Summer Time... and the reading is easy...

Even though the calendar begs to differ, it's beginning to feel a lot like summer --and I don't just mean the heat!  As you may have noticed, it's Summer Reading Program time!  As usual there is a full slate of activities children and teens,  but this year Pam Neal is having a  club for tweens (ages 11-13)on Mondays & Wednesdays as well. Michelle is also having some special activities for older children (ages 8-10) on Fridays.  They will still participate in the regular SRP programs; the Friday events are just extras.  You may want to take a look at all the brochures to get an idea of all the wonderful events, from a Ghost Walk to a visit to Kil'n Time to the visit from acclaimed children's book author James Howe. Old favorite events will be back, too, including Snakes Alive! (Janice may want to make a note that this event will be held June 24.  Sounds like a good day for a vacation, doesn't it?)

Avoca will be having a two-part Summer Reading Club too!  Children from ages 0-5 will have a program on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. til noon, while the 6-11 year old group will meet on Thursdays starting at 10 a.m.  Their program will run start June 15 and run for a month.

Happy (now belated) Birthday!

Susie F        June 7 

Emily Page   June 10      

As a public service, we present the following humane tip for frustrating squirrels:

"Curse you, Chinese finger trap!"

 

Believe in Bristol this weekend!

Believe in Bristol is sponsoring a "State of the Arts" weekend in downtown Bristol June 10-12.  There will be a number of events, including activities for kids, open mic Bluegrass, a movie, live entertainment at several restaurants, and special events at the galleries along State Street.  As part of the festivities, there will be a special Saturday Nevermore Book Club at 11 am!  For those on staff who haven't had a chance to visit Nevermore, this is your chance.  There will be the usual coffee and Blackbird Bakery doughnuts!  It's very casual, just a chance to talk about a subject near and dear to our hearts:  books!  We'll be meeting in the J.Henry Kegley Meeting room (aka the Big Meeting Room) and we'd love for you to join us.

There should be a complete listing of events at Believe in Bristol. Click on Events and look for the dates on June 10-12.

If you haven't seen the new exhibit in the Virgie Fleenor Gallery, by all means take a look! The exhibit is done by  Art of the Highlands.  The five women who make up the group are  E. Mynard Blanton, Joyce Kistner, Claudia Rutherford, Kitty Williams and Joyce Samuel. They've created some wonderful paintings.  I was quite taken with some of the paintings from the last exhibit, and these are just as good.  (Anyone want to guess my favorites??) We're lucky to have such talented artists in this area and even more fortunate to be able to display their work here at the library.  Treat yourself and visit the Gallery!

We had a new old employee at the library this week!  Nancy P. came back to fill in at circulation. It was just like old times.  It was great to have you back, Nancy, and we hope to see you here again!

We're glad to have Rebecca and Janice on the mend. It wasn't the same without you.

Anita calls this shot "Little Miss Callie on the Big Farm."  I call  it "Kitten in Clover"  because Little Miss Callie hit the Find a Home Jackpot!

Visitors, staff news, and summer silliness

Nancy Patterson stopped by for a visit!  She is doing very well, but misses the library.  She also had a great deal of damage from the storm.  She brought photos and you couldn't even see her house for the trees.  Her Jeep was also totaled.  The good news is that Nancy and all her critters came through just fine.

Speaking of visitors, Mr. Jacques Wolfe stopped by after a visit to his stylist:

M. Jacques Wolfe

Darlene interviewed him for a job as Security Dog and he made quite a good impression. We're just not sure we have a uniform to fit!

Tonia says "Hi!" and invites everyone to visit her at the Glade Spring Library!  Both the library and Tonia's house were spared by the storm.  The library is lovely and Tonia is really enjoying working there. It's close to home and she gets to see friends and neighbors every day.  If you're near Glade, stop by and see Tonia!

Patron Tom Nooning is still in rehab after his stroke but is on the road to recovery.  He's listened to some books on tape while he's been at Heath South.  He appreciates all the prayers and good wishes, and hopes to be back to check out books and movies soon!

Happy Birthday, Michelle!  

She'll be celebrating June 4!  Have a wonderful day, Michelle!

Now, in honor of Michelle's birthday,  I had planned to put some sort of Nifty Graphic here from Word's clipart, but discovered that most "birthday" search results have "Sto lat!"  Which is a very nice Polish song and sentiment, wishing someone good luck, good cheer and may you live a hundred years, but I thought that was too much to explain.  I tried another "birthday" graphic and it wished her a happy birthday using  Day of the Dead decorations.

Michelle does have a good sense of humor, but still I thought that went a bit far.


So instead I'll go to icanhascheezburger.com for a favorite:

I apologize for the lack of professional voice this edition.  I plead a touch of heat stroke. I promise to hydrate before the next post.

Future of Libraries? And Meet Calla Lily!

Debbie is the only person I know who brings in a cake for her birthday. She's a great baker too, and this year's  cake was superb!  Moist, chocolaty, and addictive--mmmmmmm!  Thank you, Debbie!  And happy birthday!

There's a new addition to the BPL family!  Meet Little Miss Calla Lily Machado, fur-daughter of Anita.  Calla Lily (Callie to her friends) was orphaned during the big storm.  Her adorable little brother awaits adoption at Ferguson's Animal Hospital.

"Hi!  You may adore me now!"

