Transitions

Transitions. That's the word that crops up the most when I think about the last few years here at the Sumter County Library. It has been a time of constant change, packing and unpacking, moving from one location to another while our Wesmark Branch and the Downtown Library were being renovated and expanded. It has definitely been a challenge for the Library staff, and I know it has been for our patrons as well. Having to hand out flashlights to help people find their way around the stacks as we had to do in one of our temporary locations wasn't exactly the ideal library environment, but somehow everything worked out and the Sumter community was amazingly patient. Now we are settling into our new Library and the consensus opinion seems to be that it was worth all the effort. I began working at the Library in June of 1980, twenty-seven years ago, and even back then it was apparent that we sorely needed more space. We have that now and the entire staff at all our locations (Downtown, Wesmark, and South Sumter) is dedicated to offering the best possible library service we can. Whether you are a regular patron, drop by once in a while, or have never used the library, come in and see what we have to offer.

And please let us know what we can do to improve our services - let us know what kind of books, movies, audiobooks, magazines, etc. you would like the Library to have in the collection. Also, share your ideas of what types of programs you would like the Library to offer. We look forward to hearing from you.

About our blog - I was at the American Library Association conference recently, and many of the topics were centered around social software and web-based information services such as Wikis, Blogs, Web 2.0, Podcasting and Flickr. The big question and challenge facing libraries is how to properly use these technologies to actually improve services to patrons - it should not be a matter of just jumping on board with the latest trend. Hopefully this blog can be a good starting point to test the waters. I hope as many members of the Library staff as possible will share information about what's going on at the Library - whether its a program like the Hot Nights - Cool Movies, the appearance of the Charleston County Dive Team on July 11th, or just the latest bestsellers we've added to the collection.

Robert Harden

Movie Nights at your library

Beginning next Tuesday July 3rd, the Downtown Library will be hosting 'Hot Nights with Cool Movies' at 5:30 in the Meeting Room. We are doing two series - Modern and Classic - on alternate weeks. The Modern series consists of : I Walk the Line, RV, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Devil Wears Prada. The Classic will be showing and discussing She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rebel Without a Cause, The Graduate, and Star Wars - A New Hope! We think that offers something for almost everyone and we hope to build a strong base for different approaches in the fall - maybe a foreign film series, or musicals, or horror? Anyway, we will be soliciting opinions as we go along. So come on out and view something fun with us and maybe learn something interesting! For instance that is NOT Anne Bancroft's leg in the notorious ad picture for The Graduate - but it does belong to another famous Hollywood star - know who? By the way, all films are of course BYOP! (Bring your own popcorn)

David

A New Beginning!

Last year when we began experimenting with a blog it was decidedly experimental. But now that we're in our new Downtown library and have our new staff aboard, we feel that we have a better handle on what we want our blog to accomplish: 1. we want it to be almost instant updates rather than waiting for an article in the newspaper or inhouse handouts etc. 2. we want you to hear from as many of our staff in as many areas as we can so it doesn't always reflect the same 'take' on things 3. we hope it becomes interactive and that way we can be aware of what the public community wants in the way of programing and activities.
So here goes - by the way, all the posts will be signed by its author so you'll know who to contact for more info. And we're off!