We had two excellent presentations yesterday for care of home libraries. Lynne Thomas  of NIU’s Rare Book diviion  said that if you are keeping your house between 65 and 75 degrees with low humidity, you are probably preserving yourbooks just fine.  Sudden changes, humidity and light are the main culprits.  Then two of our great book menders demonstrated basic techniques in book mending.  As a public library, we do not do archival book restoration but we do mend books all of the time. Thanks to one and all who presented and who attended.  We will do this again.

Don’t forget to stop by and wish the staff a happy National  Library Week.  We love our patrons.  Yesterday was so much fun.  I got to interview patrons for two hours. People love dthe lbirary, the staff and the resources.  Lots of good wishes there.  Dee

Stop in during this beautiful spring weather to see the new books,  read a magazine and see what bulbs are pushing up through the earth in Frank’s gardens.  It is National Library week and we have two programs  for you.  On Wednesday night, we have Mrs. Lincoln in front of the fireplace and on Saturday we have two programs in one– a basic book mending class given by the staff of the DeKalb Public Library and  proceeded by Lynne Thomas of the Rare Book Room at NIU talking about when a book should be preserved.

Be sure to make time to vote today.  Local elections are very important to all of us.

Once a month, the DeKalb Public Library has a radio show.  This morning, Kathy Keyes, our PR and programming person, and I talked about Illinois Library Snapshot day which will be April 13.  On this day, we will capture all kinds of statistics and interview people as they come in the door.  Let us know how we are doing.

Have you ever wondered what people in a book club discuss?  Some books lend themselves better for discussion than others but a good discussion can help the reader look at the book in a different light.  For example, House of Sand and Fog is a page turner but difficult to read.  One’s emotions are on a roller coaster while reading it.   I have not read the book in a discussion but would love to talk to people about the book and the motivations of the characters.

Movies are a wonderful way to visualize a book.  I was very interested in the movie Hunter’s Moon which is based on author Daniel Woodrell’s work.  He writes bleak stories about real human beings and is one of my favorite authors.  I was watching Castle the other night and enojoying it very much–  based on a fictional author’s work.

This wseekend, the Friends will sponsor their book sale.  All of the oboks are donated and then sold by the Friends.  Summer reading programs for children receive their funding through this sale.  Please support literacy by donating books and by shopping at the sale.

Thank you Midweek for the lovely article about the library.  Libraries are so important to the education of  a community.  National Library Week is going to be here in April and we are planning some programs.  One will be a basic book fixing class but we will pair it with the NIU Rare Book Librarian who will  present a program on “Is it Worth beign Fixed?” All sounds like great fun.

I saw two crocuses blooming last Sunday and I thought about what I am going to plant in my planters this year.  I am a sucker for what looks good in the stores the day I buy.  This year I am actually going to plan and use some library books to do that!