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Category Archives: Director’s Desk

News and updates from Greenwood Public Library’s Director.

How Reading Can Make You a Better Leader

Posted on August 6, 2019 by Cheryl Dobbs

What was the last book you read? Has a busy schedule and the ease of electronic devices made you into a scroller and a skimmer rather than a reader? Do you find yourself digesting information in tweet-sized bites or find it difficult to sit and give your full attention to a book? 25% of adults say they have not read a book in the last year. But research is proving that regular reading has a real impact on your life at home and at work. In fact, it might just make you a better leader.

 

  1. It will make you smarter! Just like a workout routine for your body improves your physical fitness, reading is a workout for your brain. It not only helps you expand your knowledge, but it can help you be more empathetic, and improve your emotional intelligence and ability to work with others.
  2. Reading reduces stress. Listening to an audio book on the way home or reading before bed can reduce your stress, lower your blood pressure, improve your quality of sleep, and leave you more rested for the next day.
  3. Fiction can improve your creativity. Studies by the University of Toronto show that readers of fiction showed more creativity in problem solving than readers of non-fiction essays. Fiction readers showed less need for closure and were more open-minded.
  4. If you read, your kids are more likely to read. Everyone wants their children to read, and to do well on standardized tests. The best way to encourage your children to read is for them to see YOU reading. Put down your device and pick up a book. Better yet, read together with your children and aloud to each other. Listen to audio books in the car and discuss what you’ve read. You will be amazed at the results.
  5. And, you could live longer. If you combine the effects of the first four on this list, you might not be surprised that Yale researchers have also found that people who read live longer. Their study of 3,635 people found that people who read for 30 minutes a day lived 23 months longer than those who didn’t read or who read magazines.

So, you could be smarter, more creative, more understanding, less stressed, have more successful kids, and live longer. Ready to start? Here are some quick picks you might enjoy:

Inspiring: Everybody Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People by Bob Goff

Moving forward: Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Community focus: Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg

Cautionary tale: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyou

Fun and fiction: Evie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes  (NPR Pop Culture Correspondent);
News of the World by Paulette Jiles

 

 

(Note: The Greater Greenwood Chamber asked me to write a guest article for their weekly newsletter, and I am sharing it again here. If you are a business person in the Greater Greenwood area, I highly recommend getting in touch with the Greater Greenwood Chamber of Commerce for their networking events, informative lunches, and other events. It’s more than handing out business cards – it’s getting connected with your community. )

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A Christmas Present for You: GPL is going fine-free!

Posted on December 12, 2018 by Cheryl Dobbs

Related imageThe Trustees and leadership of the Greenwood Public Library are excited to announce a major change to our circulation policy: the removal of late fees. Borrowers will still be responsible for replacement costs for lost items, but late fees will no longer be collected for items circulated at GPL.

One of the strategic initiatives outlined in our soon-to-be-released Blueprint 2019/2023 is to “make library easy.” For many patrons, the threat of late fees deters them from library use. Others find themselves with unexpectedly large fines and lose library privileges as a result. And although libraries have traditionally believed that late fees encourage the return of materials, research shows that late fees actually do more to discourage library use than they do to bring library materials back. GPL is proud to join a growing number of libraries across the country who are making the move to remove late fees.

As a part of our revised circulation policy, we have also enabled automatic renewals, making library use easier than ever. You will still receive reminder emails before your due date (if you have enabled email communication), but as long as your items do not have anyone waiting on hold for them, they will be automatically renewed. Be aware that books have a maximum of two automatic renewals, and DVDs have a maximum of one renewal possible.

If you are an Evergreen card holder and travel to other libraries to checkout materials, those items will be subject to the circulation policy in effect at that library. The new GPL Circulation policy applies to anything you check out at Greenwood Public Library, regardless of which library it came from. For more details please refer to our Circulation Policy.

For those who wonder how we can afford to do this, we’d like you to know that we expect the financial impact of this decision to be approximately a half of one percent of our operating budget. Through careful stewardship, our library is financially sound and healthy. We believe that the financial impact of this change will be far overshadowed by the opportunity it provides for us to make library easy for all of our patrons.

