Hi! Hello! Hi!
As the warm, happy craziness of the holiday season morphs into the drowsy, cold month that is January in Ohio, I finally have a few moments to look back at 2015. What a year it was for us at the Payne Branch Library.
We ended 2015 with the most incredible change to our layout. I believe I’ve written before about the spacial challenges we face as a charming little storefront library: we have a very long and very narrow building. While that may insinuate the type of coziness I dream about in a library, both Laina and I felt we could never quite achieve what we wanted here. We’d try rearranging the collection, moving some furniture around, blah blah blah. We just couldn’t put a finger on what it was we needed.
Enter: our beautiful new circulation desk! We received a new desk and reconfigured some of our existing furniture (our patron computer table, book shelves) to create a totally new space. Let me tell ya, this is the stuff.
The center of our library, which used to be dominated by two long shelving units, is now open and used for both work and leisure!
We are so thankful to have a supportive Director and Board of Trustees, without whom we could not have gone forward with these updates. Stop in sometime to see the rest of the changes!
If you’re a Harry Potter fan, read on. If not, 1) please read on anyway and 2) proceed to the nearest copy of the the series and read immediately. If you’re still not a fan at that point, well, repeat step 2. 🙂
In November, we had the best event: Back to Hogwarts. Our branch became Hogwarts Castle for the evening, and we had a whole gaggle of first-year students come through the event. They received their wands, pet owls, were sorted into their Hogwarts Houses, attended four classes each, and finished off the evening with a visit to Honeydukes to enjoy Harry Potter-themed treats. I would post all of our pictures here if I could, but please find us on Facebook to see some more!
Those Hogwarts staff members, right!?
Magic was apparently our theme for 2015, as we had an amazing magic show in December. I cannot remember the last time I laughed so unabashedly hard. Children as young as two and adults (just a tad older than two 😉 ) thoroughly enjoyed this show. Gordon Russ the Magician came all the way to us from Michigan, and we are already talking about when we can have him back again.
Looking back at such a fabulous year only inspires more excitement for the upcoming year. 2016 marks the Payne Branch Library’s 20th anniversary, which coincides with our main library’s centennial celebration, and we have some great ideas in the works.
See you soon!
Suzi
At the Corner of Main & Merrin 