Where to begin? My time at the Clarkston Independence District Library, the place where I’ve worked for the past fifteen years, has come to an end. It’s been a fun ride, and considering we’ve all lived through a pandemic for last seventeen months, I’m going to say it’s going out with a bang. 😊
When I started in August 2006, I began as an intern in the Children’s Department at what was then called the Independence Township Library. I was still going to school at Wayne State, working on my master’s degree in Library Science and Information, when I got started here. But I jumped right in, and my adventures in story-time-world began.
I did the Wee-Wigglers story time for seven years! Trying to get two-years old to sit still while reading books is sometimes like wrangling cats, but I sure had fun trying.
Summer months brought summer reading programs. It was great fun to be able to work with the “older” kids as well. Sometimes that meant K-2nd grade and other years it was 3rd-5th grade. I used to say that I liked the 3rd-5th graders better because they knew how to use scissors and didn’t cry! 😉
We did many, many holiday parties and entertainment programs of all sorts, but two really stand out to me from my time in children's.
One summer we had Jim Gill come to our library and perform for us. For those of you who don’t recognize Jim Gill’s name, let me just say he is the Bruce Springsteen of children’s music! He is seriously good, singing and dancing to his own tunes. He has six albums out now, and I can say with 100% certainty, I hands down used more Jim Gill music in my story times than any other artist. I’m going to say his “Silly Dance Song” is my all-time favorite. (Some of the pictures below were taken of silly dancing fun by all!) To this day, there are a couple of his tunes that dance through my head occasionally, and I’ll find myself humming or even singing out loud.
Who's Jim Gill's biggest fan?!?!
If you’d like to learn more about Jim Gill, here’s a link to a good article about him:
My other favorite program was the night Dan Dickerson, the Detroit Tiger radio announcer, spoke at our library. I am a big Tiger fan and getting Dan to speak at the library was a big “get” for me. I was super excited for this event and created a cool display of my Tiger memorabilia. I had door prizes, a couple of books about the Tigers, to give out to two lucky children that would be signed by Dan. The local paper, the Oakland Press, did a front-page write-up the day before to help publicize the event, and I was convinced we’d have a great turnout.
And then it snowed. The program was scheduled for a winter's night in January, as we had to make it happen before Dan headed to Florida for spring training with the Tigers. And as it tends to do in January, it snowed that day; it snowed all day long! But the library remained open. Conveniently, Dan lived in Clarkston, and said he could get there, and so the show went on. He was a really good speaker and told great stories and was charming and gracious. It was everything I’d hoped it could be. But we only had six people in the audience. Six! I even went out into the library and tried to pull more people in, but there was no one to pull in.
Ah well, as I said, Dan was a great speaker, and I was still tickled pink to meet him and listen to him talk about his career as a radio announcer for the Tigers. If only Mother Nature had cooperated. C’est la vie.
Pivot! In 2013 I pivoted from working in our Children’s Department to the Adult Services Department. I’ve been crafting with the “big kids” for years now and am very fortunate to be able to combine my love of creating with being a librarian. The name of my program has changed over the years, but together we’ve been making craft magic for six and a half years!
This mom & son have been crafting with us from the very start and my, how he's grown. 😊
In 2017 I headed up the Friends of the Clarkston Independence District Library committee to introduce the unveiling of our Michigan Author and Illustrator quilt created by three local women, Gini Schultz, Betsy Travis and Ellen Rimar. The event was a big success with nine of the authors in attendance and 185 visitors. We raised money through a silent auction and the sale of posters of the quilt. The quilt is beautiful, and I enjoyed learning about the authors and illustrators featured on it as I prepped for the event.
By the way, that's Kirk Gibson's mom in the middle, filling in for her baseball player son.
Over the years, I’ve had fun creating displays in the library. I started with decorating the showcase and endcaps in the Children’s Department.
And then segue-wayed to creating table displays by our information desk.
My favorite all-time display was the book tree I put up one Christmas, and ended up leaving up for two years! I changed it out each month, focusing on holidays like Valentines, Halloween, Christmas, etc. I would also decorate it for summer using whatever the theme was of our summer reading program.
I even created special decorations for the tree for the open house celebrating our Michigan Author and Illustrator quilt.
A couple of times I asked my co-workers for their creative help in decorating the tree. One year they made feathers for our Tom Turkey Tree.
And they went crazy creating “ugly sweater” ornaments for the Christmas tree. Wow! They had a lot of fun crafting, and our tree got the best ornaments!
For five years I helped host tea parties at the library. We served scones with clotted cream, traditional tea sandwiches and yummy miniature desserts. Along with a delicious pot of tea for each table. The first year I made all the food myself! How crazy was that?!? Thankfully, the next year we found a good source for frozen scones we could bake up the day of the tea party. And the last year Sister Pie bakery supplied the treats, but I always made the tea sandwiches. 😊 Our tea parties were a lot of work, but also a lot of fun and were very popular with our patrons. And I always had the support of fellow librarians who helped with set-up and would then put on party aprons and helped serve our guests. It was a great team effort!
2020. What a year! What can I say about last year? The pandemic shut us down completely for a while, and then when we reopened with limited capacity, all in-house programming went on hiatus for awhile. Which, of course, meant no tea party last year. My Maker Magic craft program became a Take-it and Make-it craft bag for creating at your own kitchen table. We went from a program that 25 crafters attended in the library to 45 bags for crafting at home.
And as I pivoted (again!) to help provide programming to our patrons when our doors were closed, I began to write Beth’s Blog. It too is a lot of work. But I must say it’s become a labor of love. Writing does not come easy to me, but I have learned to appreciate the process. And the positive feedback I've gotten from my readers has kept me going.
And now, 43 posts later, it is time to say good-bye. I thank you for reading. I thank you for keeping me going. I thank you for being here. I hope you've had as much fun as I have. 😊
Take care. And stay safe. Ciao!
P.S. I wrote of our dog, Baxter, from time to time in the blog, as well as sharing the occasional picture. I am sad to report we had to say good-bye to Baxter in early July. He was truly a good, good boy. It was so cool when we made bookmarks of CIDL pets, and he got one of his very own. It is my most treasured bookmark.