We have been looking forward to doing this for quite some time and are very excited to share this good news with you today. If you have late fees on your account that are keeping you from coming back to the library, please come see us! We can help!

Merry Christmas from us to you!

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For Good.

Posted on June 1, 2018 by Cheryl Dobbs

Financial Institutions. Insurance companies.  Hospitals. Stores. Utility companies. They all want your money, right? And if you’re like me, you might roll your eyes or mute the TV when commercials come on and you hear companies who want your money telling you how much they care. But here’s what I’ve learned. More often than most people realize, local companies and organizations quietly support literacy in your community. From volunteering, to book drives, to financial support, companies you do business with every day step up to make a difference in the lives of their community. They don’t tell you about it in a commercial. They don’t call the media to announce it. Some gifts are small and some are large, but all of them are the result of someone in a position of leadership who understands that they are not just in it for profit, but also for good.

Here at Greenwood Public Library our goal is for our community to be 100% excited about reading, and dozens of supporters want to be a part of that mission. They know that when a community reads, it succeeds – higher rates of literacy mean higher graduation rates, a better prepared workforce, and fuel for the battle against poverty.

The public dollars we receive through property taxes and local income taxes help us support our facility and our staff, but the funds donated through our Friends of the Library organization help us shine. We like to say that our library budget can provide the “How” and the Friends of the Library and donors provide the “Wow!” Some of the “Wow” that you will see as you walk through our library includes our amazing teen room, the new children’s play area, and our Century of Reading sculpture. And did you know that ALL of our programs are funded by donations? Every story time. Every game night or craft club. Large community events. Every guest speaker. All of summer reading. Wow.

On our 100th birthday, Home Bank surprised us with a gift of $15,000 toward our new Children’s play area. PNC chipped in to fund the baby crawl space, and Mrs. Curl helped us add some local flavor. This new space was over a year in the making and has added some serious Wow in the imagination department.

This summer we are thankful for our sponsors who have enabled us to Read Wildly! Franciscan Physician Network, Mutual Bank, IU Credit Union, Citizens Bank, First Merchants Bank, Reis-Nichols Jewelers, Gregory and Appel Insurance, Vectren, and Walmart.  If you haven’t signed up for Summer Reading yet, there’s still time!

For a full list of our donors, please visit our Friends of the Library donor page. There you will find the names of some businesses you probably frequent. Please take a moment the next time you see them to thank them for supporting  literacy in your community!

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Art in the Library?

Posted on January 30, 2018 by Cheryl Dobbs

Your public library has always been full of art. Every book on our shelves is a work of art by a talented literary artist. Authors transport us, make us laugh or cry, and expand our awareness of the world – as do artists who work in paint, photography, or sculpture. Our gallery hall has been a natural extension of our collection and it often displays the work of local artists. Our hope is that from the moment you walk in our door, you will be inspired. Inspired by art and by story and by possibilities, you will go home with armfuls of inspiration.

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. – Pablo Picasso

In many cities around the country 1% of public project money must be spent on art installations. When you enter libraries or other public buildings in these cities, you immediately feel and see the difference this investment has made. For years we have hoped to install some public art at GPL, but we needed the right time. We’ve had so much else to do, that art remained a dream. After all, we needed our building to be well maintained, safe, and more energy efficient. We always have payroll and benefits and utilities to pay, and most importantly, resources and programs to provide for our community. But this year, with the library stable, healthy, and celebrating our 100th birthday, the time was right.

Enter the Friends of Greenwood Public Library.

When you walk through our library and find yourself saying, “Wow!” you are probably looking at a project the Friends have touched. They allow us to dream big, to innovate, and to provide the kind of library experience we otherwise could not. The Friends heard about our dream for this public art piece, and got to work. Our Director of Development Jane Weisenbach began conversations with local library and art lovers, looking for investors who shared our dream.

Meanwhile, I contacted Jon Racek, an Indiana artist, and began the process of making this idea a reality.  “A Century of Reading” is a literary art piece which pays homage to many of the titles our patrons have read over the last 100 years. We worked with the Poynter Company to produce and install this sculpture, and on February 7, we will dedicate this one-of-a-kind public art piece.

Jon Racek

And here’s the best part – this sculpture was entirely funded by the investment of our community. Wow.

