Mayfield makes a Friend

Many Library patrons are traveling for Spring Break. Mayfield had an awesome opportunity to venture out of the Library this Spring Break on an exciting and educational journey!

Mayfield joined Detective Watson from the Zionsville Police Department to learn some satisfying safety tips.

This is what Mayfield learned…

1. Learn Mommy and/or Daddy’s full name.

Learning your parents’ real names will help grown-ups locate your parents. If the place has a loud speaker, the grown-up can page your parents and let them know where to find you.

2. Learn Mommy/Daddy’s cell phone number and your address.

A grown-up can help you find a phone so that you can call Mommy or Daddy on their cell phone if you know the number. If you are too little to remember the number, you might write it in your shoe, but don’t show anyone unless it is an emergency!

3. Look for a safe adult to tell. If you can recognize a policeman or security guard in uniform you can tell them you are lost. If you can’t recognize anyone in a uniform find a woman with children or a store clerk to tell.

Mayfield, we’re glad to have your safety service at the Library!

And a special thanks to the Zionsville Police Department for keeping Mayfield safe.

What the pencil, the playwright and the painter have in common

In the March 30 Writer's Almanac, you can read a film noir as a poem, learn something new about the history of the pencil, and observe the birthdays of Sean O'Casey and Vincent van Gogh.

New Features Await You!

Our upgraded online Library catalog is ready to explore!

Log on today and enjoy an expanded search results display and the ability to better refine your searches, plus much more.

Our upgrade process was slower than we had anticipated and we would like to thank our loyal customers for their patience and continued support.

All items returned during the week of March 18 – 25 have been checked in. Many requested holds were also delayed during that time, but can now be found on our hold shelves. To compensate for the delay, holds that arrived by Monday, March 28 will remain on the shelf through Monday, April 4.

We apologize for any inconvenience the unavailability of our catalog may have caused, but we hope you will now enjoy a better Library experience.

Things Crafty!

It's cold and it's National Craft Month! So ... stop by the library Wednesday from 9:30-2:30 and Thursday evening from 5:00-8:00 for some fun crafting! All materials provided. No registration required, some parental assistance may be. Crafts geared for ages 3+.

Or if you don't want to leave the house, here are some fun craft resources to keep everyone entertained:

Hands On Crafts from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library, Mint Museum of Art, and the Institute of Museum and Library Science is way cool! You can craft electronically or they give you directions for the hands on variety, too. Studio 1 will take you on an exploration of clay crafting and Studio 2 has all things string, cloth, and cane.

Kid's Turn Central also has links to great craft ideas. Everything from making a paper cup to paper mache to keyboard cap magnets.

Family Fun from Disney also has some fun craft ideas! You can search for great craft ideas by age, type, and material. And there are how-to videos for some crafts! (You can also find recipes and printable from this site as well)

For more craft ideas and inspiration online, check out the Internet Public Library Kidspace Arts & Crafts page, from whence some of these crafts sites came.

Happy crafting!

Do You Doctor Who?

Teens, mark your calendars for our awesome Doctor Who (a Time Lord who travels through time and space) event on Saturday, April 2nd from 12:30pm-2:00pm. YOU can be the Doctor’s companions on his latest adventure in our Silence in the Library Scavenger Hunt or see if you can make it through Captain Jack Harkness’ Intergalactic Training Program. Where else can you have a blast AND save the universe? You can also make tons of crafts, discover your Time Lord name, and dine on Time Lord delicacies like fish custard and Jammie Dodgers (don’t worry, our fish custard is made of vanilla pudding and graham crackers!). And come dressed as your favorite Doctor Who character - prizes will be awarded for best boy and girl costumes!

We’re also building our very own TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension(s) In Space – aka, the Doctor’s time machine/space ship). We’ll be entering our TARDIS into the BBC America Where’s the TARDIS competition. And you can be a part of our entry video and photos when you sign up for the Doctor Who Event!

Sign up today at the TAS reference desk or call the library at 873-3149.

A Little Longer …

After upgrading our Evergreen Indiana online catalog this weekend, the verification process is taking a little longer that we had hoped. We are working diligently to confirm that the software is running smoothly before making it available to the public.

We apologize for the inconvenience and ask for just a bit more patience while we complete this catalog upgrade and bring you an improved online Library experience.

If you need any assistance, please call the Library at 317-873-8340.

Lemonade Day is about …

… introducing kids to entrepreneurship!
This metro Indianapolis event, scheduled for May 1, encourages youths of all ages to start a lemonade stand and sell their lemonade to the entire community. Schools, community groups and businesses have gotten involved to help make this happen.