"As soon as I get big enough to push buttons, I'll be Queen of the Remote!"

Mr. Barry sends along a thought-provoking articles about libraries which he's like for all of us to read.  Click on the link below:

The Future of the Library

If you didn't see the Sunday Bristol Herald Courier, you missed two very interesting articles pertaining to the library!  The first one was about the fly-fishing clinic with Lefty and Flip:   Fly fishing 

The second concerned the Literacy Academy and their good works as well as the struggle for funding:

Patricia Freedman Literacy Academy  (Nice photo, Randall!)

Speaking of the newspaper, King College Library is giving us their Bristol Herald Courier microfilm!  That mean we will have the newspaper on microfilm back to 1907 or so.  At present our film just goes back to 1963.

 

Remember to check out our Bookblog for reviews!  We'd love to have guest reviewers so if you'd like to contribute, just see (or email or call or leave a note or tie a message to Melon) Jeanne!

Power Outage, Gift Coupons, and staff & patron news!

 As you may have noticed, the power outage last Friday caused some problems with our electronic equipment.   In case of a future power outage, please follow this procedure:

In order to verify the proper re-start of equipment and alarms after a power outage, please observe the following:

 

Power outage during business hours: 

• Call Christian at his cell phone if he is not here; leave a voicemail if he doesn’t pick up to let him know of the power outage and the approximate time it started

If after 15 minutes the power has not come back on, 

• please call Christian’s cell again to let him know. Though the servers are set to auto-restart when the power is restored, this is not always what happens; 
•    If Joyce is not in the building, please call her cell phone to let her know.

 

Power outages after business hours: 

• If power outage is noticed by a staff member or cleaning crew, said personnel should inform either Christian or Joyce at their cell phones.

Print this out and keep it handy if need be.

Over the weekend, a young patron came in with a coupon for a gift at the library.  Just in case you didn't hear, these coupons are for the very nice chapstick & holder!  These are kept at circulation.

People News

Welcome to Sarah Hutchinson, our new Marketing Director!  You may have seen Sarah helping Kathryn during the Dorothea Benton Frank event. We're glad to have you, Sarah! (By the way, I live near the OTHER Sara Hutchinson from King! Her parents said you'd know who that is.)

Jerry Ivey reports that Dr. Bill is on the road to recovery. He's been in and out of the hospital and rehab since we saw him at Christmas, but is doing much better now.   They plan to visit the library as soon as they can.

Crowe Baby (aka Janice Crowe) came to the library recently. She is enjoying life and looking forward to doing a lot of gardening!

From Christine McKenzie:  "It's a boy!  That's right, we're having a boy - Aidan Nathaniel is due to arrive sometime around September 28!"  Congratulations, Christine, Calvin & Moira!

And speaking of baby boys....

Grandma Joan's newest pride and joy!

Remember to wear your pink on Wednesday!  And you may want to check out the newest review at the library bookblog:

http://bristol-library-bookblog.blogspot.com/

 

Fresh veggies!!

 Who likes fresh-- really fresh--vegetables?  You can't get much fresher than growing your own!  Just in time for planting, Main is hosting Dr. Annette Wszelaki from the University of Tennessee to do a program on growing vegetables in containers!  You don't have to have a lot of space to grow a lot of food.  Not only will you save money, but you'll know exactly what pesticides have been used on your food-- if any pesticides at all, because Dr. W. is also an advocate of organic growing!  Fresh, healthy, saves money-- what's not to like?  And containers mean you don't have to do a lot of intensive hoeing, weeding, tilling or other backbreaking work.  As the song says, "There's only two things that money can't buy and that's true love and homegrown tomatoes!"

So be sure to come to the library on Sunday, May 15 at 3 pm to get some great tips on growing your own vegetables.  Mmmmm.... squash!

And if you don't know the song, check out a version here:

Home Grown Tomatoes Song

The Moog Machine is no more!  But in its place is a Cool Cruiser.  Congratulations on the new car, Don! And man, what a deal!

Welcome, Laura! And we're In the Pink!

 Welcome to Laura Kelly!  Laura is a new addition to the circulation staff. She'll be working evenings.  She's also a second grade teacher at Van Pelt.

Remember, we'll be closed Sunday and Monday for the server migration-- as if you could forget!  Some folks will be coming in on Monday to get things done.  If you have any questions, ask your supervisors.  There are meetings scheduled for Monday and those will take place as scheduled.

Janice's  begonias to  be-gone-ias sale!

 Remember, Janice is running a special plant sale just for Mother's Day: one plant for $2 and two plants for $4!  What a deal! 

Melon sends flowers and his regards to all the moms in honor of Mother's Day.  No, he has no idea what happened to the large box of chocolates that was supposed to accompany the flowers.  Why do you ask?

In case you haven't heard, Wednesdays will be Wear Pink Day in support of Breast Cancer Awareness!  This is Michelle's brilliant idea--take a bow, Michelle!-- and she has pink bracelets to give out.  She may also take photos so be prepared.   While we're thinking about this, I'll mention the Greater Good website.  There they have buttons to click each day for good causes.  Their sponsors make a donation for each click, so in just a few seconds you can help fund mammograms for women, food for shelter pets, free books for children, aid to veterans, food for the hungry, child health and save the rain forest.

http://www.thebreastcancersite.com

And remember

Wear Pink Wednesdays!