Movie night!

Friday April 24th, 6:30 p.m. we will be showing the movie Twilight. We will also provide pop and popcorn! This movie is rated PG-13 so only children over the age of 12 will be allowed.

New story time schedule

Story time at the library is held every Friday at 10:30.

March 13th: M is for March, Montana, Moose Magnets and Music!
activity link
http://tinyurl.com/djt96m

March 20th: Music 'N Movement with Donna Weldon

March 27th: Magnets or "I'm stuck on you!"
activity link
http://tinyurl.com/djqhup

April 3rd: A is for April
activity link
http://tinyurl.com/bnc9jo

April 10th: National Ocean Week
activity links
http://tinyurl.com/cc2wau
http://tinyurl.com/aurpeo

April 17th: National Library Week
http://www.first-school.ws/theme/books.htm

April 24th: Music 'N Movement with Donna Weldon

Fire in Whitehall

Yesterday, March 6th, was a very sad day for Whitehall. Four buildings in our very small downtown burned down and two were badly damaged by smoke and water damage. That is most of our town! One of the biggest losses was the drug store as so many depend on them for their meds. That building didn't burn but with all the water and smoke damage I don't see how they can reopen any time soon. This disaster has affected the whole town. Jobs have been lost and who knows when any of those business will reopen? Link to news story http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2009/03/07/area/hjjajgjcjifihj.txt

I wish there were more the library could do to help but about the only thing I can think of is helping people file for unemployment.

The library did have to close Friday afternoon as the power had been cut to most of the town. We experienced a little collateral damage because of the power being off. All the trout in our aquarium
died because the water chiller was shut down for so long. I'm so glad they were the only deaths due to the fire.

Story time for your preschool children.

I love story time! All those little kids who are so thrilled to listen to me, you can't beat that! This is our fall line-up:
Friday 10:30
November 9th Being thankful
November 16th A musical Thanksgiving with Donna Weldon
November 23rd Closed
November 30th Winter birds

Glorious numbers

Every month I prepare statistics for the Jefferson County Library Board and I am so sure you all would like to know all about it. So, here for your edification, are our monthly stats.

Jefferson County Library System
Whitehall Community Library
Fiscal Year 2007-2008
	Jul. 07	Aug. 07	Sep. 07	Oct. 07
Total Circulation *	2311	2444	2105	2275
Paperbacks	99	133	91	75
Computer Use	902	1067	885	943
Attendance	2301	2484	2164	2301
Hours	123	134	126	130
Storytime	15	24	37	27
Ill Requests	41	49	73	47
Titles Added (see *)	196	133	98	142
Titles Weeded	14	75	35	145
New Cards	18	20	15	15
Reference Questions	64	83	69	73
Programs	8	2	0	1
Program attendance	193	110	0	10
*mcn added	3	3	5	1
*donated	66	0	19	23
*purchased	67	130	74	142
		15
Ill In-state loaned	10	25	11	15
ILL In-state borrowed	24	21	21	17
ILL Out-of-state loaned	3	6	3	3
ILL Out-of-state borrowed *	16	25	11	16

Fall workshop

I'm currently in the lobby of the Yogo Inn at Lewistown, taking a break from library classes.

.

The library here in Lewistown is quiet old and very beautiful. The picture to the right is from the Lewistown Public Library web page. I just heard that this great library has suffered a huge budge cut. It is so hard to manage a library in Montana where money can be very hard to come by. I feel very fortunate that Jefferson County is doing okay money wise this year.

My next class is about econtent and libraries such as downloadable audio books. The State Library is looking in to a state-wide contrance with an e-book company to provide downloadable books for Montana libraries. The State Library is really most excellent! Off I go to learn more stuff so I can better serve my library patrons!

Live from the Montana State Fall Workshop @ Lewistown

I am sitting in the Web 2.0 class at the Fall Workshop in Lewistown, learning about blogs, Myspace and other social software. If only there were only more time in the day. I just learned how it's better to do a post in Edit Html rather than compose. A lightbulb goes off.

The drive here was so beautiful and I saw hundreds of antelope and wild turkey. I wonder if you can raise wild turkeys? Hmm, maybe I should get a book!

