, fax, public computers, wi-fi. And then we have hotspots and STEM kits, board games, cognitive care kits a lot of things outside the box that you normally wouldn't find in a library, traditional library, and we just we want to be. How I see the library is that we're the living room of the community. We do a lot of fun things in our living rooms we dance in our living room, we watch movies, we hang out, we study, we do all of those kinds of things, and I think of the library as the city's living room, so it's a gathering place for all sorts of types of people in the community and it's just an opportunity to be a resource for everybody.
Speaker 3:Either they're asking a reference question about specific services that they may need, either within town or outside, in other parts of the community or in Denton County, and we can find those resources and act as a resource, or in Denton County, and we can find those resources and act as a resource, or we can find other ways to help people. So we just see ourselves as a place that anyone and everyone can come.
Speaker 2:So, laura, with the big growth that's coming to Sanger, how do you feel the library plays a role in shaping the future for Sanger?
Speaker 3:We have a whole lot of, as you know, we have a lot of growing community here of young families and then we have a lot of people that have been Sanger residents for a long time, that are older adults.
Speaker 3:So finding the community's needs and assessing what's important has kind of been something that's always been on our mind and will continue to be on our mind going forward.
Speaker 3:So finding appropriate programs and initiatives that serve younger populations and growing families and trying to meet their needs and to get the resources and materials that they need For some of our families at home school is very important to us for the younger and then also in between.
Speaker 3:So all of the elementary school kids, middle school through high school and I think in the years before we struggled with I think it's very easy we worked a lot on having a preschool program and getting all of that and we're looking more with intent to serve our community through all stages of life, from preschool all the way through older adult retiring and everything else. So we're trying to find those needs. So for the younger crowd, I think it's been easy and so we've been kind of graduating and making sure that we have programs that fulfill those needs for those particular age groups, for elementary school kids and then also for our tweens and teens, and so that was one of the big things that we kind of pushed for is to have more programming and more resources for a lot of our middle school aged kids, those awkward years yeah, those awkward years, and then also through high school.
Speaker 3:So we also have some other resources like databases and things like that that can help a lot of our high school students through high school and beyond, trying to figure out what the next turn of events would be for them, whether it be traditional in the sense of going to college or maybe a work-study program somewhere else or something like that and then through our younger adults in their 20s, all the way through people in their 30s and 50s, because a lot of times we see a lot of the families and a lot of the parents when they come into the library and visit and everything, and then when they get to a certain age we don't see the parents so much and they're busy, you know living their lives and doing their thing.
Speaker 3:You know living their lives and doing their things. And so we want to. We want to make our space inclusive to the community and grow with the community and have available programs and resources and everything for our community. And so much with the growing community as well is that a lot of people are looking for kind of a slower pace and might have been moving away from from larger cities like Frisco or even Salina I. I mean, they're kind of growing. But some people are finding that they want a slower paced life smaller town but they're also expecting a lot of those amenities that come from a larger city. So we're trying to address that by having a wide variety of programming and resources for everybody there.
Speaker 3:We might be kind of small as far as our collection is concerned we're not as large as Denton. But what I pride ourselves on, what I think we can bring to the table, and what we've been bringing to the table, is a sense of customer service. That's where we excel. We get to know our patrons and we love serving our community because we see a lot of the impacts that we make throughout the years as families grow up and it's really important and we really appreciate the opportunity and we just see that that will continue to be a priority for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you touch on a lot of things there, but I mean the point being, the library is one of those few departments that City has, or amenities that City has. That really does touch all the way down to preschool, all the way up until you're 80, 90, 120 years old, you know. And the opportunities. An educated community we talk about that a lot. Right, an educated community is usually a more successful community, but that education is not always. We're not always talking about college. You're talking about opportunities to provide some vocational training and some of the things that you guys do that really keep those people, as you said, engaged during the entire course of their life. And that's tremendous. And I think, when I look at a job description because I look at a lot of them, I look at a job description because I look at a lot of them I look at a job description and we have these bullet points of what we believe the jobs are and what the roles are. But in reality, what does a typical day for a library director look like?
