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Farewell, so long, auf wiedersehen, adieu

Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 11:01 AM

Subject: Farewell, so long, auf wiedersehen, adieu

 

Hello, everyone,

 

The time has come for me to say goodbye.  My last day is tomorrow, August 31.  It’s been a wonderful 18 ½ years being the branch manager of La Habra Library and a complete joy working with my staff, the Friends of the Library, City Hall, and the community.  I have learned so much from my colleagues in OCPL and have felt part of a large extended family.  And it has been very rewarding to see former staff move on to bigger and better things. 

 

Libraries have been a vital part of my life since I was a child and my family visited the library weekly.  I well remember the children’s room at Pomona Public Library and reading voraciously in every genre that caught my interest.  The librarian at my junior high took the time to select non-fiction books to broaden my reading and I was so impressed that she would do that, that I read every book she selected.  I remember in high school going to the Pomona library with my best friend to ask them to check to see if the address I had was for an unwed mother’s home—the librarian confirmed it and that’s how we found out that our other friend was pregnant.  It was my first realization that librarians did more than check out books.

 

When I received my MLS, my goal was to work in every kind of library.  I’ve worked in both county and city libraries, worked as a substitute at an academic library, volunteered at my daughter’s school library to create machine readable records of their collection when they automated, worked at General Electric’s Aviation Service Operations’ library, and worked for over 12 years in the private sector with a library vendor.  In fact, OCPL was one of my customers!  I left the company because I wanted a job that I felt would make a difference in people’s lives.  I never regretted taking a 30% pay cut to return to the public library arena.

 

And I will never forget the SWM meeting the day after 9/11 and County Librarian John Adams telling us that we fight for freedom and liberty every day when we open the doors to our libraries.  That libraries stand for the best of our American values of justice,  equality, and the pursuit of happiness.  I have always believed that libraries change lives for the better. 

 

While I am retiring from OCPL, I am not retiring from librarianship.  I will be at CLA this November to lead two workshops:  how to emotionally prepare for retirement and the annual California Writer’s Panel:  California Vintage.  I hope to see many of you there and encourage you to be an active member of our profession.  Libraries matter more than ever and what we do makes a difference. 

 

I found the attached cartoon in my files and wanted to share it with you.  Be proud of what you do.  OCPL has done great things and will continue to do so in the future.  OCPL staff is its greatest resource and your ideas and energy have propelled OCPL to excellence. 

 

I will miss all of you and will really miss being the La Habra librarian.  At the same time, I am excited at what the future holds—I already have the next 9 months filled up!  I will be taking classes at CSU Fullerton through OLLI, doing a lot of traveling, getting back into hiking and backpacking, and I just bought a kayak—which I’ll take on my cross country trip this coming spring.  And I’ll finally make a dent in my many TBR piles!

 

Good luck and best wishes to all of you.

 

Jill

Branch Manager

Goodbye, Farewell, Tofa Soifua!

The art of saying good bye …

 

Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2017 12:40 PM

Subject: Goodbye, Farewell, Tofa Soifua!

 

Hiyah,!

 

Thank you so much for making the last (almost) ten years some of the most rewarding, exciting and character-building years of my life.

 

I’ve made wonderful life-long friends, found mentors who I will look up to forever more, and will take with me skills and experience that I’m confident will see me through whatever adventures, harrowing or delightful, come my way.

 

If there’s one piece of advice I’d leave for all of you, something that has seen me through our many challenges and changes over the years it’s don’t forget the people.

 

I remind myself constantly that everything we do, whether it be storytime, or book clubs, collection development, outreach, service to the public, isn’t for politics, or demographics, or the majority.

 

Libraries are the keepers of literacy, learning, and information, without judgment, and that means we should be actively welcoming to all, no matter your race, nationality, your sexual orientation, your economic status, your occupation, or personal beliefs.  Anyone should be able to come into a library and find some small place that enlightens, encourages and inspires them.  A single mother might find books on how to start her own business at home.  A retiree might discover a risqué comedian’s books and rediscover his love for humor.  Or a skinny queer kid, with curly hair and quirky glasses might find stories about kids just like him that help him get through a rough time in high school J

 

But most importantly, don’t forget the people behind the desk.  We are people with dreams, and expectations, too, with hopes for our future.  We are lonely, and happy, and excited, and depressed, and content, and anxious, and dreaming of days when we can travel, but not today because it’s storytime.  We are wise, and experienced, in our different ways, with treasures of life to share, if someone would just ask and, even more importantly, listen.

 

We are reflections of the people we serve, and they are mirrors of our state of emotion and happiness and well-being, and when that’s forgotten, when we merely become people who are workers, paper-pushers and schedule-keepers and seatfillers at meetings, we lose that part of our jobs that makes us relatable, that makes us relate, to others who may need that from us.

 

Passion and compassion drive us to do more.  But when that is gone, we are compelled to seek it elsewhere.  While I leave so much behind, here with you, it’s time for me to find my passion out there.

 

If yours is here, make sure to nurture it.  Remember the people.

 

Warmest wishes and regards to you all!  Good luck and happy new year!