New summer reading!

We might not have a beach to do any beach reading on but the back fourty can be used for lounging and reading as well as for ropin'. Here are a few of our new books:

New Fiction
Simple Genius by David Baldacci
The Sleeping Doll by Jeffery Deaver
Web of Evil by J.A. Jance
Be My Valentine by Debbie Macomber
The Fifth Vial by Michael Palmer
Spare Change by Robert Parker
Exile by Richard North Patterson
Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Betrayal by Eric Van Lustbader
The Quest by Wilbur Smith

New Non-Fiction
The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
Just a guy: notes from a blue collar life by Bill Engvall

Get a clue @ your library!

Wednesday June 13th was the big start day for the Whitehall Community Library's summer reading program. The reading program has special programs every Wednesday at 10:30 from now until August 8th. Summer readers can pick up their reading journals at the library any time. For every hour a child reads or is read to they are awarded a Mystery Dollar. The Dollars can be used to purchase coupons good for pop, candy video rentals, and movie tickets, or the Dollars can be used in a drawing for some great prizes. Schedule of events:
Friday June 15, 10:30 Montana Raptor Center
Wednesday June 20th, 10:30 Who Pooped in the Park with author Gary Robson
Wednesday June 27th, 10:30 Search and Rescue Dogs
Wednesday July 11th CSI with Sherif Steve Margolis
Wednesday July 18th Insect Guy Bryon Miller
Wednesday July 25th The Art Mobile
Wednesday August 1st Leapin' Lizards with County Extension Officer Cameron Clark

Mysterious Movies
Every Saturday starting June 23rd from 2 to 4. Bring a snack!

Mysterious Crafts
Every Tuesday starting June 19th from 4 to 6.
Call 287-3763 for more info.

What's up @ the library

April 28^th at 2:00 we will be showing the movie Ice Age: the Meltdown. Pop and snacks will be served too!

Some of the exciting new books at the library this week are: Simple genius by David Baldacci, Obession by Jonathan Kellerman, The good husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith, Back on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber, The marriage game by Fern Michaels, and Obsession by Karen Robards.

May 12^th at 2:00 we are having a fun and interesting program called “Handkerchiefs: The artful squares of history,” Terese Blanding of Fairfield Montana will be here with her collection of over 800 handkerchiefs to talk to us about handkerchiefs in history and literature. Don’t miss this fascinating historical program.

Call 287-3763 for more information.

Baby goats @ the library

Today we had some special guests at storytime. Two week old baby goats came to visit! They were so darn cute! Here's a little Youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0

Last day of Sirsi SuperConference

What a time I've had! Excellent food, interesting people from all over the US, Canada and other countries and really comfy beds. Oh, and interesting conference sessions. What more could a person want?
I've learned some interesting stuff about sharing library resources and getting them into the patrons hands. I heard about one library who partners with Netflix to get videos to their library patrons. Isn't that cool? So many new ways to serve the public and so little time to implement them. I intend to start a Whitehall Wicki soon and to have podcast available with Whitehall related stories.

Colorado Springs

I'm in Colorado Springs, CO attending the Sirsi SuperConference for users of the lSirsi ibrary circulation product. We are staying in the most excellent Broadmoor Hotel and Convention Center one of the most luxorious places I've ever stayed in. I keep exclaiming over everything. Robes in the rooms! Bath scales! Real cups and glasses! Outdoor fire pits! Art everywhere! Of course, things are on the pricey side but I tell ya, a person could get used to this. Well, gotta go attend a class. More later.

Long time no see

A bad, bad blogger that's what I am. So much work, so little time. So, where to start? I guess there's no point in talking about events that have come and gone so here's some upcoming events.

Our book club, Whitehall Reads, will be meeting to discuss Mary MacLane's book "The Story of Mary MacLane" February 22nd, 6:30 at the library. "The Story of Mary MacLane" was 20 year old Mary's diary and after its publication she became known as "The Wild Woman of Butte!" The diary revealed her innermost thoughts about her sexuality and how much she hated Butte, things one just didn't talk about in those days. The books sold 80,000 copies in the first month, something quite unheard of in 1902. Here's a link to a Wikipedia entry about her and a review of the book at the Montana Historical Society.

