Community Directory

A few months ago there was a quiz on the Carroll County Community directory. So I got acquainted with the directory then however the community directory module for LATI was a nice refresher and had me check out some additional directories although the Carroll County Community Directory is my favorite. The Maryland directory was pretty easy to use but it just seemed like the Carroll County one brought up more pertinent results more of the time. I do like the multiple county search function though. Being located on the border of four different counties a lot of times people don't want to go to to somewhere in Carroll county for a service. This would be a great way of showing them options available in the area but not limiting oneself to county borders. I did not like the Memphis, TN directory. It was confusing and you had to sift through a lot of information to get the desired results.

LATI Days

On Wednesday I had the programming day of LATI. Although I thought the information that was presented was good being from the same county as the presenters meant that I'd heard most of it previously. But I think it was important to include. I would have liked more on teen programing since I'm always trying to get ideas to do for that.
I enjoyed going to the central branch of Enoch Pratt Free Library. For starters the library is fun to look at especially the ceilings and lobby. Its a very impressive building. However I also learned a lot about things I can take back to my branch. I grabbed a ton of their reading lists for YAs to help with reader's advisory questions. They were very nicely broken up into genres, interests and a special short books list for the reluctant reader. I also am excited to learn they get public viewing rights for a lot of their movies (with the exception of the big Hollywood ones) so it might be possible to do a movie night or something for teens without having to pay for the public viewing rights. I found how they filed everything very interesting although I think it would be confusing with all those departments overlapping in certain areas. And it could be even more confusing if you have a patron that isn't exactly sure what they want. In the afternoon I went to the workshop Mother Goose on the Loose. It was very fun and gave me some new ideas to do at story time although I mostly do story times with older kids.

Wii Staff Play

Today I introduced some of my fellow staff members to the Wii. Everybody loved it naturally and had a lot of fun playing Wii Sports. I am really impressed by this game system and can't wait till I get to run a program for it for teens. I had the staff sign up just like the teens will and it went pretty smoothly. And there was a scramble in one of the groups to pick the game. Here are some pictures of the staff playing on the Wii.