[kids-lib] Early literacy leaflet and making women cry

[Patrick Goodman]

Hello Kids-lib,

    For all of you libraries without any early literacy information to
hand out to parents, here's an easily printable 3-fold leaflet that I
put together with some big help from the Multnomah Co. website and the
continued inspiration from those involved in RfHF. I have attached
both a Publisher and PDF file, so remember to change the info to fit
your library.

Now on to making women cry...

  At the pinnacle of an extremely rotten week, I was approached by a
woman from the Early Childhood Education Center in Warm Springs
Reservation who asked if I could be of any help in trying to collect
enough books for 120 children to take home for their very own. I had
recently done my quarterly weed, so I knew that I had a good number of
fair to low-quality books in relatively fair condition to give to
them. Upon delivery, I was greeted with a banner stretching across the
ECE building's entrance that read, "Thank you, Patrick."

  What a rush it was to have this kind of appreciation shown to a
librarian! Unfortunately, all I could focus on was the quality of the
books I had just delivered. But as I've stated earlier, it was a
really rotten week.

  About two days later, I was sorting through the mess that my library
lovingly calls the 'youth services archives' in the basement of our
annex, when I stumbled upon a box full of pristine books. Underneath
that box was another, and another.

  I would have thought that this was some kind of a set-up if I hadn't
found over 700 t-shirts from SRP's of yore in the same exact area a
month beforehand. So with the t-shirts in mind, I began digging
further into the mounds of boxes, discovering 6 more boxes full of
'excellent condition' books marked "give-aways," including a horde of
baby books from a long-dead grant program- a program much like the one
I've recently been developing and writing grants for.

  Too excited to keep it to myself, I called the woman- lets call her
Mary- to tell her the good news. I reckoned anyone who'd go out of
their way to hang a banner for a librarian was more than worthy of
this literary cache. And this is how the conversation went...

Me: "Hey Mary, did you receive the books that I brought?"

mary: (a bit subdued) "Yes, we did. Thank you very much."

Me: "Great, great. Well, what would you say if I told you I could
bring you another 60 or so brand new, high quality books to give to
your kids?"

Mary: "Well...well, I..."

Me: "And how about some free t-shirts? What would you say to 120 free
t-shirts for the kids?"

Mary: (begins to cry) "Well, Patrick. I'd say that you have a new best friend."

 The whole experience moved me so much, that I did the exact same
thing for the festivities held here in Madras last weekend. I should
note that I had my staff stuff each book with an Early Literacy
leaflet, and had nearly 25 more people than average attend this week's
morning storytimes; 8 more for evenings.

  I know it sounds like a whole lot of boasting, but this is one of
those times when you get instant feedback for the job you do as a
librarian, and I just had to share. So stop listening to the
stormcrows who cackle on about the death of libraries. As my wise old
Irish nan used to say, "Keep a stiff upper lip, lad, and put the
kettle on for some tea when you get the chance."


-- 
Patrick L. Goodman
Youth Services Coordinator
Jefferson Co. Library District
241 SE 7th St.
Madras, OR 97741
(ph) 541.475.3351
(f) 541.475.7434
patrick at jcld.org
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