Speaker 3:I think anybody that works in a small library can say that they wear a lot of hats, and that's always been the case. For us at the library, no day is the same, and it's changed a little bit because we've been able to grow and we've been able to get some people and I have an incredible staff. I just want to say kudos to my staff. We would not be the library that we are without what they bring to the table. I have a lot of creative individuals. I have a lot of. I just have a wonderful staff that that just I, I just I'm so grateful for. And um, so we've been able to have, um, the ability to have somebody in a role that they can focus more specifically Like I have someone now that they catalog all of our materials and make sure that our patrons are able to find things very, very easily.
Speaker 3:That's one of our main priorities is to make sure that our people are able to find the resources that they need very easily, and so, with that being said, you know there's certain areas where we have someone that can focus on there, so there's not as much hat wearing, but things change all the time.
Speaker 3:There'll be times where you know a sixth grader needs some help with some homework and I'll go out and help and do some homework. There's other times where I'm on the phone and I'm making connections with other community partners and trying to establish connections and ways that we can both benefit from it, and we've had really great success with that. I've reached out to some professionals in particular areas to help us with programming and to kind of have the resources that people need. And then there's other times where you know we can I can be covering a book or showing somebody and we've got staff that does that. But sometimes I'll fill in those needs. But a lot of times it just it changes from day to day and a lot of times it's just getting out and talking with our patrons and finding what, what they need and what and how we can best serve their needs. Um I one thing that I never really understood and wasn't prepared for um and something they didn't teach me in library school is
Speaker 3:just how much of what you do is social work. Um, before I became a director and you know, I've had different experiences with that with helping people try to find services that they need when they're in crisis and that was something that I wasn't prepared for and that was something that they didn't teach in library school when I was in library school. They're more aware of that now. So a lot of the graduates now there are specific coursework that kind of addresses all of that, but that was something that I wasn't prepared for. I was helping some patrons that were in crisis and had some difficulties and needed some services to help them find a safe place to live, and that was something that I wasn't prepared for.
Speaker 1:And I've learned a lot.
Speaker 3:And then also, you know, we're all sorts of different kinds of services through the Denton County United Way and being able to talk to some other people and being able to talk to some other people.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, it's been an interesting time in library land just because you're just not prepared for some of the things, but it's wonderful and having an opportunity to talk with our patrons. I enjoy that a whole lot. I get really excited when a young kid comes in and is excited to be at the library. We had somebody yesterday, a young boy, who said that he was going to have the biggest brain and so his sister was very kind enough to check out books on his card, on their card, because he didn't have his own card yet. He was working on getting a library card.
Speaker 3:So, one of our requirements is for children to print their first and last name in order to get a card, and so he's going to be working on that, but his sister was very kind enough to put some of the books that he wanted to read on her library card, and so he said I want to grow the biggest brain there ever was. So it's really wonderful to be able to see that and see kids be so excited to read.
Speaker 2:So what inspired you to pursue a career in library science?
Speaker 3:I kind of happened into this, not really by accident. My background is originally in health promotion, health studies, and I thought that a library degree would be really helpful in kind of helping me learn better ways to research things for health. And so I went to graduate school and got a double master's in library science and health studies and my intention was to be, maybe, a medical librarian. And when I did my practicum I did it at a public library. I did it over at Crum, one of our consortium libraries, and I really enjoyed it. I loved working with the public. I love serving people.
Speaker 3:Service has always been a big part of who I am. I was a Girl Scout from the time I was little until I got my gold award. Um. Serving the community has always been something that I've been really passionate about. And being at the library and being a library director and having an institution where you do serve the public in so many different ways, um really appeals to me and has always appealed to me, and I think that's why I really enjoy love and I love what I do, because you have an opportunity to to feel like you make a difference and to have the you know, because we're so small, have those personal connections with the community that you serve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you, you do love what you do. You know, I've.
