Starting the new year by the numbers

By PATTY RICE GROTH

Inquirer Cor­re­spon­dent

The board of Galion Pub­lic Library kicked off the new year with great num­bers — more than 13,000 items were checked out, 520 new items were added to the col­lec­tion, and 42 new patrons were signed up. That brings the total num­ber of library patrons to more than 25,000! In the last year, 4,4411 patrons have used their library cards to check some­thing out of the collection.

Ninety-seven dif­fer­ent patrons took advan­tage of the quick-net access sta­tions, and 638 patrons signed up to use one of the Inter­net sta­tion. The com­mu­nity room on the lower level saw 40 events which drew peo­ple to the library.

More than 10,000 peo­ple came through the library’s doors in the month of Decem­ber, 2011.

Out­side the build­ing, library staff served about 250 chil­dren dur­ing two days of vis­its to Galion Pri­mary School class­rooms. More than 210 preschool chil­dren were read to in their class­rooms. Forty chil­dren par­tic­i­pated in story time in the com­mu­nity room.

Teens from the com­mu­nity con­tinue to take advan­tage of library pro­grams, with almost 20 par­tic­i­pat­ing in two teen chess club meet­ings, and 16 attend­ing Anime Club.

Decem­ber peo­ple sta­tis­tics included about 200 peo­ple who came to see the 22 gin­ger­bread houses on dis­play dur­ing the hol­i­day open house. Sev­en­teen peo­ple attended the E-book project meet­ing in early December.

The 2011 Angel Wish tree brought in dona­tions of requested spe­cific “gifts” in the form of clip boards, pack­ag­ing tape, desk tape, sta­ples, rein­force­ment labels, dis­in­fec­tant wipes, black and red sharpies, high­lighters, binder indexes, manila file fold­ers, sticky notes, paper clips, AA bat­ter­ies, thumb tacks and push pins, and facial tis­sue — even two wrenches the main­te­nance man asked Santa for — to name just a few items. More than $200 in cash was given to be used for basic needs such as postage stamps, and children’s books and music. Many donors sim­ply des­ig­nated their gifts as being “for any­thing needed.” Such dona­tions allow the library to cover daily expenses as well as the “extras” which con­tribute to the qual­ity of life for patrons and staff. Eck­en­rod expressed her appre­ci­a­tion for the gen­eros­ity shown by the community.

Gen­er­ous dona­tions were received hon­or­ing the mem­ory of Ruth Flower, Rose­mary Drexel, Jack Tucker, Edna Music, Har­ri­ett Epper­son and Delores Reed. Such gifts are greatly appreciated.

After all the work done recently on the front steps to the build­ing, the ice melt prod­uct pro­vided as being the same prod­uct used pre­vi­ously pur­chased stained con­crete. A call to the sup­plier dis­cov­ered sim­i­lar com­plaints had been received from other cus­tomers. Treat­ing the stains is now on the list of spring projects to be done.

Polaris, the com­pany which pro­vides the soft­ware to man­age and track cir­cu­la­tion of the library col­lec­tion, has announced there will be a new ver­sion released in 2012. The library’s com­puter server is now seven years old, and not able to accom­mo­date the changes and upgrades to the soft­ware. Eck­en­rod rec­om­mended a new server be pur­chased in advance of the release and instal­la­tion of the new soft­ware release. She also rec­om­mended the library be closed for part of a day to allow for the tech­ni­cal work to be done on this project, say­ing if it were closed dur­ing the day, the library likely would be able to open in the evening that same day.

Jan­u­ary num­bers are also expected to be high with story time restart­ing after a hol­i­day break. Win­ter themes for story time include snow­men, artic ani­mals, Valentine’s Day and pop­corn. Two story times are offered each week, one for preschool­ers on Wednes­day morn­ings at 10:30, and another for fam­i­lies — includ­ing school-age chil­dren — at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

School-age chil­dren have been invited to enjoy a pro­gram on super­hero sci­ence, as well as attend a “Fancy Nancy” Valen­tine party on Feb. 4, and a choco­late party on Feb. 18. Yes, the choco­late party is for chil­dren! Sorry, grown-ups.

Teens are invited to a game night on Feb. 27, Chess Club will meet on the 2nd and 16th, and Anime Club will meet on the 6th.

Adults inter­ested in a “hands-on” Win­dows 7 sched­uled for Jan. 30 should call the library at 419–468-3203 to see if seats are still avail­able. Sign-up is also avail­able for a Feb. 4 class on “the basics of buy­ing and sell­ing on E-Bay” that is sure to be popular.

On Feb. 20, Ken­neth Ham­mon­tree will visit the library in the per­sona of Pres­i­dent George Wash­ing­ton. Any­one who has not had an oppor­tu­nity to hear one of Hammontree’s his­tor­i­cal pre­sen­ta­tions will want to mark their cal­en­dar for 6:30 p.m. that day.

Sign-ups for the 2nd Annual Wii Bowl­ing Tour­na­ment has begun, with divi­sions for sin­gles and dou­bles. The tour­na­ment is sched­uled for Sat­ur­day, Feb. 25.

Posted by Staff Reports on Jan 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.