As a solo librarian I can appreciate what she works with, and what she's done

‘Small-town library with a big heart'

A passionate, small-town librarian is getting a big-city honor for helping show how even a part-time library can help immigrants learn English.

Karla Shafer, director of the Hooper Public Library, is getting an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., next month to tell a national gathering of librarians how even a “one-girl show” in a town of 827 can make a difference.

She was awarded a second $5,000 grant to continue a literacy program she began two years ago to help Hispanic immigrants.

And her program helped persuade backers to extend funding for the national grant program, offered through the American Library Association and the Dollar General Foundation.

The Hooper library is the smallest in the nation to receive the grants. It's open 23 hours a week, and Shafer, 58, is the only regular employee.

I got home about 10:30 tonight

It's almost 2 am. I've been going through stories in my news reader--there were over 500. Plus I went through some of my e-mail, too. I should have done my laundry during that, but instead I'm going to try to get up at 7 am to do it. Thankfully, I've been rather perky today and so I haven't been sleepy yet. I got a lot of rest last night. I'd taken a friend and his husband out for his birthday at Masala and had vegetable pakora, pishwari naan, and vegetable korma that was hot (but not 'Indian hot'). It was quite possibly the best food I have ever eaten. I would have had gulab jamun, a dessert, but the korma and piswari naan are already sweet. I got home about 9:30 pm. I went straight to bed and didn't get up until this morning, which is no doubt why I've been so productive today.

Today was interesting, being back to work at the library after taking off Wednesday-Monday. I discovered I was sorely missed as the colour copier went down the second day. It was something I had fixed in fifteen minutes, and everyone was grateful. A couple of other things had come up over my absence as well, and I have to admit, it was nice to be missed. One drawback to being a solo librarian is there isn't really anyone to act as backup for much of what I do.

I found out that I got the grant for inter-library loan funding I'd applied for. Yipee!

then I went to work at the store to find out that the manager I've had since April has been moved to the store down the street and a woman whom I have met before has taken his place. Gee, I wish they'd give us some advanced warning. Also, the grocery has started digging for its own gas station. I don't know what our status will be soon. We own the building, but the grocery store owns the land. I think our lease is up in December. If the store does close, the fact that my former boss is up the road may make it easier for me to transfer there; it's the best place in terms of riding the bus between the two jobs.

What I really hope, though, is that the application I'm working on will go through. It's for a full-time medical reference librarian position. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Day after tomorrow I'm going to Bardstown's public library for a meeting of the Kentucky Medical Library Association. It should be an interesting meeting--we're hashing out criteria for membership.

Next Monday is a holiday, and I'm off at both places. Maybe I'll get around to doing some of the stuff I didn't get around to doing this time, like the housework. But it was really nice to get so much rest and spend a great time with friends watching movies, playing the game, and eating Indian food. All in all it was a great vacation--I just wish I could have taken off from the store as well.

Okay, that's enough blogging for one night. Good night.

I got this the other day

because I was one of the first to apply for a grant. It's Tugger, the DOCLINE mascot! Cute. :) By the way, I took the picture with my new phone. :)

:(

I lost my male swordfish today without any warning. He's been very active. I can only guess the nitrate levels are running high again--that can happen when you introduce fish or increase the amount you're feeding. Like the others, he lasted just over a week. The platies seem acclimated, but I'm worried about the female sword now. I'll have Animal House check the water for me Thursday and in the meantime I think I need to do a water change, although I haven't since the babies were born because I was waiting for them to get bigger. I don't want to suck them into oblivion and there's still a couple of nearly transparent tiny ones in there. I'll just have to be careful. I've added some more nitrate-fixing bacteria for good measure. If I can get the water balanced I'll introduce a catfish or two to clean up some of the detritus, and some sort of algae eater. But for now, I might just go with plants next.

Yesterday I finally got some rest. Our game got cancelled, so I went home and slept for five hours, went back to do the weekly housecleaning, and then went home early and fell asleep to soothing music whilst sitting in the comfy chair. I woke up about 1 am and moved to the bed. This morning I had a dream that a friend and I were touring the university's campus on a 1930s tour. There was an open-air bus that had a full-sized replica of a '30s car and a speakeasy bar (serving soft-drinks, however). It was very strange. I've noticed that when I dream of UK I tend to dream about the south campus, near the twin residential towers, the place I first lived when I came up to Lexington for school.

Today has been pretty productive. I'm trying to get the library on the EFTS payment system now that the National Network of Libraries of Medicine are giving out grants of up to $200 to start out, plus the same amount to sustain. That would take care of my interlibrary loans for the year (I get most of them through FREESHARE, a consortium of libraries which do not charge for articles, but large resource libraries, universities, and the National Library of Medicine itself charge about $11 per ILL, and I have about 10-15 bills a year.) But they're only giving out 100 awards this year, and so I've asked our financial officer if it would be possible for us to apply. The nice thing about EFTS is you deposit funds via one cheque (I don't think we're set up for a credit card) rather than writing a whole bunch of little cheques throughout the year, which costs money in itself. One quote I read was that it took about $110 to cut a cheque when you figured in manpower and other hidden costs. So it's a money saver, and for me it would be great to get one of these grants because my books/journals budget pretty much goes for journals these days. I'm using another grant to help pay for book updates this year. Even so, I'll still be a little over budget in that area, although I'm usually under budget in other things, so maybe it will be offset. Keep your fingers crossed for me!