 

Pat

(Former) Library Assistant, future adventurer and writer-to-be

I work in another library system on an on-call/part time basis and because I'm not there as often enough to plan and execute a program, I thought I'd suggest this passive program with simple instructions for the rest of staff to follow.

I created a poster with a pocket in the front to hold the torn sheets for blacking out.  InfoDesk was emailed the instructions to give a piece of candy and raffle ticket for poetry submissions and to display the submissions in the teen window.  Easy enough?  We'll see.  (I actually enjoyed blacking out and designing the page - which is not the one on the poster).

Catching up in Social Media

It's been over 6 months since I posted.  In the meanwhile, I took a training on Social Media in Career Enhancement and guess what, here I am to share the good stuff of librarianship on social media.

Okay, back to 6 months ago.  I wanted to do something with sugar skulls (cool history) and ended up making 80 skulls all by myself because I was just too darn excited.  Well, a big lesson learned there because my poor hands suffered from the kneading and stirring and molding.

I could have easily asked for assistance from staff and when I look back at the experience, my plans did not include involving their help because it would be too much to explain how I wanted it.  I see that in busy people, especially in OCDs and perfectionists, who don't trust the capability of others and so, of course, I am taking opportunities to involve staff in future program planning.  So yeah, sugar skulls were awesome.

Worry Dolls I thought would be a fun craft for February (adults & teens) and just a handful showed which was fine and fun.  People kept asking about the voodoo dolls and NOOOO, they're not voodoo dolls, they're worry dolls.  Easy peasy, thanks Pinterest!

Let me tell you about the coloring club.  I launched it this past February for every Tuesday mornings.  After the 3rd week, we had a full house and I would say, it is quite popular, check out the newspaper clipping.  I'd like to thank my cousin Jazmine for having such an intricate coloring book out on display during a Christmas get together.

TIPS on marketing supplies and displays

Librarians weren't trained in marketing or design.  So we acquire these skills as we move through our experiences.

TIPS on flyer designs:  google flyer images.  Example:  google image "author event flyer".  Images will give you an idea on how to design a great looking flyer.  Pick the one you are most drawn to because of the quick clarity of the message - that is to say, at a glance, it caught your eye, then notice why it caught your interest.

TIPS on free images:  pixabay, creative commons, Harvard's pathfinder or google images / search tool / labeled for reuse.  Recently, copyright has become an important issue because the County can be hunted for their deep pockets.  The clipart was even removed from our office applications.  Not to worry, we've found reliable online sources for cool images.  Just get use to searching them.

Recently, we've created a marketing committee reeking havoc on our creative designs, limiting us to certain colors, fonts, and logo to support the branding efforts of the County.  Due to the bureaucratic nature of the business, you do what you can, however, they should've hired an expert in design and marketing cause if your marketing ain't right, ain't no one gonna see it.

TIPS on display:  I found this cool display unit holding a flyer and business card.  The neat deal about it is you can design your business cards to market the program and use them as handouts.  In the past, we've used handouts of various sizes and I've noticed the business card seems to be the best and efficient use of resources.   Cost ranges from $6-$30 each.  I got the cheaper unit and it's awesome!  As for the business cards for laser printer, for the volume I do, the 1,000 card box cost: $40-$80.

Some one donated a portable display board and I took it thinking it might be useful.  It was stored for about a year and with a little bit of velcro, these display acrylics look great on the board in the lobby of the library.  I love it!

2015 Library Programs Jan-Jun

Here's the first half of 2015.  Sometime last year, a marketing committee was formed to promote the branding efforts of the County.  Our marketing efforts were to be restricted to certain colors, font, and logo.  As we implemented the new policy, you'll notice the change in flyers as they become more bland in color as we move forward.  On the other hand, we are able to work around that by using free images, texture, and font sizes and placement.

These images were designed for a monitor, so in marketing a program, I design a legal size for the monitor, a letter size for posting in the lobby, a pdf letter size for online posting on our calendar, and a business card size for handouts.  For the bigger programs, I will design a 24x36 poster for one of the poster rolling racks placed in the entry way.

This particular craft program was a huge success. When looking back, perhaps the success was due to the time and date of the program. I decided to push the program back to 5:00 PM instead of the usual 7 o'clock evening programs that I do.I also posted the program about two months ahead of time instead of the usual one month of marketing time. It was also just before Valentine's Day and I  noticed a few teen couples and groups attend the program.  A bunch of supplies were donated for this one, found a $20 box template cutter from Michaels, gallon ziploc baggies from the 99c Store across the street (can we be so lucky!) and put together kits.  Kits are awesome for craft programs.  Minimal mess.  Fullhouse.

I will say the facilitator for this program is a retired US History Junior High teacher.  So far, his passion for this program has resulted in many successes in the students completing the naturalization process.  We found a gem here.

 As part of the employee incentive program, this library assistant agreed to a few programs in the library system.  He asked our library if he could facilitate this program and we were able to.  Due to the popularity of the antiques roadshow, it brought people in with their ancient wares.

 POPULAR program.  I was able to track down this persons contact through networking with other library systems.  A very informative and kid friendly program, and of course brought out the fans.