On March 17th, St. Patrick's Day at 2:00, we will be having Molly Kruckenberg with the Montana Historical Society present "A Taste of Montana: A history of cookbooks and cooking in Montana." "The history of food and cooking in Montana is as old and varied as the human occupation of the state, and cookbooks provide a window into this transient artform. Weaving together changes in food preparation and technology with the correlating changes in cookbooks, this program shows how cookbooks can be used to explore social and cultural changes in our history. Using illustrations from historic cookbooks, A Taste of Montana provides a delicious way to rediscover the past." Irish soda bread and tea will be served.

Pre-school storytime
Fridays at 10:30
Feb. 16th Chinese New Year
Feb. 23rd Fairy Tale Day

March 2nd Dr. Seuss Birthday
March 9th Bang-clang Day
March 16th St. Patrick's Day
March 23 Springtime
March 30th Crayola Day

We've got more pages than, well, a library!

At the Montana State Library Fall Workshop this last week in Lewiston I took a class in creating a Protopage and Google Page Creator. The Protopage I created for the Whitehall Library is here.
If you'd like to read about Protopages click here. The one I made for the libary will be on all the library computers as a home page and will have all sorts of useful links and info.
Our Google Page Creator is going to be used more like a traditional web page and to see it in all it's glory go thisaway. So between this blog, our Protopage and the Google Page you have absolutely no excuse for not knowing every single thing there is to know about the Whitehall Library.
The drive to Lewiston was really beautiful and I took a few pictures along the way.

Mountains on the way to Lewiston Windfarm at Judith Gap

Man, they are so magnificant! In the web page class

Whitehall Reads!

Whitehall Reads is a book discussion group that meets the fourth Thursday of the month at 6:00 p.m. at the Whitehall Community Library. October 26th we will be discussing "Buster's Midnight Cafe" by Sandra Dallas. Books may be picked up at the library, limited quantities available. For more information call 287-3763.

"Country music between covers…Style, tone, and lesson in one succinct package." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

Buy this book from Amazon.com >>

A wise and sassy narrator, marvelous characters, and a plot that blends Hollywood scandal, lifelong friendship, mystery and romance—these are the specialties served up in Sandra Dallas’s offbeat, inspired debut novel.
Effa Commander is no spring chicken, but her spirit shines and her smart mouth still puts fools to shame. The fool in question is a gossip hound writing a scurrilous account of her beloved friends who, though departed, remain the most celebrated citizens of Butte, Montana: the great Hollywood legend Marion Street (nee May Anna Kovacks) and Buster Midnight, the boxing champion whose love for Marion led to the notorious “Tinseltown Crime of Passion” and the end of his career.

Prodded by her bosom buddy, Whippy Bird, Effa Commander takes pen in hand to set the record straight and tell what really happened on that violent night. But to do that, Effa Commander must recount the story of all their lives: hers and Whippy Bird’s and May Anna’s, and Buster and Toney McNight’s and Pink Varscoe’s. Childhood friends, they all became wives and husbands—with the exception of May Anna, of course. She went to work in Venus Alley, hitched herself to a big-time director just passing through on his way to Hollywood, and the rest is history.

Narrated by the irrepressible Effa Commander, this wry and loving chronicle of more than fifty years of friendship carries some universal, homespun truths about what’s really important in life.

New books that will knock your socks off!

New Fiction @ the Whitehall Community LIbrary

In plain sight by C. J. Box
Edge of battle by Dale Brown
The hard way by Lee Child
The cold moon by Jeffery Deaver
The whistling season by Ivan Doig
Killer Dreams by Iris Johansen
The husband by Dean Koontz
On, off by Colleen McCullough
Telegraph days by Larry Mcurtry
School's out by James Patterson
The book of the dead Douglas Preston
Ghost force by Patrick Robinson
Dead watch by John Sandford

New videos
Brokeback mountain
Capote
Grizzly man
March of the Penguins
Memoirs of a geisha
Scooby-Doo2
Transamerica
Walk the line

April new books.

