Library Activity Report - Middlesex County, Ontario

Library Board

Meeting Date: November 26, 2019

Submitted by: Lindsay Brock, Director of Library Services

SUBJECT: LIBRARY ACTIVITY REPORT

BACKGROUND:

As directed by the Library Board, every month the Director of Library Services will pass on to the community and the Library Board an account of accomplishments and highlights of the library over the past month and information about upcoming library events, projects and programs.

INFORMATION UPDATES:

The new full-time Branch Assistant positions have been filled by internal applicants. Nadia Velastegui is the new Branch Assistant at the Glencoe Branch. Zoe Reilly-Ansons was awarded the Branch Assistant position at the Strathroy Branch. Zoe will finish her current contract (covering the Supervisor position in Glencoe) and will move to Strathroy in September 2020. In the interim, Erin Moxam (Dorchester Branch) will cover the position in Strathroy. We are excited to welcome these staff to their new positions!

For a full list of programs and upcoming events, visit or www.library.middlesex.ca.

Ailsa Craig Local London author Mary Lou McRae presented a talk on her recent memoir Caps and Capers on October 10th. Seventeen people enjoyed hearing about her experiences in the mid 60’s as a nursing student at St. Thomas Elgin Hospital. It was interesting to hear of the training and medical practices at the time. She also shared a bit about her writing journey with us. She has two more books in the works.

Denise from the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority returned for our PA Day – “All About Owls”. She had an interesting and informative presentation. Owl pellets were available for each of the children to dissect and see if they might identify what small creature the owl had eaten. An owl craft was also made and a scavenger hunt of different types of life-sized owls were discovered around the library.

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These owls each had interesting facts on them. During OPLW, we had a display and introduction to the Cricut machine. This precision cutting (drawing and scoring) device generated lots of conversation. Some were quite familiar with it, while others just discovering it. Staff held a demonstration and patrons did a little hands-on creating with our assistance. Both adults and children were quite interested. We also had two ‘Book in a Jar’ activities out to see if patrons could guess the title from our clues. To those who guessed Alice in Wonderland and Game of Thrones, they were correct!

Coldstream The Haunted Halloween Storytime at the Coldstream Library was a popular event! Kids (and parents) participated in a glow in the dark dance party. Tweens visited the Coldstream Library to create zombie barbies. This very popular program was done almost entirely with donated materials.

Authors Shirleyan English and Bonnie Sitter hosted a presentation on their book “Onions Skins and Peach Fuzz” which is about the little-known story of young women who left their homes to work on farms during the Second World War to address the labour shortage from the war.

Delaware

To celebrate Ontario Public Libraries Week, the Delaware Library hosted a storywalk. Participants were able to enjoy the picture book “Happy Dreamer” by Peter Reynolds as they walk through Lions Park.

Science has come to Delaware; on the third Saturday of every month, Branch Assistant Vanessa Rapagna is running STEM activities for school aged kids.

Dorchester Programming was the focus for October. Information Services Librarian, Chris Harrington organized two author talks inspired by the release of new works by the authors. Scholastic Author and former Dorchester resident, Chrissy Bozik, promoted her recent book, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Moose and gave a brief talk about the writing and publishing process. True crime enthusiasts enjoyed a riveting talk from London resident and bookstore owner, Vanessa Brown, based on her book The Forest City Killer: a serial murderer, a cold-case sleuth, and a search for justice.

Programming during Ontario Public Library Week included a genealogy workshop with Chris, a meet and greet with guest local Para Athlete Madison Wilson-Walker, and Halloween inspired PA Day Fun with a craft and movie.


Branch Assistant, Kathy Campeau introduced a new program for Tweens called A Stitch In Time, an introduction to hand sewing. Registration filled up quickly and the young sewers are making excellent progress learning new skills with a needle.

Glencoe Ontario Public Library Week was celebrated in Glencoe with programming for all ages. The Open House was an opportunity for the community to look back on some of the many events that took place since the new branch opened last October. The sewing machines were pulled out of the makerspace for the first sewing program for children, a Build-a-Monster Workshop. Children were taught how to sew using a sewing machine, how to sew by hand, and how to use an iron while creating their monsters. 29 children arrived in costume for the annual The Friends of the Library Annual Halloween Party on the PA Day. The final event for the week was an author visit from “Canada’s Indiana Jones” Adam Shoalts. Shoalts gave an interesting talk about his adventures in the Canadian Arctic that interested patrons both young and old.

The month ended with a very successful B-Tween Craft Night. 14 tweens came to the library for some spooky crafts including pumpkin stress balls and Frankenstein cups. The tweens enjoyed this night and are eagerly anticipating the next tween night in December.

Ilderton On October 17, we celebrated the 25th Anniversary of the opening of the Ilderton Library. Patrons enjoyed light snacks and refreshments as they had the opportunity to read quotes on display from previous branch assistants on 'how things have changed in


the library' since they worked here. A bulletin board display with pictures of programs held during these years was also on display. A power point presentation about the history of the branch (provided by local historian Brian Finnagan) played on loop for people to watch as well.

