Please Note: The January 1st regular meeting of the City of Redmond’s Library Board of Trustees is moved to January 8th due to holiday observation.
And while we’re talking, if one of your New Year’s Resolutions is to be more involved in the community, consider volunteering for the Library Advisory Board! There will be an open position in March as I meet my term limit by serving two consecutive appointments. 10 years goes by so quickly…
Perfecting Your Pitch for Maximum Impact:
Effective Marketing for Nonprofits
Thursday, December 5th at 7 pm
Redmond Library
15990 NE 85th Street
Getting noticed. Standing out from the crowd. Building a community. Stewarding donors. These are imperatives for nonprofits who want to make the world a better place. The words you choose can dramatically advance your mission. Marketing expert Erica Mills will help you find the right words in this interactive workshop.
Reception to follow the program.
RSVP online or by telephone at 425-885-1861.
Before I get too far with this post, remember: the current KCLS catalog, databases, and all eBook services except OverDrive will be down for maintenance from 7pm on Saturday, November 23rd to 11am on Sunday, November 24th.
Having said that…the King County Library System (KCLS) catalog is about to undergo a transformation – to the Bibliocommons platform, popular with libraries large and small across the world. Featuring improved search results, integrated eBook checkouts, social features, and much more, you can try it now in BETA.
Already have a username for the Seattle Public Library (SPL) catalog? You can choose to link your shelves, lists and tags by registering with the same email address. More information can be found on the Catalog Help FAQ.
I’m most excited about exploring the capabilities of the “My Collections” section. My current method for remembering what I want to read is to send myself an email (I was never in the habit of using My Lists in the current catalog) but I’m looking forward to being more organized about it going forward and adding it to my online shelves!
So many books, so little time…
The public is always welcome at Library Board meetings and on occasion we present to the City Council about the state of the Redmond Library outside of our regular “1st Wednesday of the month” meeting times.
On Tuesday, November 19th at 7:30 p.m., the Redmond Library Board of Trustees will be in attendance at the regular City Council meeting to give a short presentation about the last year of events at the Redmond Library.
We’d love to see you there! But don’t worry, if you miss it, you’ll be able to catch the video when it’s posted on the City of Redmond’s website.
Did you know that your library card also helps you with free entrance to three popular area museums? The King County Library System has partnered with Bellevue Art Museum, Washington State History Museum and KidsQuest Children's Museum to offer free passes.    |
To learn more and register for your free passes, please visit:
http://www.kcls.org/programs/museumpasses.cfm
Join the City of Redmond and Redmond Library for an
Autumn Speakers Day on Saturday, September 21st from 11:00am to 4:30pm at the library. Sustainable Yards, Gardens & Food Systems is an opportunity for you to connect with local experts on topics including container gardening, backyard chicken husbandry, soil care and healthful food. Learn and share best practices for sustainable and environmentally-friendly gardens and meals.
Local experts from UW Botanical Gardens, Whole Foods Market, Keep It Simple Farm and many others will present valuable information about sustainable gardening and healthy food systems. The event includes garden discussion, food demonstration (and samples), presentations, information tables, and a few raffles. This is an all-day event at which you can attend a series of presentations, visit with representatives in the information venue, and stop by at your leisure.
Featured speakers, among others:
Learn more at www.kcls.org/cooks or by contacting Kimberly Dietz, 425-556-2415.
This is just a super quick post to remind you that I love visiting new libraries when I travel!
However, I had another planning #fail in Savannah, standing outside a very beautiful, and very closed, Carnegie Library building. Just imagine me standing there on a humid southern summer morning, in the rain, peering forlornly through the windows…that is a very accurate representation of what actually happened. Next time, Live Oak Public Libraries, next time!
A few days later though, I did snatch a few minutes in the Central branch of the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System. I happily supported the Friends by buying a book to read on the plane ride back home since I had finished the one I had taken with me.
On Saturday afternoon at Anderson Park, super excited to catch Seattle Experimental Theater’s Where No Man Has Gone Before…
Come see arts in the park all weekend! And music! And be inspired to read the book versions (looking at you Shakespeare…)
[Shakes fist at sky to ward off weekend rain.]