When you see our new sculpture I hope you are inspired. I hope it sparks conversations with your friends and family about what you’ve read. I hope it inspires you to know you live in a community that values art and literacy.

It was nearly 101 years ago that Greenwood residents realized their dream of establishing their own public library. I think they’d be pleased that we are launching our next century still focused on inspiring our community to read. Join us on February 7, as we thank those who made this amazing sculpture possible.

 

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Never Mess With a Librarian (or, Why Reading Matters)

Posted on October 6, 2017 by Cheryl Dobbs

Have you noticed that birthdays often make us reflective? And the bigger the number, the more reflective we get. We ask ourselves, “Have I accomplished enough? Seen enough? Am I where I thought I would be at this age?” It might surprise you to know that Libraries are  reflective on their birthdays, too. We had a wonderful birthday party for our 100th in February with over 350 of you, and we’ve spent the year evaluating our accomplishments. As we reflect, we are especially proud to be healthy for our age. Because if you haven’t got your health . . . well, you know what they say. But still, we have so much more to accomplish.

We are grateful to be surrounded by a community that actively supports and invests in us, and that has a lot to do with the good health we enjoy. That investment, in fact, has been transformative. It is imperative to us that we let our supporters and investors know what their investment has the power to produce. And so today I’d like to tell you a little bit about what we hope to accomplish more than anything else – and that is to ignite a love of reading in our community.

Do you remember the first time you really “got into” a book? The first time the world around you disappeared and you found yourself in a world created by an author? Have you ever had a hard time putting down a book? Maybe you stole extra hours of reading under the covers with a flashlight when you were a kid, or maybe you’ve been a little groggy at work in the morning because you couldn’t put down that bestseller at 1:00 a.m.?  Or maybe you are a non-fiction reader. Have you ever had an “aha” moment where you suddenly understood someth

ing in a completely new way? Books have the power to change our present and our future. But for all of us it started with just one book.

Do you remember being read to as a child? Or maybe you enjoy reading to your children or grandchildren? Sometimes, it is in those shared moments when that first book captures us and pulls us in. Do you remember what book it was that first caught you? Was it a fairy tale or picture book? Or maybe you remember the magic of classics like A Wrinkle in Time or The Lord of the Rings. In recent years scores of readers have been created through the magic of Harry Potter and his wizarding world.

My story is a little bit different. I was not much of a reader for most of elementary school. In addition to being what we later realized was dyslexic, I grew up in a fairly chaotic household during my mother’s battle against a cancer that would claim her life by the end of my fourth-grade year. It’s no surprise that my education was not a priority during those years. When my father remarried not quite a year later, it was to a widowed librarian. You’ve heard the saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”? Well you heard it wrong. The saying really goes like this:  “Hell hath no fury like a librarian who believes a child’s literacy has been neglected.” I’d been passed along from grade to grade with no special help or remediation – they had simply chalked me up as not that bright. Enter the librarian. Within a month I was receiving pull-out reading help at school and my stepmom had launched her own personal battle plan. She began reading to me at bedtime. At 10 years old I was horrified. I am too old for this, I thought. But she just kept reading. Night after night, week after week. Soon the words became sentences became paragraphs became stories . . . became magic. And I was drawn in. Soon it was my favorite part of the day. And then I made a serious mistake. I leaned in. We were reading Chancey and the Grand Rascal by Syd Fleischman. Chancey, who had lost both of his parents, had saved his money for two years so that he could set off in search of his scattered siblings. With his worldly possessions in a wheelbarrow, he was just about to buy his steamboat ticket when he was swindled out of all of his money! How was he ever going to find his family? I desperately wanted another chapter that night. But of course this was the moment my Mom had been waiting for. She put in a bookmark and set the book down on the nightstand. “If you want to know what happens, you’ll have to finish it yourself.” What? It was awful. I was so angry. I swore I would NEVER finish that book. I think my ten-year-old outrage lasted an entire day before I broke down and struggled through the first book I ever finished on my own. And of course when I finished, my mom was there with the next book to read, and the next, and the next. By the end of fifth grade I was above average in reading for the first time in my life. By the end of sixth grade I tested at a twelfth-grade reading level. The moral of this story is, never mess with a librarian.  This story took place a long time ago, over just a few months’ time, and yet this one moment, this one librarian, this one book changed my life.

