Storytime Variety- The Spice of Life

This year we have two new Storytimes to add to the variety here in Summerville. With our morning sessions filling up fast we decided that it would be a good time to offer a drop in Afternoon Family Storytime on Tuesdays from 3:00pm-3:45pm. This Storytime is suited for children under seven and their families and does not require registration. Drop in, come by, and have a great time.

The other exciting news is the addition of a Family Spanish Storytime with the help from our friends at Charleston Southern University. On Friday, February 17th from 11:30-12:30pm we will be reading some of your favorite stories in Spanish. This is a great opportunity for children to have a good time while getting exposed to a foreign language. This is a drop in Storytime for children under the age of 7 and their families.

We hope you enjoy variety in Storytime and hope you venga en, y tienen un gran momento!!

BE NICE TO THE BOOKS….

Books are precious to us all. I have heard them described as treasures, as portals into other worlds. But just like any treasure or portals, books have to be kept in good conditions. Here are just a few rules about the care and keeping of these treasures that we hold so dear to our hearts….

1. First off, remember that water and paper are not compatible. Having a liquid refreshment while reading a book is not a bad idea. It only becomes a bad idea when it sits next to the book or on top of the book. Be careful where the drinks are sitting. Water damaged books are a high percentage of the damaged materials we get back here at the library. Food is also included in this. Orange food stains in a book tell the next reader that you were eating
Cheetos and you did not have a napkin.

2. Dogs love books. They may not be able to read the story of the Three Little Pigs but they sure do enjoy chewing on the piggies. It is a good idea to keep books away from the pets. Keeping the books away from animals ensures that you won’t be charged for a damaged book because of the destructive power of your pets teeth. Baby teeth included.

3. Some books are not meant to be bent. I like the idea of bending the cover back and reading my book, but this wears out the binding of the book. This results in pages breaking out and the next patron having to come up and say, “I am missing pages 310-315. And those are the last pages of the book!!” These books are usually the paperbacks and graphic novels. Graphic novels especially are famous for the pages coming out so be careful.

4. It is always a good idea to let someone who is trained in book repair to fix the books. Book repair personnel use special glues, tape, and procedures for putting a book back together. Even if a page has a small rip, don’t tape it. Just let the staff members at the front desk know and they let us know that it is in need of repair.

5. I know it is very easy to throw books around sometimes. However if books are thrown around, spine tend to become weak and eventually the book pages will separate from the binding. When a huge chunk of the book has broken off from the spine, we call this spine damage. Sometimes it can be easily remedied with a whole lot of glue, but after two or three times of re-gluing the spine back to the book, the glue is no longer effective and the book continues to fall apart.

6. Keep covers clean and barcodes and spine labels on the books.


Just watching how we take care of the books helps them to be able to last a little bit longer and keeps the number of repairs for each book down. It is painful to a person who loves books to have to throw away books because they can no longer be repaired. But we rather do this knowing that the book was loved by many for many years instead of only having been checked out three times and the damages are too severe for them to be repaired. So….Be ye nice to the books!

Magazines-That's what we do best!!

Recently, I went to GameStop to purchase a gift certificate for a friend. When I checked out, the clerk at the counter said that my purchase qualified me for a discount on a subscription to one of their gaming magazines. Without thinking much about it, I automatically declined telling him that I didn’t need that because I work at the library and we have a subscription to the magazine there and I can look at it and check it out at any time. His reaction was a wide-eyed: “Really???” I saw my chance, put on my “let’s blow this guy’s mind with what the library has to offer” smile and told him all about our Young Adult magazine collection and the subscriptions we have to Game Informer, PC Gamer, Playstation, etc. Not surprisingly, he didn’t know!

Granted the word is getting out about the library’s collection of eBooks and downloadable materials, DVDs, and Music CDs, but magazines . . . patrons still ask us whether they can check them out or not. Although I have never actually checked one of our Young Adult magazines out to a patron, I know that they are circulating and they are being looked at. Judging by the appearance and wear and tear of, for example, Mad and J-14, those two magazines are very well loved. For gamers, we offer magazines for almost any platform, Playstation, X-Box, Nintendo. We carry Shonen Jump for manga readers and for the up-to-date fashionable teen we offer Teen Vogue, Seventeen, and Girls Life.

I know we have patrons who regularly check out magazines from the collection we offer for adults. Admittedly, it might hurt our Young Adult magazine collection that it does not have a great location and we don’t have much opportunity to display and feature it. However, magazine collections for Young Adult, Juveniles and Adults do live at the Dorchester County Library. If you don’t know where to find them or what we carry, come on in and if you happen to ask me, I’ll put on my best “let’s blow this patron’s mind with what the library has to offer” smile and tell you all about it.

Moving Time is Here!