Often when I travel, I’m actively planning to visit the library, but sometimes they find me! A few weekends ago, I spent a lovely couple of days on Decatur Island. Not expecting to see any libraries, wouldn't you know it, two found me. As I was perusing the local farmer’s market on the Island, I happened upon their tiny library:
After our trip, we stopped at the Anacortes Starbucks to fuel up for the drive back home, and yet another library popped up on their shelves!
For me, libraries represent the sharing of knowledge, and I love seeing all of their various incarnations. It was a pleasant surprise that even when I wasn’t looking for them, they were still right there in the other things I was doing.
Dear Bellevue Library Parking Garage,
We will miss your library patrons! Today, your glorious new parking structure officially opened. A vision in concrete and steel, and with 362 parking spaces, your abundance will be appreciated by all those that park their buggies within. We cannot wait to see you grow your living walls and adorn yourself with fabulous local art – thanks to Northwest artist Buster Simpson!
In true fantastic form, the King County Library System celebrated your addition with a great show. A car show, that is. With help from the LeMay America’s Car Museum, Porsche Club of American Pacific Northwest, and Mother Nature’s beautiful blue sky this morning, I would judge your introduction to the community a success.
We wish you only the very best.
xoxo,
Redmond Library Parking Lot
Our sister library systems continue to shine! Congratulations to the Seattle Public Library on achieving a new world record for the longest book domino chain!
Orchestrated to launch their 2013 Summer Reading Program, the feat took 7 hours and 5 tries. It is clever, fun, and awesome and each time I watch it I pick up something new (notice the word on the first book?)
I sent this link to several of my friends and the one that is currently vacationing in Italy said she saw it on CNN International too.
If you want to own one of the books that participated (they were either donated or out of date for the library’s regular collection), be sure to check out an upcoming Friends of the Library book sale!
Happy Viewing! :-)
Looking for a way to keep up-to-date on neighborhood news from the good folks at the City of Redmond’s Neighborhood and Historic Preservation? Look no further than the City’s eAlert Subscription webpage.
eAlert is a free email and digital subscription service allowing the public to subscribe to topics of interest and receive instant, automated email notification whenever the City posts new information on its website. The City also can send e-newsletters, text messages and relevant information to specific groups.
In addition to a plethora of topics ranging from City Council business to recreation, you can also select your specific neighborhood towards the end of the list under the “Neighborhood News” section:
New to Redmond and not sure which neighborhood is yours? Use this map for a quick view:
Still can’t get enough of Neighborhood news!? You can find all this and more at the City of Redmond’s Neighborhoods page…happy reading!
Extra special congratulations to our neighbor, the Pierce County Library System, for their receipt of a 2013 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. Pierce County Library is the first library in the State of Washington to earn this award.
The National Medal for Museum and Library Service honors outstanding institutions that make significant and exceptional contributions to their communities. Selected institutions demonstrate extraordinary and innovative approaches to public service, exceeding the expected levels of community outreach. The National Medal is the highest honor for museums and libraries.
In a White House Ceremony on May 8, First Lady Michelle Obama (as always, looking fabulous) joined Director Susan Hildreth and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to honor ten institutions from across the country. In addition to Pierce County Library leaders, a member of the community participated in the ceremony to highlight how the library affected their life.
See video of the ceremony, read the press release, or find more information at the Pierce County Library System website.
Hooray for libraries in Washington state!
Last August, we visited the Bend, Oregon area for the first time. It was so beautiful we planned a return trip in the spring with the hopes of being able to snowshoe at higher elevations and hike at the lower. We made the return trip last weekend, staying in Sunriver this time. And of course, as soon as we picked our lodging, I knew that the Sunriver branch of the Deschutes Public Library would be on my list of places to visit!
There was a little bit more snow at the lower elevations than we had bargained for, but it was still a great long weekend trip. When we walked into the cozy library after the morning mile-ish walk in the light snow, I was thrilled to see that the DPL’s A Novel Idea…Read Together 2013 book is The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey. I read this book through the Maiden Voyage Book Club from Elliot Bay Book Company last year and it’s a complete, haunting and bittersweet, delight. It’s also the perfect story for the spring season in a place like Sunriver and Bend…I won’t share too many details of the book to prevent spoilers, but the cycle of the snow and seasons is an important element.