Speaker 1:I've witnessed um over the the the past several years, the commitment that you have, because people don't understand how relational what you do is. You made a commitment to provide programs and services that the library has not historically done. You maintain some of the programs that they've had, but you took on some additional programs that you thought were important or of interest to the people that we serve. Can you tell us a little bit about some of your programs? What are the most popular programs you're seeing now and what programs do you have coming up in the near future?
Speaker 3:We kind of talked a little bit about making sure that we have something for everyone, for all ages, and we we've always worked on having preschool story time and that's that. That gets a lot of attention and a lot of participation in a lot of its word of mouth. We get a lot of people that used to go to Denton that find our story times really engaging, a lot more fun, and so they make the trip all the way from Denton to come to our story time.
Speaker 3:So we thought that we need to meet the needs of our younger toddler types, and so we have a toddler story time, and then we also have a toddler time where they can work on motor skills and social skills in a very collaborative kind of environment where they have a whole bunch of toys or activities that they can kind of play with. And so it's been really rewarding to see that, because a lot of the families that participate in those meet outside of the library too and have had a lot of friendships. So we've got a couple of preschoolers in our preschool story time and they exchanged Christmas gifts at the library and it's just really nice to be able to have that there. And then I've just continued growing that with our elementary school program. So one of our big hits is our Kids Can Cook series.
Speaker 3:So we try to do that like at least every other month and we try to teach the kids how to cook, and so we've had a variety of different things that they've cooked. They've done energy bars, they've done pancakes. One of our staff members has a son who likes to do pizza, grilled cheese. So we did grilled cheese and he came on his day off on a Friday and showed everybody how to make a pizza grilled about, and so that one's been a really, really popular title, and a lot of times the demand for a lot of our programs is so significant that we've had to make two sessions for a lot of things or rotate kids in and out because we don't have a large space in order to accommodate everybody all at once, and so that's kind of the way that we've been having to do that, but that's been a real popular one.
Speaker 3:We've done puzzle races before and that's been absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker 1:It's been a really fun time I've got a salty crew over at City. Hall right now. I think you have a standing champion over there that uh that I'm coming has intimidated the masses I'm definitely coming to the next one because, yeah, we can't, we've got to win.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, can't have that. But you have some really unique stuff too that you've done. I mean, um, you've done like we meeting all the ages. So you did the period party recently, which I think is phenomenal. I wish that would have been around when I was little, because, boy, that was a shock. And then aluminum pours, and so you've done some. You've brought a lot of really unique things.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, yes, we pride ourselves on that, on bringing a lot of unique and interesting things to our community that they otherwise wouldn't have an opportunity.
Speaker 3:We are going to be doing the aluminum pour this coming weekend.
Speaker 3:As far as the weather Hopefully it stays dry and that, like I said, I'm so appreciative of my staff I have one staff member, carissa, who seems to know everybody.
Speaker 3:We have kind of a running joke, a Kevin Bacon kind of joke, with her that she, she tends to know every and anybody. And so she, she has a lot of connections with a lot of the people that she knows in the art community and craft community. And then another one of our staff members, teresa, she, she knows a little bit of everything, like you say, oh, what about this? Oh yeah, I've done that before in another life, and so she brings a lot of positive energy to the library and has done a lot of our creative program with our Sanger Art Studio Saturdays, which is mixed media kind of open house where she kind of goes through and discusses and walks everyone through different mixed media techniques and then they kind of build off of it. So they've got an altered journal that they've been kind of working through and doing all sorts of different things, and but we've just got so many, so many interesting, interesting connections and interesting people.
Speaker 3:And then also just reaching out to other local community partners and seeing if they can help us fulfill a need, and that was certainly what happened with the period party, I reached out to TWU Nursing and said, yeah, would you be interested in doing something like this?
