Highlights in Hawkins

The population in Hawkins, WI:  302, give or take a few.The number of kids involved in the summer library program:  51Wow! “Keeping children reading over the summer and having fun while doing it, is always the main focus. Having the library filled...

Performer Rave Review

Pint-Size Polkas:  best so far this year in Eau Claire!Shelly Collins Fuerbringer says:  “I just had to drop you a note and tell you what FUN Pint-Size Polkas was last week for our Wednesday performance.  Mike was just so, so nice to work...

Meet a Librarian–Patti Blount

Patti Blount is the director at the Durand Community Library, one of the few public/school combination libraries in the state. How long have you been at the Durand Public Library?  What did you do before that?  I have been director of the Durand Public...

Baby Storytime resources

Thanks to Marge Loch Wouters over at Tiny Tips for Library Fun for the suggestion of checking out Ten Favorite Baby Storytime Plans from Melissa Depper’s Mel’s Desk blog.  Mel’s Desk has all sorts of other excellent posts about storytime for the...

International Games Day @ Your Library

Registration is now open for International Games Day @ Your Library, which will take place Saturday, November 3.  International Games Day @ Your Library is a celebration of communities coming together to play at the library, and includes chances for libraries to...

Meet a Librarian–Becky Arenivar

Becky Arenivar is the Program Librarian at the Prescott Public Library.  She is one of IFLS’s trainers for The Wakanheza Project, she’s running for the board of directors for the Youth Services Section of the Wisconsin Library Association, and...

Recipes with a Comic Twist

Cole Zrostlik, youth services librarian at both St. Croix Falls and Milltown, has received an Ezra Jack Keats mini-grant for the St. Croix Falls Public Library.  The Ezra Jack Keats mini-grants are $500 grants for projects that “foster creative expression,...

Home-grown Programs

I had a great talk with Mary Davis from the Hudson Area Joint Library yesterday.  Last year, they had a disappointing turnout for the expensive performers they hired, and this year she decided to hire fewer performers and look to volunteers to provide special...

Why WLA?

I was recently asked to contribute a list of names of folks who might be a good fit for the Youth Services Section board of the Wisconsin Library Association.  Well–you all know that this region boasts an unusually large number of fabulous librarians who...

Meet a Librarian–Cathy Lefevre

Cathy Lefevre is the library director at Sand Creek.  The transformation she has managed to bring about in Sand Creek in the past 5 years, with the support and help of her community and her talented husband, has been astonishing!  Read on, and get...

Winners Announced!

  YA Novel Bluefish by Pat Schmatz Wins 2012 Burr/Worzalla Award Young Adult novel, Bluefish, written by Wisconsin native Pat Schmatz and published by Candlewick Press, has won the 2012 Elizabeth Burr/Worzalla Award. The Children’s Book Award Committee of the...

Money Smart Week Storytime

Kris Farley had barely taken the reigns as youth services librarian in Ladysmith before her first big program–a special family storytime during Money Smart Week.  The library received free copies of The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Commercials from...