November

Welcome...

mash — Sun, 04 May 2008 10:16:29 -0600

I have been writing a weekly newspaper column since 1987.

For 3 years, it ran in the Greeley Tribune. Since then, it has run in various subsidiaries of the Douglas County News Press. I still have most of my columns in digital format.

For many years, I only gave myself one rule: try to work the word "library" into every piece. My intent was to think in public about just what librarianship means at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st.

December 3, 2009 - what do you know about your country?

Jamie LaRue — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:39:05 -0700

OK, grown-ups, it's time for a test. Go to this link:

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

It's sponsored by the ISI, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. The only personal information you're asked to provide is your education level and income.

What pops up are 33 pretty interesting questions. When you're done, you find out, right on the spot, how well or poorly you did. It tells you which ones you missed, and what the right answers are.

Some of the answers you almost certainly learned in grade school. Some of them you should have learned in the process of reading the paper, watching or listening to the news, and talking to people.

November 19, 2009 - the learning library

Jamie LaRue — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:14:13 -0700

Douglas County Libraries has learned some things. Beginning with our experiments in Roxborough, then Lone Tree, we discovered that a combination of self-check technologies and displays meant that we could move far more books, movies, and music with the same staff and space. In fact, we have almost 7% fewer staff this year than last.

November 12, 2009 - defy dyslexia, discover reading!

Jamie LaRue — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:24:51 -0700

Some months ago, I got an email from Erica Vlahinos, a senior at Douglas County High School. She told me that she was a Girl Scout, working on her Gold Award Project -- the equivalent of a Boy Scout Eagle Award.

November 27 - what and who is next?

Jamie LaRue — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:31:33 -0700

Many months ago now, I attended a couple of meetings with the deans of two library schools.

We library directors had some ideas about the desirable skill sets of new graduates. The deans were eager to hear from us what public libraries were looking for these days.

After a while, I started to feel a little sorry for the deans. It turns out that all we wanted them to do was give us smart, emotionally intelligent, and experienced project managers who not only had a good handle on their own high ethics and professional standards, but also inspired others to be as good as they were.

To put it another way, what we wanted couldn't be simpler. We just wanted them to guarantee that we would never make a hiring mistake again.

The problem, of course, is that such an expectation is utterly unreasonable. No matter how good any new professional may be, the hiring organization still bears a lot of responsibility.

Professional programs impart a body of theory. They provide an introduction to a career.

The library provides something else: the real career.

November 20, 2008 - Veterans services at the library

Jamie LaRue — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:32:24 -0700

By Rochelle Logan, Associate Director of Research & Collections

Of all the phases in my life, the time I am most proud of was spent as an Air Force spouse. My husband was a pilot, now retired. We moved eight times all over the US and overseas until we landed in Colorado in 1992. It was a wonderful life, but also a hard one. We never knew where the military would send us next. Will it be in a part of the country or world we’d rather not live? How will the children take another move?

There were plenty of times I was anxious and lonely and those were during times of peace for our country. Now I have friends whose sons and daughters are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military and their families deserve our thanks and support from our government. The GI Bill is one way the United States helps veterans.

November 13, 2008 - test your civic engagement

Jamie LaRue — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:36:34 -0700

A year ago, after the 2007 election, I did something I hadn't done before. I took a vacation, all by myself, to a place where I knew no one.

Last year, it was Milwaukee. I rented a cheap hotel room close to Lake Michigan. And I spent several days walking the shore, walking the city, walking and walking and walking.

When I got back, my wife asked me, "So whom did you talk to?" Usually when I travel I return with lots of stories. And that's when I realized that I really hadn't talked to anybody, other than to check into the hotel, or to order a meal.

I returned, I think, better than when I'd left. I had found my center. Sometimes you just need absolute quiet and physical release. You need solitude.

And if that's one side of the equation, here's another: civic engagement. I know that after the recent, interminable election process, no one wants to think about this.

November 6, 2008 - it takes a village to make a village

Jamie LaRue — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:49:56 -0600

Back in the day, I lived for a while as a wandering poet. The pay was terrible, but the experience was rich.

At one point, I found myself at the home of a newspaper publisher. He admitted that he did not understand poetry at all, or know how to tell if it was any good. So we got to talking. How, I asked him, did he recognize good writing in journalism?

He started rattling off some characteristics. Good newspaper writing was clear, fresh, free of cliches. It had immediacy and structure. It told a story. It was poignant but not sentimental.

And when he was done, I said "the same thing is true of good poetry." Every discipline has its quirks, of course, but by comparing samples of poetry to samples of newspaper writings, we quickly found that we had more in common than he'd thought: good writing is good writing.

Much the same thing is true in the worlds of for-profit, and not-for-profit. The end is different -- newspapers and libraries, for instance, have discrete purposes. But when you take a look at how private sector and public sector organizations operate, it again doesn't take long to identify some commonalities.

November 30, 2006 - Elections Had 2 Positive Results

Jamie LaRue — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:34:15 -0600

I'm sure people are tired of hearing about the elections. But I have two things I'd like to share.

First, a lot of Colorado libraries went to the voters this November. And by and large, they did very well.

Successful library issues (usually, increases in funding to build or renovate libraries) were approved in:

Adams County

Basalt

Berthoud

Dolores

Durango

Fort Collins

Garfield County

Florence

November 2, 2006 - When Mother Nature is Cruel

Jamie LaRue — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:34:14 -0600

Mother Nature is mighty and unpredictable.

I've tried to set up a procedure to handle library closings or delayed openings. In general, we try to follow the school district. But sometimes what makes sense for them doesn't make sense for us.

As I'm writing this (the morning of October 27), Douglas County's weather is split along peculiar lines. In some areas, it's fine for travel. In others, people are socked in with snow. But the weather forecast says it's supposed to be in the 60s by noon. You gotta love Colorado.