We held several activities during OPLW these included a PA Day - Halloween is coming program! Families could get ready for Halloween early with a Storytime at 10:30 am followed by a special spooky craft to make and take! A Haunting Halloween Party program was held on a Saturday morning, which gave working parents an opportunity to attend a special storytime with their children.

The library is holding a Neighbourhood Scavenger Hunt. The idea is to pick up your Neighbourhood Scavenger Hunt Card from Ilderton Library during Ontario Public Library Week and then visit the participating Neighbourhood sites to get your card stamped. Complete the Scavenger Hunt Card and return it to the Library to be entered in the draw. The scavenger hunt ends on Nov. 8 after Christmas in the Village, a town wide evening open house. Ilderton Library has many exciting programs planned for the rest of the year.

Komoka The Komoka Library has launched a new technology program aimed at Seniors. One Tuesday afternoon a month, a library staff member will offer information about and support for different library apps and digital collections. October focused on MyLibrary! and the online catalogue, November will feature cloudLibrary.

On Sunday October 27 the Komoka Library participated in the Annual “Haunted Cabins at Kee-Mo-Kee” event. This event is organized by the Komoka-Kilworth Optimist to raise funds for youth programming and services in the area. The Optimist have donated in support youth programming at the Komoka Library for many years, enabling us to offer a monthly tween program and weekly school aged program. Over 500 people attended this fun event.

Lucan

October began musically at the Lucan Library with the return of local band “Country Serenade”. More than 20 people enjoyed refreshments and tapped their toes to the old-time favourites as performed by musicians from all over Southwestern Ontario. Children celebrated “turkey-ish” games, activities, and crafts on Saturday, September 12 during the Lucan Library’s Thanksgiving Fun Day. The branch also hosted a Cloud Library training day facilitated by Mallory Austin on Wednesday, September 16. The week of October 20–26 saw several activities in celebration of Ontario Pubic Library Week including a book sale, “Love Your Library” storytime and teddy bear sleepover, and Neighbourhood Days. Ontario Public Library Week ended on Saturday, October 26


when the Lucan Branch hosted Super Saturday, Saturday Sew-cial, Tech S.O.S., and Hallowe’en Fun Day. The Middlesex-London Health Unit hosted a free dental screening session at the branch for children aged 0-4 Thursday, October 31.

Lucan Branch also hosted the second of the Mental Health Public Meetings on Wednesday, October 30. The meeting was well receive with 27 people in attendance. Volunteers, Carla Klijn and Monica Dikkes, assisted by recording notes in both print and graphic representation formats. This meeting was the follow-up to the September 25, 2019 meeting, and several suggestions were heard from both the public and service partners to further support mental health services in the community. After the meeting, several individuals expressed their desire to sit on a committee moving forward to begin implementation of these suggestions.

Melbourne The Melbourne Book Club met on October 1 with nine members in attendance and two of those were new members. The group voted to move the monthly meetings to the 2nd Thursday of each month at 7pm. Storytime continues to see great success on Fridays reaching a record of 13 kids and 6 adults in attendance on October 25. Due to this success, the program has been extended until Christmas.

During Ontario Public Library Week the library partnered with the Melbourne Historical Society and showcased items that celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Melbourne Legion. There were photos, flags, and memorabilia on hand. Jo Ann Galbraith visited on October 24 to answer any patron questions about the Melbourne Legion.

Mt. Brydges The month of October has been very busy at the Mount Brydges Library with lots of new faces joining the library. During Ontario Public Library week the library offered a community craft for the children to make, as well as a community based scavenger hunt, which were both about the town of Mount Brydges. The week finished with a community open house with a scavenger hunt, craft and different activities for the children to participate in along with some fresh fruit with vegetables and dip. Over 35 people attended the Open House. The families really appreciated that the snacks offered were healthy. One of the mothers said, "It is so nice that you ladies have so many things to do for the children, we are really lucky to have such a great local library”.

The After the Bell program is geared towards school age children and offers both a healthy snack and activity. This program is made possible by the generous support of the Mount Brydges Lions Club. This month the group made Frankenstein masks, had fruit, cheese and crackers. There were 20 kids who attended this program. They had such a fun time! The PA Day theme this month was Halloween with a spooky


scavenger hunt, lots of activities and a silhouette bat painting craft. Over 42 people attended this full filled day of Halloween fun!

Newbury October was actually quite busy for the Newbury branch. There were a number of people who were passing through and dropped in. Some patrons identified as newcomers to Newbury and are coming back to sign up for a library card. Ontario Public Library Week went quite well with Ken Willis visiting the branch with a local history presentation. We had 11 people show up for the event. Mallory Austin, Library Technologies Specialist, along with Dallas, who is completing a student placement visited the branch to provide a tech support session for the community. There were 24-35 people visiting the branch each week during the month of October.

Parkhill In Parkhill during the month of October the branch launched several new initiatives. We began with a new adult crafting program called Coffee and Cardz where staff offered an interactive card-making session using a Cricut borrowed through the Portable Tech program. We had eleven patrons take part, and interest in signing up for the second session being offered in December. Staff also planned a Zombie Barbie program, one of several offered across the County. Registration soon filled up, and it was really amazing to see the group get creative and design unique dolls. Attendance was a mix of boys and girls and the session ran the entire hour provided, with patrons really paying attention to the details.