Lemonade Day, held each year in cities across America, is a fun, entrepreneurial and experiential learning program that teaches youth not only how to start their own business, but fundamental lessons about life, success and themselves.

Find out more about Lemonade Day online or on Facebook.

How to participate? Register your child for Lemonade Day!

Children can register by completing a printed application available at your Zionsville Library or they can register online.

Each child that registers for Lemonade Day can visit the Library to pick up a bright, yellow backpack with an informational workbook for the child and another for a responsible adult. The workbooks outline the steps needed to start a business: setting a goal, creating a business plan, forming a budget and finding an investor. Information about saving money and donating a portion of their profits back to the community is also included.

Backpacks are ready and waiting for you at Hussey-Mayfield Memorial Public Library!

Dawn M

Please Don't Push That Button!

The librarians in Youth Services made a bet with our Library’s Eco-Eye Monitor that we could stop kids from pushing the Handicapped button, when they do not really need to. We said, “If we just ask them politely to stop pushing the button and explain that it wastes electricity then they would stop”.

If we win the bet we get chicken wings from the Friendly Tavern! So, stop by the Youth Services Reference desk and get your elephant stamp. Elephants have a great memory. The elephant will help you remember “Don’t push that button!” Save the automatic doors for those who really need to use them.

In an effort to save electricity, our Eco-Eyes in Information Services and Maintenance have already taken action to save electricity. Adjustments have been made to the heating, cooling and humidity controls and the settings on the staff and public computers. Our Library has saved between 8-31% per month since August 2010 with these adjustments. We hope the children of our Library help us in saving more electricity and use the automatic doors more wisely. This will help us to continue saving even more and maybe ...just maybe Youth Services will win the bet.

How to follow the Japan earthquake online

Mashable has a great post with a long list of links to social media resources for understanding the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, for following what's been happening since, for finding people there you know, and for making contributions to help victims.

For your blog: How to add social sharing buttons

The day after teaching a class at our favorite library on blogging, I came across this handy post on the Mashable blog. It's a guide to adding buttons to your blog that your readers can use to share your posts with others. If you have other tips or sites to help people blog, please offer them in the Comments section below. Thanks!

Friends, Romans, readers . . .

Celebrate the Ides of March (March 15) with a biography of Julius Caesar. Philip Freeman’s acclaimed account, Julius Caesar (2009), follows Caesar from his early years as a military tribune to his betrayal and brutal murder at the hands of the Roman Senate. Or for a different look at life in the ancient world, there's Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra: a Life (currently ranked fourth on the New York Times List of Nonfiction Best Sellers.)

For fiction with a Roman flair, consider works by best-selling author, Robert Harris. Harris' novel Pompeii (2005) opens on August 22, 79 AD, two days before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. As the hours tick away, Marcus Attilius Primus, a resourceful engineer sent to repair a damaged aqueduct, must use his wits to mobilize the Roman fleet and rescue the woman he loves.

If you like mysteries, you might want to check out one of Lindsey Davis’ whodunits. Davis’ witty series features Marcus Didius Falco, a Roman informer with a nose for trouble.

My personal favorite is The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff, a thrilling story about a boy, a slave, and their quest to recover the lost eagle of a doomed Roman legion. You can find it in the Library's Teen collection. I’m almost afraid to watch the movie, The Eagle, for fear it won’t measure up. Those of you who’ve read the book AND seen the movie, what do you think? Is the movie as good as the book?

Teen Tech Week

After literally months of preparation, Teen Tech Week is finally here! Now if you’ve been paying attention to my previous blog or reading the Zionsville Star newspaper, I will consider you a genius and say that you have rockin’ awesome current events skills. Or, if you have been living under a rock and are completely oblivious to the above information, just click on the links (we put them there for a reason). After several days of running on empty and refueling on coffee, I’m finally able to sit down and tell you about the best part of Teen Tech Week. On Wednesday sixteen teens showed up to the Make Your Own Robot Keychain Program. These robots are extra special because they have light up LED components. Our teens not only made some really, really cool key chains, but they are the very first teens to participate in the Library’s first ever social experiment.
Teens took photos of their critters (because not everyone made a robot and that was awesome and very creative) and these photos will be posted on the Library’s Facebook page. On that page you will find a status update, which is the start of a story about the critters. Each teen in the program will be going online and commenting on the status to create a story. Those teens not having Facebook accounts will contact me, and I will be adding to the story on their behalf. So each day, the story will become more and more developed and by the beginning of next week, our teens will have written their own story all on Facebook! Now, if you don’t have Facebook, don’t worry. You will be able to find the story right here on our blog early next week and see how the teens right here in Zionsville are using technology to participate in library programs from the comfort of their own home. See you soon!