Speaker 3:And they said oh yes most definitely, and so establishing those connections and hopefully hoping that it's a positive experience for both of us and it was with the period party, so we're looking to to kind of push things forward with that. They want to continue working together with their nursing students and having opportunities for their students to work with the kids and everything. But we've I've made it a real priority.
Speaker 3:I did some outreach out at the high school craft fair a while ago and talked to a lot of people. It was really a great opportunity to get with the community and talk to them and let them know exactly what we do at the library. And we've got a few comments saying that the library only did things for little kids and one we've got a few comments saying that the library only did things for little kids and I said, oh, we're going to change that perception and so that's been a driving force with all of the unique programming that we have at the library and making sure that we serve all ages, because we hadn't really been paying attention so much with teens. With teens and then the adults in the 20 to 55 crowd we got a lot of older adults coming to events that we've had in the past on retirement or or other like health, health kind of ailments and things like that, but trying to get the the people from 20 in their 20s to 50s to come, and so we've made a huge push for adult programming Awesome.
Speaker 1:Tell us a little bit about digital resources, and I believe there's some upcoming changes with some of your media as well. Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 3:So we just unveiled Cloud Library this month. We just launched that and we're in a consortium of several. I want to say there's close to 70 Texas libraries in what's called Texas CloudLink, and so it's another resource for people to get e-books and audio books, and so that's a new resource that we've got books and so that's a new resource that we've got. And I'll be moving the allotment much higher because we're unfortunately going to have to sunset one of our other resources, hoopla, due to budget constraints and things like that, and so we're moving to Cloud Library just because it's more robust and there's a lot more to choose from. And then we'll continue having Libby, which we've had for a long time, and I don't see us discontinuing using that at all, since they have the ability to be synced with a Kindle and a lot of our patrons really enjoy a lot of that.
Speaker 3:But we have some other opportunities that have come about lately too as far as resources are concerned. We have Peterson's career in test prep, so that resource we have a lot of people that want, like, all sorts of different test prep books for, like, asvap or nursing, and this resource has a wide variety of just about almost any test that you can think of. There's things that you would typically find like ACT, sat, ap exams. There's some nursing exam test prep there. There's some for CDL.
Speaker 3:There's a wide variety of things. So there's that, and then within there there's also a career center that will help you do a career assessment and then we'll also allow you to build resumes. And so later this month we're going to be doing a resume 101 with Crystal Yates. She's an HR professional that's volunteered a lot of her time to do some programs for us on resumes and she's also done some one-on-one resume reviews before. So she's coming back and we're going to be talking a lot about resumes and then also have an opportunity to kind of go over the resource of Peterson's and let everybody know how it works.
Speaker 1:Well, we know some of those resources people physically available at the library. But how do people access some of these resources that they don't necessarily have to be on site to access? How do the digital library and things like that, once they have a library membership or a card, where do they go to really access some of these things?
Speaker 3:So you can go to our library website, which is SangerLibraryorg, and you can go to our digital library page and it has all the links to all of our digital resources there. Most of them require you to enter your library card number in and then a PIN number, which is a sign, and then you'll have pretty much unlimited access to whatever you need, and there's quite a number of things available.
Speaker 1:This is only Sanger residents right.
Speaker 3:It's anybody. Anybody can get a card with us. Anybody can get a library card.
Speaker 1:That's important. That's an important distinction again, because our library is a service that is not relegated just to citizens of Sanger. A library is an important enough resource for the region that we don't want to restrict accessibility to those resources and that leans a lot into library funding. Our library is not solely funded through tax dollars. We have county dollars, state and federal dollars that are pumped into the system at varying levels to make sure that these resources are easily accessible to everybody.
