LaRue's Views 1997

My son Perry is crazy about trains. He always has been. So for us, Christmas will be (again) a snarl of tracks and steam engines and train books and videos.

But it turns out that you don't have to be three-and-a-half years old to be a train buff.

I recently received a written complaint about a book called Cults and New Faiths. Published in 1981, it was written by one John Butterworth, editor of a newspaper in Northern England.

For the very first time since I have received such a complaint, I am going to remove the book from our collection. Let me tell you why.

Every now and then, we get a patron suggestion for a basic change in how we do business. One of the more recent suggestions was to change the loan period for all videos to one week.

Last week's front page headline was "Oakes Mill Library to be renamed." The first sentence of the story, written by Kathie Metcalf, declared that a new name was decided at a public input meeting on November 19.

I've been measuring my own experience as a parent, as a former home educator, as a librarian, as a charter school advocate and former charter school board member, and as a passionate believer in the importance of high quality public education, against the recently published results of reading and writing scores throughout Colorado.

When I was an undergrad, I had a friend whose roommate flipped out.

My friend came back from a class to find (let's call him) Joe cowering in a corner of the room. Every electric device, table lamp, radio, stereo, amplifier, receiver, was pointed away from him, towards the door. Joe himself would have been completely naked, except that he was wrapped in aluminum foil.

As previously reported by this paper, the owners of the Douglas County News-Press recently acquired the Highlands Herald.

For News-Press readers, my column is familiar. I've been writing it for the past seven years. Readers of the Herald, however, are probably wondering what happened to Cindy Murphy's column. Cindy has been writing for the Herald for ten years about library goings-on, all of her columns packed with useful information.

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
- Romeo and Juliet, II, ii, 43

After this week, the Oakes Mill Library, in existence for over a decade, will be no more. The old building will be torn down. Construction will begin immediately on a more expansive (over twice as large), all-on-one-level building which will take its place. We hope it will be open before the end of summer in 1998. (In the meantime, we will offer services from a bookmobile parked at the same site.)

This week I have several items.

First, at our Parker Library, on October 30, we'll be holding our traditional (seven years in a row) evening of Scary Stories. At 7 p.m. we have our "Tales for the Fainthearted," designed for children ages 3 to 8 and their parents. This session has lots of audience participation and some guaranteed laughs.

Recently I attended a Colorado Library Association conference, and in particular a session on library construction projects.

Such projects fall into three basic types. The first is a new library in a new location. The second (and probably the more common) is the library remodel. The third is the construction of a new library on the same site as the old one.