Rita's Roast starts up!

HPL is excited to have a new coffee vendor open and ready for business!  Meredith Hulsey opened Rita's Roast about a week ago with a variety of refreshing beverages and some unbelievably good treats.  You may have purchased some of her awesome baked goods at the Reno County Farmers Market and now you can get them at the Library as well (at least some of the time).  Rita's Roast also features a great hand-made lunch deal that includes a sandwich and other tasty treats.

The Hutchinson News had a nice write-up about Rita's Roast last Friday or Saturday as well - thank you Hutchinson News!

Be sure to stop in on Monday, August 1st and help celebrate Rita's Roast at their Grand Opening!

eBook update for mid-July

The ebook landscape continues to change as HPL moves closer to deadlines for decisions regarding what tools to use to provide our patrons with the best reading / usability experience we can.  A recent article from Market Watch discussing 3M's new library ebook system shows just how rapidly things can change.  For what little it is worth, I can say with confidence that this is a system to watch.  OverDrive, the market leader in library-lending ebook systems should take heed.  Having seen a demonstration of the 3M system, OverDrive's way of doing things pales in comparison.

It remains to be seen if 3M can add the content, but I have no real doubt that they will.

Today is the Big Day!

After months of planning, work and now tidying up, the Quiet Reading Room is ready for its Grand Opening!  I extend my humble thanks and appreciation for all the hard work that contributed to bringing us to this day.

• Thank you to the Friends of the Hutchinson Public Library for funding the project!
• Thank you to the Staff and others who worked on the committee to design it:  Mary Lou Sunderland, Martha fee, Lisa Dethloff, Julie Magyar, Cheryl Canfield, Lou McConnaghy, Roni Boldt, Austin Smith, Tremaine Fernandez, and Charlene Childs.
• Thank you to the Library's Maintenance staff for making the space spic-and-span for today.
• Thank you to Annette Smith for the preparations for the Grand Opening celebration.

I hope that the patrons of the library see the space for what it is; a sanctuary to get away from the noises that accompany the modern public library, a little oasis of calm for quiet contemplation and study.  It is also a tip-of-the-hat to the history of this building.

From the fiction sorting area

Women's Civic Center information

Lighted study carrel

Mid-summer update

As we sit here baking in the hot July sun, I am thankful that I am able to sit here in the relative cool of the library.  It has been a somewhat tumultuous summer so far and I thought I'd write down all that has been going on.  In late May, we found out that the Bru Crue Coffee Bar was going to have to abruptly shut down.  I, and many others, were sad to hear about this.  However, we will soon have another coffee vendor up and running - Rita's Roast Coffee Co. will be open very soon.

Our new roof has been finished and at least in some parts of the building, the reflective quality of the white vinyl may actually be helping to lower the temperature!  I'm not sure that there's any helping the Computer Lab temperature, but other parts of the second floor seem cooler.

On the subject of the public computer lab, we are exploring the cost involved in redoing the HVAC for that part of the building.  As we have discussed what to do about the computer lab, we have revisited the arrangement of the whole area north of the mezzanine.  Who knows?  By the time all is said and done, we may have a whole new look on the 2nd floor!

Trekking through the wilderness

From time to time we all take journeys through the wilderness.  Sometimes these journeys are figurative, sometimes they are literal and sometimes they are both.  This past week I took a little time off and with parts of my family, I took a literal journey through the wilderness:

This is, of course, the Grand Canyon.  A place so massive it defies description; in places so remote you could walk off the trail and never be found again.  The trail shown in this picture is one of the most popular trails in the canyon, the Bright Angel.  Thousands of people use it every year to travel to or from the south rim and the Colorado river.  While we were hiking along through 30+ miles of this place, I did some thinking, not really about libraries but about choosing paths.  I found out that our trip - south rim to north rim and back again - is a rare occurrence, comparatively speaking.  Most people (90% of all visitors) descend and return at the south rim.  So, where will the library go on its journey?

What is my point with this entry?  The picture above is the sort of place that libraries and library services are negotiating in a figurative way.  As media have changed and services shift from the own-and-share to the buy- or pay-as-you-go, relevance for libraries has come into question.  The Hutchinson Public Library is on a hike through the wilderness right now and we need all the information we can get.  Soon we will begin purchasing ebook content in earnest.  The State Library is doing a pilot project with 3M, our contract is up for renewal with OverDrive.  The bottom line is that things WILL change here and ahead of that we will ask for your input.  Please help us by participating in any upcoming surveys.  Your input will influence our decisions.  You have the opportunity to hike with us through the wilderness and help keep the Hutchinson Public Library a relevant and USEFUL service in our community for years to come!