Speaker 2:I know you're going to sunset Hoopla and you guys got me on the. I know you're going to sunset Hoopla and you guys got me on the library cloud and the amount of. I'm a big audio book person and wow, I went from a good selection to a great selection. So it will be a while before I get, but I do need you to up it. Two is not enough, I need more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we will be upping most of both Libby and Cloud to five once. Hoopla is kind of sunsetted at the end of the month.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So Can you share a story or a moment that really highlights the library's impact on a member of the community or a group in the community, something that you kind of remember? I mean, you've already told us some stories.
Speaker 3:Sure. So one of our regular patrons has two sons and we see them quite often and they homeschool a whole lot and she was telling us one day that her one son has always talked about wanting to be a baseball player when he grew up and it hasn't changed from the time he was little and everything. And so she's like we're talking about what we want to be when we grow up. And then she said her other son said he wanted to become a librarian and that just melted our hearts because we have fun and at Summer we have so much fun what we do and I know that the enthusiasm and the excitement is always in the air at the library.
Speaker 3:We always like to try to have a good time and we always want to bring a very welcoming atmosphere to the library that's high energy and just a lot of fun. And the kids see that. The kids see that we have a lot of fun. They see the kinds of programs that we do and you know we've had Candy Land before and we've done all sorts of fun things at the library and and every day just to me just feels it doesn't even feel like work at all, it just feels like a like, a kind of like a fun party sorry, I'm you can do that for a volunteer right yeah, that's what I'm thinking, right yeah, yeah, well, she just backed over you, laura, she didn't even hear it coming.
Speaker 1:Now the library you mentioned some of the outreach that you've done and the connections you've made. Can you talk a little more about some of those collaborations you've made locally with some of the local organizations, the nonprofits, the consortium with other libraries? Maybe touch on how that works because, again, just because you don't have it here doesn't necessarily mean it's not available that's right.
Speaker 3:That's right. So we're part of a consortium with six other libraries and, um, a lot of them are in the immediate area. So, uh, aubrey, uh aubrey's in our area. Not very far, we've got Crum Lake, dallas and Bridgeport is another one, but a lot of them are very close by and we share resources with each other.
Speaker 3:Your card is good at any of those participating libraries. We have a courier that comes twice a week free of charge, and they shuttle items to and fro, so if there's something that we don't have, we can make a request on your behalf or you can do it yourself, and so it opens up a lot of opportunities because we're all small to have that. Different libraries have strengths in different ways in their collections. So Crum orders a lot of their materials in large print, and we have a lot of older adults or people that have vision issues that need large print, so oftentimes we refer to finding things in their collections. One of the other libraries has a strong collection in science fiction, so a lot of times we will look to their collection, and so it's been a really great opportunity for us to be able to offer a wide variety of resources that don't necessarily have to be under our roof.
Speaker 2:So in the time that I've known you and that you've been the director of the library, it's amazing. All of the stuff that you do is exhausting. You just do a lot, and I'm sure you have many of them, but can you just share a couple of the goals that you have for the future of the library, some things you're trying to achieve or want?
Speaker 3:I was really hoping and I'll still continue to do this with the sixth-grade campus in Sanger ISD. Sixth-grade campus moving to the old high school well what will be the old high school.
Speaker 3:I've been wanting to get an outreach vehicle to to kind of get out in the community, and that's something that I want to continue focusing on is outreach and letting people know what we have and what we do, and to get right in the middle of everything and and and be part of everyone's community, quite literally by driving a car around and doing those kind of things and bringing a lot of the programming that we do in-house to their neighborhood, to their street.
Speaker 3:So I've been trying to find grants and things that might help me achieve that. But that's something that I really would love to do. I would love to have an opportunity to have a van of some sort to be able to either bring books to the community, write to the community, or to have programs and things and activities for them to be able to do right in the vehicle. So that's something that I've been really wanting to kind of look at and I'll still try to pursue grant funding and all sorts of different avenues for that. But as far as the goals, we've reached a lot of our goals already that we had kind of planned. Over the last couple of years We've been growing our numbers and our number of programs has increased and keeps continuing to increase in our attendance, everything, and so we're just trying to work on sustaining the momentum that we've built over the last couple of years and continue doing things in a way that's sustainable for us.
