Here's news you can use
- Welcome to Walter Freitag, our new Maintenance Superintendent. Walter begins work on Monday, overlapping Chuck for one short week before Chuck officially retires.
- Best wishes to Audrey Paul. Audrey has been out on FMLA leave since July and has decided to retire.
- Kudos to teamwork in YS! Yesterday I witnessed Jake entertaining a very large group of teens in the cafe area while Lisa Langsdorf "watched over" the teen area inside. What a wonderful collaborative spirit!
- KPL is hosting live streaming of a fascinating series of lectures and conversation from the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters. The next installment is called Cultivating the Dream and will be streamed live at Uptown Neighborhood Library beginning 7pm on October 17th. This may be of special interest to those of you participating on the IDEA Team, as it focuses on immigrants in the Wisconsin dairy industry. Hope you can join us!
- KPL has been selected to receive Ken Burns' new documentary series on the Vietnam War. This is hailed as his crowning achievement, and for fans of Burns, that's saying a lot. Watch for that series of programs to begin soon.
- Tomorrow begins Kenosha's Bloomberg Mayor's Challenge initiative. Kenosha will be competing with over 500 cities nationwide to receive grant dollars for innovative solutions to vexing problems. Fifteen community leaders concerned with youth violence will meet at the Civil War Museum (I can't help but notice this relationship) with a consultant from Bloomberg Philanthropies to strengthen and define our project concept. The library is once again coordinating this city wide effort.
- Tune into WGTD next Tuesday morning to hear Greg Berg's interview of Angie Aker, our KPL Foundation Vice President, and me as we talk about the library's essential role in the community, our trusted relationship with Kenosha, and how we are staying relevant in the world of Google. Of course, the upcoming Library Foundation Gala is also a major topic. Here's a link to the gala's information and the place to purchase tickets online from KPL's home page.
- Please join me on Monday or Tuesday next week to process the community feedback from our strategic planning process and identify three main areas of service focus for the next three years. What words or phrases stood out in the public responses? Where do YOU want to concentrate our efforts? What programs or services do you feel would have the most impact on our community? If you can't join me either day, but have advice to share, please feel free to send me an email. I really appreciate your participation!
- And last, but certainly by no means least, take a look at the new Tween Space evolving in the SW Children's Area. With funding from the KPL Foundation, our staff is once again blazing trails in library service!
