Delaware Township Library

The Delaware Township Library has begun a new year as have all of you as well.  We truly hope that it will be a wonderful year for us here and for all of you as well.  We will be setting new goals for ourselves this month and I’ll try to keep you informed about what they are.  Goals in life are good.  How else can anyone or anything improve!

Libraries are not what they were when I was a child.  I used to go to the Mulvane Public Library in Topeka and it was in an old house that had been donated.  I loved it there.  There were about two rooms of books that I was familiar with anyway.  One room was devoted to small children and the other room that I knew was for Junior Fiction readers.  It was very hushed there and the librarian sat at a desk by the front door.  She stamped our books with a stamp on the top of her pencil.  It fastened on there of course so when the pencil needed replacing she just moved it to a new pencil.

Now libraries especially here in our small towns have become a place to socialize.  We have many patrons who live by themselves that love to come here and visit with all of us here.  That’s a good thing I think.  Recently I have had several patrons tell me this place will never be the same when I’m gone.  I’m not exactly sure how to take that but they do have a good time here sometimes.  Yesterday a patron came in and told me that she had acquired a bunch of real hankies.  She wanted to know if I liked real hankies and I do.  She went home and came back with them telling me that I could have them.  We were looking at them and admiring them when one patron wanted to know if he could have one for his daughter and we said sure.  Another patron wanted a couple for herself and so she left here with them as well. You just never know what will happen here at the Delaware Township Library.

We look forward to serving you this year.  Please feel free to share any needs that you have with us and we’ll see how we can help.

December is here and most of us are bustling around with holiday activities.  It is sometimes a quiet time at the library here.  I just finished reading the three Christmas stories I always read this time of year and it strikes me as heartbreaking in some ways that the opinions expressed by Scrooge in A Christmas Carol are still the opinions of some people. That was published in 1843 in England and there is still a lot of truth found in the story.  I know that I am blessed.  I have a wonderful family, a warm home to keep me comfortable and a job.  May you all have a blessed holiday.  Seasons greetings from the Delaware Township Library.

Summer is on its last couple of weeks and it is always a sad thing for me anymore.  I hate seeing summer go for another nine months.  I know that fall brings a lot of nice things for the library system but it is still the end of a special time at the library.

In October we have the annual NEST meeting at the Barn Bed and Breakfast and most of the librarians from this area of Kansas attend it.  We have such a good time sharing stories of our summers and what we are looking forward to in the coming months.  We attend workshops and hear special speakers and just really enjoy the time together.  This will be our 21st NEST at the B&B in Valley Falls.

October will be a busy month with classes to attend and meetings to attend as well.  It’s time to think about getting out that warmer clothing and enjoying the cooler temperatures.

The school year is back in session in most of our communities.  We had a good summer here with lots of activity but it is nice to get back to “normal”.

We have had quite a few things happen here but the one that we are most looking forward to is new furniture arriving for our extra room to the west.  My granddaughters and I had to kill some time at the Topeka Library recently and I decided it was pretty nice to have something comfortable to sit on while we waited for our doctor’s appointment.  One of our board members lost her husband this summer and had designated the library as a place for memorial funds.  We were able to purchase a loveseat, chair and a nice magazine table with the funds we received.  The table arrived last week but we are still anxiously awaiting the loveseat and chair.  Now we will have a pleasant spot for our patrons who are waiting on something as well.