Speaker 3:I would love to see you know some ideas of maybe a new library building in the future, but immediately but immediate things is just again continuing to talk to our public, encouraging people to come back to the library, finding ways that we can serve, serve their needs in the best way that we can. And, just again, finding finding programming and and everything that speaks to all of those stages of of your life, of anybody's life, from birth all the way till the end there. And we've been trying to do that and we'll continue to try to find resources and programming and collection that fits our needs, because our community is changing quite a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and it will continue to grow and change, but some things remain the same. Probably one of those big things is volunteerism and opportunities. Are there opportunities for people to get involved at the library at a volunteer level, and how would they go about that?
Speaker 3:We've been so fortunate with the volunteers that we've had in the past. Last summer we had someone who came in and volunteered to do a coding class for us, for our kids, and then we had someone who spoke several different languages and was willing to do language classes for us and was willing to do language classes for us. So volunteers like that we've been so fortunate to have and we continue to have people that step up and want to say I really want to help the library in any way that I can. I've got this program or something that I have interest, that I'd like to share, something that I have interest that I'd like to share, and so we've been really lucky to benefit from the community of people that are looking out for us and want to give back to the community.
Speaker 3:So they can most certainly come to the library and fill out an application and let us know what they are interested in. There's some day-to-day things that we can always need volunteers to help with.
Speaker 3:We always have programs and program prep that needs to happen For story time. We could be somebody helping cut out something for a craft, or we could need a multitude of other different things. Sometimes it's just organizing things too, some basic things like that, but they can most certainly come to the library and fill out an application and try to find where our needs and what their interests are and where we kind of can meet in a way that serves both us and them.
Speaker 1:But that's where it starts coming down to the library introducing yourself, picking up a volunteer application, filling that thing out and see if there's a fit.
Speaker 3:Yes, and then we also have an organization that supports us, which is our Friends of the Library, and so we encourage people to come to meetings and get involved. In fact, we're having a meeting this evening and hope to get a lot of interest going. We need some new officers for the Friends of the Library, and it's an opportunity to help with all sorts of different things with the library.
Speaker 1:Do the Friends have a regular meeting date typically?
Speaker 3:They've. Unfortunately, they're kind of in a transitional period right now because our last president moved away and a lot of the members are aging and aren't able to do we used to do an annual book sale and that became a lot for them to do of that and we we have a, a bookshelf that's in our foyer that people can can pick up books, donated books and and donate to the library uh, friends of the library. So they've kind of pivoted and used that and and that's worked out really well.
Speaker 3:Um, so they're just looking for for new members and and hopefully to get more, more of the word out because that's that's what I'm really really would love to have as far as um volunteering and and and having people in the community help us is to get the word out of what we're doing and to share what we're doing, because it's kind of like you tell two friends and they tell two friends and a lot of a lot of what we do and a lot of the programming.
Speaker 3:Um, when we ask how they heard about it, they've heard it either from Facebook or they've heard it from word of mouth. So, all the friends of the library, is this the same?
Speaker 1:process. Come down to the library and visit with you guys. You can get them connected with you?
Speaker 3:Yes, I can, yes, we'll certainly get them connected, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So something just a little bit more fun being a librarian. Do you have a favorite book or an author that you'd recommend for listeners?
Speaker 3:read to each other through FaceTime. So I would sometimes would move my lunches around when she got out of school. So we got into reading a lot together. So I liked a lot of Bob Bouyer and Cynthia Lord and Anna Martin, so we would read a whole lot of those books together and then that kind of around.