Not everyone’s path to reading is smooth and straight. Without intervention, many children remain as I was before age 10 – functionally illiterate. They might with effort decode the words, but they can’t hear the story. And we know that children who are not reading well by fourth grade have a 78% chance of never catching up, and this can begin a very negative life story. Take a look at these statistics:

·         90% of welfare recipients are high school dropouts or functionally illiterate.

·         85% of juveniles who interface with the court system are functionally illiterate.

·         46% of American adults can’t read the labels on their prescription medication.

·         44 million adults in the U.S. can’t read well enough to read a simple story to a child.

·         70% of inmates at American prisons can’t read above a fourth-grade level.

On a global scale, one billion people in the world, or 1/7th of the world’s population are illiterate. If this were a physical disease or illness, it would be declared an epidemic and we would mobilize every resource to treat it.  Unfortunately, this problem is not just global, but local. We cannot ignore the cost of illiteracy in our community.  The U.S. Department of Justice stated, “The link between academic failure, delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure.”

Beyond the economic opportunities that literacy affords us, it also expands our understanding of what’s possible. Picture books help preschoolers understand that even though there are scary things in the world (and maybe under the bed), they can be brave. As we read we imagine ourselves as noble as the hero, as adventurous as the knight, and as powerful as the king. Indiana author John Green says, “We cannot go to a place that is not on our map of the possible.” Books give us this map.

When we read To Kill a Mockingbird, we meet Atticus Finch who teaches us to identify with someone who is different. When we read The Diary of Anne Frank, we hold our breath with her as she hides, and learn to be outraged at injustice and prejudice. When children read Wonder, they read about Auggie, born with a rare facial deformity, and they learn compassion. These stories affect and change us.

Those who founded GPL one hundred years ago were working to build a resilient and lasting community, and they believed so strongly that a library was an important part of that foundation that they labored for years to accomplish it. At that time free access to books and information was a huge part of the library’s role – and it still is.

Over the last century the pace of information has drastically accelerated, and now we not only provide books in many formats but high speed internet and other services as well.  In the last 10 years, technology has offered us so many more ways to read, to learn, and to connect with each other, and yet literacy rates are not improving.

The rise of the smart phone and the proliferation of screens has made many things easier for us, but it is also impacting our habits and our connection with others in ways we don’t often stop to think about. Did you know that since smartphones have become prevalent, gum sales have gone down 25%? Why is that? Because our phones now fill every unoccupied moment in our lives which includes moments of grocery line boredom and reduce impulse buys. Since we are not in the gum business, this impact may seem trivial. But studies have shown some more disturbing trends that correlate to the rise of social media: lowered compassion, a rise in bullying, and a spread of the mob mentality.  For readers and struggling readers alike, technology has offered more ways to read, but has also replaced reading with distraction, scrolling, and skimming. We are becoming a mile wide and an inch deep.

So what is our answer to the epidemic of illiteracy? The statistics above are certainly motivating. Fortunately, I know that GPL is not alone in this fight. Other libraries and schools are in it for the long haul. The teachers of our community are on the front lines, fighting against distraction and poverty to help children find the magic of stories. And since we know we are stronger together, we’ve spent our 101st year launching the Reading Revolution and partnering with our community to champion reading in our community – because the stakes are high.

Can you imagine what our community could be if Greenwood had the highest literacy rate in the state?  If every child was ready to read by kindergarten? If we could turn the ship of those fourth graders who aren’t quite making it? The ones like me? What if more families of every economic strata read together and brought up a new generation of readers? If these things were true, then research tells us that we might begin to see greater empathy, higher test scores, a reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s, employees with greater focus and concentration, and a more civically and culturally involved community.

Our community’s support has already helped ignite this transformation and will continue to fuel it. More parents are reading to their children, more adults are talking about books and reading more widely. It’s been the goal of every library since before Carnegie, and we’re not stopping now. In fact, it’s more important to us than ever. And so I hope that tonight you’ll pick up that book you’ve been meaning to read, make time for bedtime stories, or log on for a new e-book to read. We hope you’ll join us in the revolution.

 

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