As part of our Ontario Public Library week celebration the branch hosted a successful book sale earning donations from the sale of donated books for use in our future programming. We also had special guest Linda Conway visit on Tuesday for our Afterschool Club to offer instruction in puppetry skills. The participants enjoyed creating characters and learning about voice altering to bring the characters to life to tell a story. The branch also hosted local service partners during our Neighbourhood Days event. Representatives from Middlesex County Social Services, Community Employment Choices, Canadian Mental Health Association, John Howards Society, and the Newcomer Settlement Advisor for the YMCA of Western Ontario were all on-hand to inform patrons of the services available here in Middlesex County. Branch staff provided positive feedback about the ability to meet with these agencies and learn more about the services provided by each.

Strathroy

Library staff see and hear firsthand from women and young families in our community who are struggling to cover basic necessities with social assistance or working minimum wage jobs.

From these interactions last month the library was able to provide free menstrual products in the women’s washroom as part of some money received through a grant. There has been demand for this service, and this month the grant was fully spent. The Friends of the Strathroy Library have generously agreed to help continue this service by providing funds to purchase the menstrual products.

On Saturday, October 5 Chrissy Bozik a local children’s author with Scholastic Canada visited the Strathroy Library to read from her book There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Moose and provided families with insight into how she writes her books. Families thoroughly enjoyed this interactive visit and getting to meet a local author.

This month the Strathroy Library hosted their first Halloween Costume Event that encouraged community members to donate clean and gently used Halloween costumes for babies, children, youth, and adults. On Saturday, October 5, a Halloween Costume Event was held for anyone to come out and browse the selection of free Halloween costumes. The event received 100 items and saw at least 40 visitors on Saturday browsing and picking up items to take home. Due to the success of this program, the library will host a Winter Outerwear Event for all ages in November.

The library participated in the Downtown Halloween event on October 26 by handing out Halloween bubbles. This event saw 240 children visit the library and many of them new faces to the library. The Friends of the Strathroy Library sponsored the Halloween bubbles for this event.


In October, the Strathroy Library proctored 1 exam for 1 high school student completing distance studies.

Thorndale Socktober is a program where the Thorndale Library encouraged the community to drop off a new pair of socks to be donate to a local charity for distribution to those in need. All sizes were accepted during the entire month. We collected 115 pairs!

Taxidermy was something completely different we offered. Mario from Forest City Taxidermy gave a presentation and brought some samples of his trade. Just in time for deer season! We had some great feedback from the community praising the library for offering such an ‘outside the box’ program.

Franken-toys returned by popular demand. We supplied all the materials but participants were welcome to bring old toys to hack if they wished. The children had a blast making new toys from old.

Chess Club resumed on Wednesday, October 16th from 6:30-7:30 pm under the expert guidance of our community volunteer Robert. This year we have seven returning members and three new members including one grandparent along with his grandson.

We had a wellness coach, who came highly recommended by a couple other branches, who give her talk ‘Why Does Cannabis Work? There was a lot of great information given followed by an informative Q&A.

Shared Reading began again with five children in grades 2, 3 or 4 registered. We have 1 adult volunteer who has returned and meets with 2 of the children, 1 high school student volunteer who has returned for a second year and 1 high functioning, special needs adult volunteer. All of them are doing a fantastic job!


Stitch ‘n Chat, Evening Book Club, Early ON Play & Learn and Storytime all happened during Ontario Public Library Week. In addition, we added a new program - Neighbourhood Soupstock – into the mix. We invited members of our community to bring in their favourite soup to share with others. There were five different soups to sample. The PD Day also fell during OPLW. We had over 50 children register for the 7 Halloween themed activities. All came in costume and most paraded over to the Seniors Apartments that are close by. The seniors loved it! The staff of Fanshawe Pioneer Village (FPV) were invited and they taught children about Victorian Halloweens and did crafts with the kids. We had great feedback from everyone who attended including the staff at FPV who commented “What a great experience it was being in a small community and seeing everyone engage with one another as neighbours.

Wardsville The month of October was a busy one for politicians, voters, gardeners and farmers. While most watched the leaves change colour with a sense of amazement, the month was also a time of transition for libraries as patrons visited to check out multiple books to fill the days that grew cooler and shorter. Many avid readers took advantage of the Book Sale hosted by the Wardsville Library from October 8 to 11, raising funds for new equipment for the children’s area. Those who are more technologically inclined took advantage of a cloudLibrary training session with Mallory and Dallas on October 11. The following week, the Wardsville Book Club met to discuss “The Death of Mrs. Westaway” by Ruth Ware. An open house to celebrate Ontario Public Library Week drew many visitors and regulars alike. Several job searchers were also in the branch throughout the month with Leads visiting three times. Quad County Support Services continued to visit the branch regularly, once stopping by in costume en route to a Halloween


party. A very busy Halloween night, one that drew trick or treaters in out of the rain and wind, brought the busy month to an end.


Documents

Library Activity Report - Middlesex County, Ontario