Speaker 3:That same time is when I started a middle grade book club, so it kind of worked out really well. I would read with her and then I would do a lot of some of the same books with the kids here at the library and that was a lot of fun. I loved middle school. In fact I think sometimes middle school for me was more fun than high school because I just had so much fun and so I enjoyed being that kid at that age and I enjoyed having a book club to talk to the kids you have a book club, now for adults.
Speaker 3:For adults. Yes, what are you guys?
Speaker 2:currently reading.
Speaker 3:We are reading Crazy Rich Asians. This is the next book club book.
Speaker 1:I can get behind a book club like that because, I've seen that on streaming. I could just knock that out in a couple hours. Just pull it up.
Speaker 2:That's cheating. Well, I've got a question here for you.
Speaker 1:I want you to look across the table and see who you're sitting across from right now before you answer this. But is there? What is something that people might be surprised to learn happens behind the scenes at the library?
Speaker 3:I don't think a lot of people understand what it takes to get a book on the shelf. We have a vendor that specializes in just products for just a library. So there's like all these stickers, there's covers, there's special hemp, like special repair tape, like you can get really nerdy, extremely nerdy, with the kinds of of uh products out there to to fix a book and then to also cover a book like there, like your mind would be blown. I think a lot of people would be surprised to know just just how complete, like, how many things there are to choose from. There's so many ways you can go about covering a book. Just kind of nerdy because there's and different materials that they're made out of. Some you can get some that's vinyl, that's pliable.
Speaker 3:You've got some that are mylar, that have paper backing that you slide a hardback book jacket through, there's some that you apply completely to a paperback book, so you can get very nerdy. And then also with labels too, and I never. I never thought about that either until carissa um was like oh, I've got these special labels we had an issue with some of our labels fading, and so they have this company that makes Mylar heat-sensitive labels that won't fade. And so she opened this whole door to all of these labels that you never would have thought. Chandeliers box.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's so nerdy and we could just be like, oh really, and what length are they, and could we do it so that we could wrap it around? It just really we just can get extremely nerdy.
Speaker 1:I've joked about that with you, but it is true. I've said we could build a library at the time it takes to shelve some books just because it's not an arbitrary process that you go through when you're doing that. I mean, larger libraries have whole divisions of their staff dedicated solely to that and how they get it on the shelf where it goes the first time. You know what is going to be on an end cap.
Speaker 1:You know what are all these things that have to? And then if I shelve that book, what am I shifting on that shelf to make room for it? So I mean, yeah, it's a big task and I think that's one of the things that, again, people don't understand about libraries. You know, again, it is a resource that you use from birth to the end if you choose to do so, but there's a lot of work behind the scenes that goes into making that resource usable, because that's the other thing. I mean, I don't know too many people that walk into a library and can't find what they need without. And if they can't, they can just walk up to any library in there and be pointed in the right direction. That's tremendous. But again, that's the planning and the work that goes into what you do before you open the doors.
Speaker 2:So you want to share your hours so that people know the hours of the library.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, we actually updated our hours back in October and we're still having some difficulties with some of the search engines pulling things up and saying that there are old hours so.
Speaker 3:I'd be more than happy to tell you all when the hours are. So it's Monday and Wednesday from 9.30 to 6 o'clock, and then Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11.30 to 7 pm, and then Friday from 9.30 to 5 pm and then Saturday from 9.30 to 1.30 pm. Now we also do have a lot of programs after hours a lot of the times, like on Thursday nights and evenings or sometimes Saturdays after hours.
Speaker 1:So but again it's important for people to understand you don't have regular hours like some of our offices, because you're trying to serve a large segment of people that that work or go to school during the day. Summertime, we know, is different than wintertime, so we very, very much appreciate the consideration that your team takes in really finding the right spot to plug those programs and those operating hours in to make sure we're serving the widest amount of people Is that it. That's it. You've been listening to the 266 Express. I'm John Knoplett.
Speaker 2:I'm Donna Green.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening in to what's going on in our small North Texas town. We'll see you next time.