Listed below are just a few of new titles we have at the Whitehall Community Library. For a complete list of our new titles visit the Montana Shared Catalog and then choose Jefferson County Library-Whitehall.

Bleeding Hearts by Susan Wittig Albert.
In Albert's engrossing 15th mystery to star China Bayles, herbalist, erstwhile lawyer and occasional gumshoe (after 2005's Dead Man's Bones), everyone in China's charming hometown of Pecan Springs, Tex., is stunned when the high school football coach, Tim Duffy, is murdered.

Circle of Quilters : an Elm Creek Quilts Novel by Jennifer Chiaverini.
Elm Creek Quilt Camp is firmly at the center of her latest novel in the series, though Chiaverini broadens the geography and characters. An ad for an instructor at the camp attracts candidates from near and far, all offering a look at different perspectives on what quilting means in their lives.

Statute of Limitations by Steven Havill.
Things go from bad to worse in Posadas, N.Mex., at the start of Havill's appealing fourth Posadas County mystery (after 2004's Convenient Disposal). First, Chief of Police Eduardo Martinez suffers a heart attack while confronting car thieves on Christmas eve; Sheriff Robert Torrez has a pulmonary embolism Christmas morning; a deputy's fiancée is murdered that afternoon; and former sheriff Bill Gastner is brutally attacked that night. It's enough for under-sheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman to keep up with the medical reports, never mind track down the perps.

Gone by Jonathan Kellerman.
It's a story tailor-made for the nightly news: Dylan Meserve and Michaela Brand, young lovers and fellow acting students, vanish on the way home from a rehearsal. Three days later, the two of them are found in the remote mountains of Malibu - battered and terrified after a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a sadistic abductor.

Sweet Revenge by Fern Michaels.
Isabelle Flanders had everything--her own architectural firm, her fianc Bobby, a life she deserved--until Rosemary Hershey came and stole it all. Took her reputation, her clients, her man, and even framed her for drunk driving--killing three innocent people in the process. The loyal Sisterhood agrees: Rosemary has to be punished, along with the conniving Bobby.

Cage of Stars by Jacquelyn Mitchard.
The author of "The Deep End of the Ocean" delivers a compelling, emotionally charged tale of tragedy, revenge, and redemption, set in a close-knit Mormon community, whose peace is shattered by two brutal murders.

January new books

I am just so sure that one of your New Year's resolutions is to read more! Right? Here is a few of the new books we have at the Whitehall Community Library.

Fiction
Roaring thunder by Walter Boyne
Larry Bond's first team by Larry Bond
Just rewards by Barbara Taylor Bradford
The cat who dropped a bombshell by Lilian Jackson Braun
The protege by Stephen Frey
The life all around me by Kaye Gibbons
The constant princess by Philippa Gregory
The hostage by W.E.B Griffin
Turning angel by Greg Iles
On the run by Iris Johansen
Changelings by Anne McCaffrey
Blindfold games by Dana Stabenow

Non-fiction
She got up off the couch and other heroic acts from Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel
Eating, drinking, overthinking by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema

The see the full list of new books in the Jefferson County Library System go to http://montanalibraries.org/ , choose Montana Shared Catalog and then Jefferson County.

Would you like to read some book reviews? Check out the New York Times Review of Books . You might have to register to gain access but there is no charge. There is an interesting article there about the memoir James Frey wrote called "A million little pieces". Apparently Mr. Frey made up things about his past to make his book more interesting. Just how important is the truth in a memoir? The Whitehall Library has a copy of this book so maybe you should read it and make up your own mind on the importance of truth.

If you are looking for a way out of the hole your life has become you might want to read Haven Kimmel's new memoir, "She got up off the couch : and other heroic acts from Mooreland, Indiana". Haven introduced us to her life in "A girl named Zippy", which I just read and enjoyed very much. It's not your usual tale of dysfunction and despair, rather dysfunction and a verve for living.

And a jolly Ho, Ho, Ho to you! We are all ready for the holidays at the library as you can see by Frosty and the Mrs. We also have a lovely book wreath on the wall.