Yeah, we are moving and it's only temporary which means we get to do this again! I have done this once before in a prior job. I was hoping to only do this once because moving a library is NOT fun.

The movers come tomorrow to start boxing up all the materials that will be placed in storage until we return. That's about 99% of the collection in the Headquarters library in St. George. Boy, am I glad that we aren't moving the Seago Branch in Summerville!  That would be 10 times more work.

The actual move will begin Tuesday after the MLK Day holiday. We have a week allocated to getting bookshelves, computers, desks and files in place to re-open Monday January 23rd. Hopefully, all this works out as planned but you know how that can go. We'll just wait and see.

Our patrons will have access to a very small browsing collection at our 101 Ridge Street location. We will also have the bookmobile outside loaded with children's books and DVDs. Here's a look at our new digs.

This is the main room which will be divided in half by shelving.

The front side is the public area. Behind the shelves will be a staff area that houses 6 staff members, their desks and files.

These are attached rooms where our catalogers, the business staff and the director will be located.

We've stuffed our IT staff in a cubby hole off the main hall.

Once we relocate I'll post pictures of the rooms loaded with our shelving, books and assorted paraphernalia. Even though the room is small we will still provide a few computers for Internet access. Patrons will be able to reserve materials and pick them up at our new location. We won't have WiFi access. Everyone will need to visit McDonald's for that but we will continue to provide service as we wait out the completion of our renovation and expansion project. If you haven't checked lately, we've posted new photos of our construction progress on our FB page. We hope you will visit it to keep up with our progress.

Teens Takeover in 2012

In 2012 we are highlighting the programs we offer our teen patrons. We have a lot of coll stuff planned whether you make crafts, are into gaming or just like to read comics there is an event for you. Any 6th-12th graders are invited to come by the library and see what's for you.




2012 Teen Programs @ DCL-Summerville


Comic Spot- Read graphic novels and manga with other teens.

January 14th, February 11th, March 17th @ 3:00pm


Game Night-That’s right it’s back!

March 2nd @ 6:00pm (registration begins February 13th) Limited to 40 gamers.


Being Crafty- Trust me it’s fun and you make stuff!!

March 10th @ 2:00pm


Movie Night- Come watch your favorite movie!

April 20th @ 6:00pm (registration begins March12th) Limited to 40 teens.

Come Down to Storytime

Sometimes, it’s the little things that show you have made an impression . . . like when your storytime kids come up to you and, although they are usually very shy, they suddenly call you by name and chat up a storm . . . or when the kids walk past you in the library and want to do the “Tooty Ta” . . .

I’ve had good storytimes in which the children and parents work with me and, most importantly, with each other, where they participate and seem to have great fun. I’ve also had what I call ‘painful’ storytimes, like when I start reading one of my stories and halfway through it I realize that I’ve completely lost my listeners’ interest. One time, I started to sing the “Baby Bumblebee” song and utterly forgot the words to the song right in the middle of it, until one of my storytime moms kindly whispered that she thought you ‘squish it up’ next . . . That’s storytimes for you . . . you can’t win them all and we all have good and bad days, storytime planners included.

Well, on January 3rd 2012, it’s time to register for our regular Winter Storytime sessions in Summerville again. For the up-coming Winter session, we are still offering our regular Family Storytime, Toddlertime, and Preschool Storytime in the morning, of course, but we are also adding an afternoon Family Storytime for which we will not require registration. A Spanish Family Storytime is in the works and the Weekend Family Storytime on Saturdays will also continue.

It’s always nice to get a small break between storytime sessions, though. Gives me a chance to re-group, get new ideas and feel re-energized to start a new session . . . gives me plenty of opportunity to practice the “Baby Bumblebee,” too. It’s fun to see some of your regulars return and nice to meet some new excited faces who might just become regulars. So, check out our options and come on down to Storytime. And if you’re in one of my storytimes, don’t hesitate to jump right in if I forget the words to a song or fingerplay, I’d really appreciate it.

Connecting the Dots . . .

Working in a library is about making connections. You're helping people determine what they need and then you help them find it. Typically, you are talking about information found in books or databases. But sometimes, the information they seek is not always found in a book or one of the other resources that libraries typically collect. Sometimes it's about connecting people.

Last month our branch manager, Jane Bailey, received a call from a gentleman in Michigan who does genealogy research. He has a friend in France who found a set of dog tags belonging to an American GI. He wanted to return the tags to the soldier's family and asked for his help in locating remaining family members. The information on the tags indicated the soldier was from our area. Using the data provided by our Michigan researcher, Jane used her knowledge of our local families and began making phone calls. Over the course of a couple weeks and through numerous phone calls and emails, she located the soldier's family and obtained permission to give contact information to the researcher so his friend in France could sent the dog tags to the family.

Mission accomplished . . . connection made. The research assistance provided by library staff extends well beyond our local community. Sometimes it's half a world away.