by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian
On Thursday, October 25th, the Litchfield Public
Library Foundation will be holding a wine, cheese, and chocolate tasting to
celebrate the tenth anniversary of our beautiful library building. The fundraiser will be held at the Litchfield
VFW at 915 East Highway 12 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Several local authors will be displaying and selling their
books at the event: Nancy and Joe Paddock, Tim Bergstrom, Dean Urdahl, Steve
Dille, and Barb Felt. Tickets are on
sale for $20 per person, benefitting the foundation. You can buy your tickets ahead of time at the
library, at the liquor store, or from a library board member. You can also buy tickets at the door.
I have learned from Everett Reilly, who is organizing the
event, that wine is not the only beverage that will be served. Three beers, two hard ciders, and five
nonalcoholic beverages will be available to sample, in addition to 36 varieties
of wine.
Besides our big offsite event, there are some things to take
note of within the library building lately.
If you haven’t seen the Litchfield Library history display in our
display cabinet, stop in to look at it before it goes away. Jim Milan from the G.A.R. Hall put together
an interesting and fun display on the history of the Litchfield Library, going
back to 1875 when the Litchfield Library Association was chartered under
Minnesota law and began issuing stock.
Some of the original books from the library’s years in the G.A.R. Hall are
there to see, along with photos of the library locations.
We have done a bit of rearranging of our audiovisual
materials on the adult side of the library.
We used to have our fiction VHS tapes on the same short shelf as our
fiction DVDs. Our nonfiction DVDs and
VHS tapes were on a separate shelf with books.
Our audiobooks were set up in a similar way. All of this made it harder for most people to
find documentaries, exercise videos, concert videos, and nonfiction
audiobooks. The VHS and cassette formats
also get used much less now, although some do still get checked out.
We now have all of our adult DVDs on one side of the shelf:
new releases first, followed by general movies, with nonfiction down at the end. I’ve already noticed more nature and history
documentaries going out.
On the other side of the shelf, you can find all of our
adult CDs. Closest to the desk are
fiction audiobooks. In the middle are
nonfiction audiobooks. Furthest from the
front desk are our music CDs. I hope
this arrangement will help you find a wider variety of materials you’d like to
watch and listen to.
If you want to find VHS tapes and audiobooks on cassette, we
still have some. They are at the end of
the bookshelf nearest the CDs and DVDs.
Our children’s movies and audiobooks are on the children’s
side of the library. We put movies that
are rated G or that are clearly geared to a young audience (Sesame Street,
Thomas the Tank Engine) in that area.
I hope to see you at the library’s Wine, Cheese, and
Chocolate fundraiser at the VFW. I’ll be
there with my husband, and at least one other library staff member will be
attending. And I hope you’ll come to the
library to look at our library history display and to find some DVDs and audios
that you’ve never noticed before. The
library has a history to be proud of, we strive to stay useful to you in the
present day, and our library foundation is always working toward a bright
future.
