SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "Jim wrote: "I like how our small town library supports the community with a wide array of events and venues. Literary for sure, but art classes, music programs, and much more for all ages. Small an..."

Ours even hosted a spirits, wine, and beer tasting for a couple of holiday seasons. I got to give out samples of my homebrewed beer:)

"My last town has a massive library. Apparently they have over 80,000 books. And the head librarian won’t get rid of any. A library for a town that size is supposed to have around 20,000 books and they have 80...."

That librarian is my hero.

Thrilled to say that my neighborhood library in Dallas, Texas, is currently cataloging my new novel White Monkey Chronicles: The Complete Trilogy! Can't wait to run down there with my camera and take a picture of White Monkey in the stacks. http://www.libraryhours.org/tx/dallas...

Isabella wrote: "Thrilled to say that my neighborhood library in Dallas, Texas, is currently cataloging my new novel White Monkey Chronicles: The Complete Trilogy! Can't wait to run down there with ..."

Don’t hurt her, Allison.

dunno, that's fairly blatant

I’m just saying put her down humanely. Blue juice!

Also Cheryl that library with all the books is apparently one of the most used Libraries in the state (New South Wales, Australia so that’s a lot of towns and cities) and it’s a country library. The town also has a well stocked University library that the townspeople can use.

Jacqueline wrote: "Also Cheryl that library with all the books is apparently one of the most used Libraries in the state (New South Wales, Australia so that’s a lot of towns and cities) and it’s a country library. Th..."

For some reason I'm thinking Bathurst/Orange...

I'm in Sydney and am spoiled by the reciprocal lending rights across the various council libraries. I have branches of three separate systems within about 5km of home and can get out books at any of them - the only negative is having to travel to them, because they haven't enabled free inter-library loans.

I can't say that any of the libraries are particularly enticing as all seem to favour multiple small branches, though the systems themselves are quite good.

Nah Donald....Armidale.

Ours is quite small and leans heavily towards romance and mass market mystery/thrillers, e.g. James Patterson. It also does a lot of community stuff like Tuesday Teas for the local ladies and an Imagination Lab for kids, and offers a lot of information on various social services.

Happily, one of the part-time staff is a sci fi fan and the science fiction section has recently been much improved!

Jacqueline wrote: "Nah Donald....Armidale."

That is pretty impressive then, given the relative sizes of the towns.

Yeah it is. I think the population is mid 20,000s. Maybe 27K. It’s a town full of readers and academics. Education has to be its main industry nearly. There are approximately 50 schools there as well as the University of New England.

My daughter has decided that she wants to stay there as it’s probably one of the best places to bring up kids. At least academically. She just had to find a boyfriend/husband lol She was an early childhood educator.

Jacqueline wrote: "Yeah it is. I think the population is mid 20,000s. Maybe 27K. It’s a town full of readers and academics. Education has to be its main industry nearly. There are approximately 50 schools there as we..."

Armidale is really pretty. It’s like New Orleans plopped down in Ohio.

It's small, pretty nice. It was once an old bank before they renovated it and put books inside.

Mine is a disgrace. They renovated it, reduced the number of shelves by half, spent $100,000 on landscaping instead of books and then had to close again due to a minor fire. It's been closed for 6 months and the area around it has turned into a homeless encampment.

I'm just thankful that there are plenty of others within easy reach.

Some interesting stats about Finnish libraries, made by a librarian working at my closest little branch.


larger image

I'm a little shocked that only 1.9/5.5 million people have a library card, I've always assumed everyone has one!

That's so fun!!

Anna wrote: "Some interesting stats about Finnish libraries, made by a librarian working at my closest little branch.

larger image

I'm a little shocked that only 1.9/5.5 million people have a library card, I've always assumed everyone has one! "

That’s interesting. I would’ve thought Finland had a higher rate as well. From what I can find, it looks like 68% of Americans have library cards. If asked to bet money, I would’ve flipped those percentages.

I had to dig up some more info. I found a pretty old article that said 80% of people own a library card. That 1.9 million for 2017 is how many people used their library card. Still much lower than I'd thought.

You should tell her that so she can clarify it.

I'm pretty sure he knows, that stats database is easy enough for anyone to use. Maybe there's a reason it's stated like that.

Anyway, I learned something new because of that infographic. I now know there's a library stats database available online!

There’s very little I miss about my hometown apart from my family, but one thing is the library system. There are 13 branches - including a Carnegie branch, some very big fancy modern ones, a bookmobile, a little book stop inside a grocery store, and a small library inside a cancer center - and each branch has at least a couple unique things about it (the regular branches all have at least something special for the kids, as they all have a great kids’ area with kids’ librarians, and something else special for the adults to appreciate). They all keep long hours and are open every day, and many of them even have drive-thru services, which I was obsessed with! They’re wonderful. We were partial to our closest branch but visited almost all the others in our quest to go to as many fun family events as possible, and there are many throughout the year. And there were always opportunities for my kids to win free books and learn new things. We loved it so much. The library was our #1 hangout spot. As a kid I have great memories of some of the libraries that are no longer there - searching for books, discovering new worlds, doing research for school, and having Girl Scouts meetings - and also researching my genealogy with my grandma at the Carnegie branch, which is still a lovely and magical place to this day.

Where we live now, the thing I love most about our local library is that it’s right next to the pool, which is our current #1 hangout spot. But of course that’s only relevant during the summer! Our local library system consists of 19 branches, but I’m able to access anything within the entire statewide system, a total of 273 branches (there’s only a couple small areas in the state that have no libraries in this system, I dunno what’s up with them). But as far as I can tell the libraries themselves, at least the ones close to me, aren’t that special. Some are older/nicer/prettier than others but for the most part they are small, ugly, don’t have much going on, and close early and on Sundays, some are even closed on Fridays (??) or close extremely early (like 1pm ??) on certain days. Our library does try hard to put on good events & host clubs for all ages, as well as offering their two small conference rooms for community services and learning opportunities, but unfortunately my kids and I haven’t found anything to interest us yet. Most of the kids events seem to be simple crafts and movies, and my kids are getting a little too old to be entertained by just that. So really the only thing I like about our library is the huge system I can access and also the digital library they use. I can almost always find what I want and not have to wait too long.

Saw this at my library (Amherst) last night:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjYz7-1F2...

My local library is the South Euclid/Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Library. What's great about my branch is that it has the William N. Skirball Writer's Center. Many writing activities are presented there. I have participated in fiction writing workshops, the Western Reserve Writers Conference, and Indy Author Day. The next activity I plan to attend is the Mystery Writers Weekend Getaway on June 9th and June 10th, 2018.

Gary, so cool!

Trike wrote: "Saw this at my library (Amherst) last night:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjYz7-1F2..."

Those are really cool! I wish our library did better kids crafts. The adults and teens make some cool stuff, but kids aren’t allowed at their meetings. They mostly do color & cut-it-out type stuff for the kids, the only exception is when they make comic books, but any time we’ve gone to a kids meeting its always chaos - a tiny room with not much stimulation except a movie going and a couple tables with craft supplies and one librarian who’s usually MIA, a few parents who are either not paying attention or making their own craft for some reason (using up materials other kids could use), and a bunch of kids just running around crazy and getting into stuff. They do one event a year outside and that’s the summer reading kickoff but it’s so hot down here that it’s not worth going to. (Last year they promised water games but we saw none). I have so many complaints about this library system. If I didn’t have kids I wouldn’t have as many complaints - only that I haven’t found a library I want to hang out in yet. They’re all plain and boring.