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The holiday season seems to arrive earlier each year. Store shelves confuse buyers with Halloween and fall décor marked down to make room for Christmas items. For weeks marketers have been reminding shoppers there are six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Commercials are blasting images of all the must-have toys children should want.

At the library, we are well aware that Christmas is coming. We’re planning craft programs to create decorations. Our annual Music on Main! Chili Jam Session and Library Board/staff meeting annual holiday dinner are just around the corner. This year, we’ve even planned a cookie decorating event on Dec. 23 at 4 pm and invite all who want to participate. We also help sponsor the Cookee’s Passionate About People (CPAP) collection drive, as well as our own Pleasanton Cares on-going area for non-perishable food and toiletries.

But, other than our outdoor lighted wreath, Christmas decorations don’t appear until after Thanksgiving weekend. After that, the elves will be busy filling every corner of the library with colorful décor collected over the years. The highlight will be our Victorian tree in the southwest corner of the library. It sits next to the antique settee just waiting for those who want a pretty family photo backdrop. Tables and counters will be covered with holiday book displays, including our new collection of large print Christmas books.

With colder weather visiting our area early this year, our visitors will have plenty of time for indoor activities like reading, and watching holiday movies. Unless schools are closed, the library will remain open for those who venture out in the cold to stock up. If we must be closed, we’ll be sure to post messages on our Facebook page. If it’s warm enough to sprinkle ice melt, we’ll be sure to do so. But with the city parking lot on the north side of the library, the gravel can get icy. We want everyone to stay safe this winter, so please be careful when you enter and leave the library.

If you need a break from writing cards, decorating and baking, take a few minutes to come in to visit your hometown library. It will be a winter wonderland!

Several Linn County Library directors attended the 2019 Kansas Library Association Conference held in Overland Park last week. We attended sessions that provided information about how to help our library guests be “Healthy, Wealthy & Wise.” One of those sessions was provided by Janet Reynolds of the La Cygne Library. She shared how they built a “lunch and learn” program for their over-50 population. Averaging 25-30 seniors per week who attend a meal, they also learned about cooking, art, houseplant care and computer safety. Over the past year, they served over 3,600 meals in their community.

As a Friends of Kansas Libraries board member, my participation focused on encouraging interested attendees to form Friends organizations. The collaboration of people and businesses in a community can help libraries provide services like those mentioned above and many others. Our annual FoKL luncheon featured the newest Kansas Poet Laureate, Huascar Medina. In a short conversation with this young author, we discussed the importance of young students writing their thoughts and feelings, rather than bottling them inside.

Emporia State University’s senior, Camille Abdel-Jawad, provided a poster session titled “Using Creative Writing to Serve Teens with Multi-faceted Identities.” She used a guided activity that utilizes a fill-in-the-blank template “I am from …” It allows poets and non-poets alike to express themselves creatively and think deeply about different facets of growing up and how where we’re from as part of who we are. One of her objectives was to engage students and foster new connections with those who may have similar experiences or develop empathy with those who have different experiences.

In addition to the many breakout sessions provided attendees, we also had time to network with librarians from across the state. We shared stories of ways we collaborate with those in our community to provide service to our populations and ways we can improve those services. These conferences are an ideal way to gain a great deal of information in a condensed period of time. Afterwards, we can strive to put it to use in our own libraries and to help make our communities “healthy, wealthy & wise.”

At a recent library conference session, a professor from the UNC Greensboro’s Department of Library Science & Information Science shared important facts. Three-quarters of the counties with the highest rates of food insecurity are in rural areas. We are certainly aware of this in Linn County with the closing of LaCygne’s grocery store, the struggle to keep Pleasanton’s viable, the attempt to start a community garden and food bank.

Dr. Noah Lenstra’s program covered how public libraries feed America: 1) Distributing food at the library, 2) Teaching and supporting gardening, 3) Teaching how to prepare healthy food, and 4) Offering the library’s support to food programs (e.g. Food for Fines). He shared how we can use the resources of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including its Cooperative Extension, Summer Food Service, 4-H, and Master Gardener programs. Finally, Lenstra moderated an interactive discussion about how we can start feeding America at our libraries.

For several years at Pleasanton Library, we have enlisted local K-State Extension agents to teach children to cook healthy meals and grow vegetables. The classes are fun and informative, and the First Baptist Church in Mound City generously shared take-home bags of food for those who attended those programs. But we hope to do more. One of the many ideas we have considered includes working with the Friends of Pleasanton Gardening to revamp our raised beds to include vegetables. This is a seasonal project, but certainly doable.

We hope to continue working with the Extension office to build additional programs to feed more people. Seed Savers already have programs in place we could access. One idea we will put into practice right away is providing space to display food donations for those who need assistance. Non-perishable items would be placed on the metal rack near the north door. Another collection point will contain items that cannot be purchased using food stamps. We’ll post this list for those inclined to donate items. During harvest season, we will also provide a space where gardeners with extra bounty can share their vegetables.

On our Wish List is a Little Free Pantry (Take What You Need, Leave What You Can). If we could find someone willing to build a water-tight cabinet similar to our Little Free Library currently outside the library, we could begin stocking it with food donations accessible at all times. The Methodist Church in Mound City has one of these they call a Blessing Box.
The list of ways the library can get involved goes on, but we cannot do everything ourselves. If you are interested in helping library staff with our wish to help provide food, and programs for our residents in need, please contact us at the library, 913-352-8554.

This past week, I had the good fortune to be able to attend the wonderful Association for Rural and Small Libraries conference. The committee members who developed the conference live across the country and all have jobs in rural and small libraries. The conference sessions included a range of diverse topics, and I selected those I hoped could best be utilized at our library. The first concerned “Serving Hidden Patrons” and focused on serving people in the community who are unable to visit the library. This is also known as outreach, and we currently do this on a limited basis by visiting preK classes and a local daycare, but hope to expand services to include others.

“Libraries and the 2020 Census: Ensuring rural residents get counted” is a topic that’s being promoted to large and small libraries throughout the nation. As the time to conduct it draws near, small libraries hope to learn more about how they can help their communities can obtain their fair share of funding for schools, health centers, roads, housing assistance and other vital programs.

At the session “Reframing issues in your library and community” speakers encouraged librarians to reframe problems into opportunities for positive change. As we walked from session to session, we had the opportunity to engage with vendors to obtain information about their services. Our luncheon featured popular children’s book cartoonist and author Sandra Boynton. Some of her books are available at our library. Meals also gave us the chance to meet and talk with librarians from across the country and share ideas.

Friday’s sessions included “Feeding America: Gardens, Seed Exchanges, Summer Meals are More!” We were encouraged to collaborate with organizations in our area to: distribute food at the library; teach and support gardening and healthy eating; and support food programs. We also learned to access resources of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Additional topics followed on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. An important meeting I attended was in preparation to hold next year’s conference in Kansas. Previous conference attendance has grown to 750 attendees from Alaska to Arkansas, and Vermont to Washington state. Preparation has begun to promote “S.O.A.R. Sharing Our Amazing Resources” in Wichita Sept. 30-Oct. 3. Committee members were asked to share our strengths and interests, and will be contacted to learn how they can be engaged with planning and implementing the 2020 conference.

All was not work for the large number of librarians at this conference. We were treated to the beauty of the surrounding landscape of Vermont, which sits on the banks of Lake Champlain, and is home to the University of Vermont. Though the leaves had barely begun to change color, the air was at times crisp and breezy and there were opportunities to walk. It was a wonderful visit to a beautiful state and a refresh for many of us who serve our public. The opportunity was so appreciated!