Tickets for the author’s event in Bend in early May are already sold out and I’m definitely looking forward to her next book!
    | KCLS has an amazing selection of programming and as I enter my last year of service with Redmond’s Library Advisory Board (two term limit!) they couldn’t have picked a better theme in my opinion. A Place at the Table is a year long series to inspire and provoke thought about, for, and with, food. As you might recall from Jaime’s Jaunts, books and food go hand-in-hand in my life! I’ve already attended two programs in the sure-to-be-popular events – Wendy Albee’s “Design A Kitchen for the Way You Live!” for our upcoming kitchen remodel and Tames Alan’s “Dining at Downton Abbey: A Trial by Fork”, which needs no explanation due to the popularity of the PBS show. (Our local PBS station, KCTS 9 is a sponsor of “a place at the table”, too. :-)) If you can’t make it into the library for an event, consider taking advantage of two online databases available - Universal Class and Access Video. They have thousands of topics available anytime. Watch www.kcls.org/cooks for weekly featured food-related classes and shows. In addition, to help everyone find A Place at the Table, KCLS is accepting nonperishable food that will be distributed I hope you get an opportunity to visit one of the spring programs in this series – there’s something for everyone! |
The King County Library System has an amazing variety of programming each month at their libraries, and their new events website makes it much easier to find topics that you might find interesting and relevant.
 | Want to see only programs designed for a certain age group or popular topic? Use the buttons at the top to quickly filter the upcoming events. Want to see only programs at a specific library? Use the filter on the left hand side to select your library. |
My favorite view is the monthly view! If this existed before on the old site, I never figured it out. At a glance you can see events across the month that might be of interest.
Clicking on an event brings you to the event description where you can use the icons at the top to add to your calendar, send an email to a friend, or like on Facebook.
And speaking of events, stay tuned for more information about the KCLS series A Place at the Table!
Redmond Neighborhood Network and Redmond Ready
Meet with Neighborhoods for a 2013 Community Conversation
Have you thought about how you would respond to a long-term disaster such as those experienced by the East Coast? How about how your neighborhood will respond?
This year’s Neighborhood Network series is an opportunity to work with neighbors and evaluate Redmond’s preparedness, neighborhood by neighborhood.
The Redmond Neighborhood Network series runs from March through May with three neighborhood events to meet with neighborhoods and share conversation. The Police Department’s Office of Emergency Management will provide a brief Redmond Ready workshop at each of the three events to help participants be informed regarding disaster/emergency preparedness and to be Redmond Ready.
The events take place in the neighborhoods from 6:00pm to 7:30pm and include light refreshments:
• March 20: Downtown, Bear Creek, and Southeast Redmond neighborhoods at City Hall, 15670 NE 85th Street;
• April 17: Education Hill, North Redmond, and Sammamish Valley neighborhoods at Horace Mann Elementary, 17001 NE 104th Street; and
• May 15: Grass Lawn, Idylwood, Overlake, and Willows/Rose Hill neighborhoods at Audubon Elementary, 3045 180th Avenue NE.
Redmond’s Neighborhood Network provides the community, City officials and staff opportunities to check in on an annual basis. Participants meet City officials, learn about City programs and projects, and discuss their respective neighborhood plan including policies, code, and priority neighborhood projects.
To learn more about this community conversation and workshop regarding personal, family and neighborhood preparedness and to complete the annual neighborhood questionnaire, visit www.redmond.gov/residents/neighborhoods
or contact Kimberly Dietz at kdietz@redmond.gov or 425-556-2415.
The Library of Congress online contains an extensive collection of Lincolniana (historical artifacts related to Abraham Lincoln). Alfred Stern presented his outstanding collection of Lincolniana to the Library of Congress in 1953. Begun by Mr. Stern in the 1920s, the collection documents the life of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) both through writings by and about Lincoln as well as a large body of publications concerning the issues of the times including slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and related topics. Collection Highlights
The Lincolniana collection highlights contain political cartoons, election posters, writings, as well as photos and portraits. Here’s an election poster from the 1864 presidential campaign:
The collection also contains numerous letters from Lincoln written throughout his lifetime. In a letter to James H. Hackett, Lincoln writes:
"...I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice; and have received a great deal of kindness, not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it. Yours truly, A. Lincoln"
Other Lincolniana in the collection includes newspaper headlines and posters, including one from Ford’s Theatre announcing the president as a special guest. It was to be a fateful night:
For those who want to learn more about this extraordinary man, the Stern Collection of Lincolniana provides a wealth of information and artifacts.
Lorin Catudio
Redmond Library Board, Emeritus