NOW is the best time to pick up your Spring Break reading materials!

The Library’s Evergreen Indiana catalog will receive a makeover next weekend that will bring new features to our online catalog.

To complete the upgrade, our online catalog system, self-check stations, E-Indiana downloadable book service, and all personal online Library accounts will be unavailable between 9 PM Friday, March 18 and 8 AM Monday, March 21.

Selecting your vacation books, audiobooks, movies and music now will allow you to avoid any delays in receiving your materials before you leave town. We’ll happily extend your due dates to accommodate your vacation.

The Library will remain open during our weekend upgrade and materials may be checked out at either of our Circulation Desks Saturday, March 19 and Sunday, March 20. To help speed the process for all patrons, please limit your checkouts to eight items when you visit the Library that weekend. Holds will be available for pickup.

Items returned over the weekend will not be checked in until Monday, March 21, but our staff will backdate everything as if they were returned Friday. A small bonus!

Thank you for your understanding during this short break in our Evergreen Indiana online service. We look forward to providing you with a better Library experience!

An introduction to social media, with more to come

Last week I got to teach a class on social media at our favorite library. My most recent teaching experience has been teaching religion to fifth- and sixth-graders, so talking about a subject to a group who actually wants to learn about it was a nice change. Whether or not you took the class, you're welcome to download a copy of the presentation I used.

Last week's class was the first in a series of four. The second session, Thursday, March 10, will be Getting Started in Blogging. Most of our time will be spent on learning Blogger, but probably with a quick look at WordPress, too. Then we'll go to Getting Started with Facebook on March 17 and Getting Started with Twitter on March 24. Follow those links to register for each class.

The social networking series will be followed by three classes on using Microsoft Office applications: Getting Started with Microsoft Word 2010 will be on March 31; Getting Started with Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 on April 7, and Getting Started with Microsoft Excel 2010 on April 14.

If you have any questions about social media or Microsoft Office, or if you have suggestions for what we should cover in a class, just post a comment below and I'll respond.

National Craft Month!

Did you know that March is National Craft Month? Since I like crafts & the month of March, we've got all sorts of resources to help you celebrate all things crafty! "Like what?" you say ...


DVDs - Check out the J740s in the nonfiction DVD section, and you'll find some cool how-to videos for learning how to knit, paint, draw, and more.


Books! Looking for inspiration? Check out our National Craft Month display of books full of ideas and instructions for tons of crafts. We've got everything from Laura Ingalls Wilder crafts to crafts with old jeans, beads, and clay, and you can even travel to other countries with some of these craft ideas. You'll also find additional titles in the j740s in the nonfiction section.


Programs! Then, during the Zionsville spring break, we'll have a drop in craft available at various times during that last week of March. Exact times and dates can be found on our program calendar (click on "Month-at-a-Glance" at the top to see our events in calendar format). We'd love for you to stop by.


Website Links. Finally, don't forget the Internet! Throughout the month I'll be posting craft-related websites that might be of interest to you. For example:

• Interested in creating some cool pop-up cards? Robert Sabuda makes crazy-cool pop-up books and has posted templates and instructions for how to create some neat cards at his website: http://robertsabuda.com/popmake/index.asp

• Looking for some paper craft ideas, maybe for with a theme? Have you heard of DLTK's website? It can be a busily formatted website, but there's some fun and simple ideas here! Take a look: http://www.dltk-kids.com/

• On the slightly tech-ier side of things, want some free clip art? I've used OpenClipArt a lot these days for free images.

• And the National Gallery of Art has >The Art Zone for kids wanting to make and learn about art. Don't miss this unique and interactive site!

Do you have any crafty videos, books, or sites you just love? It's all about sharing information here at the library, so comment on this post and share you're great ideas!

One author's five favorite thrillers

There's a great website based in the UK called The Browser. The people behind it regularly interview well-known experts in a variety of fields and ask them to recommend the five best books on a subject the experts know well. This week's interviews include one with Simon Kernick, a British author of thrillers, whose books can be found in the Evergreen catalog.

Below are Kernick's recommendations. Just click on each book's title to see its entry in Evergreen.

• A Dance at the Slaughterhouse, by Lawrence Block;
• Tell No One, by Harlan Coben;
• The Pledge, by Friedrich Dürrenmatt;
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie, and
• Gone Baby Gone, by Dennis Lehane.

How does Kernick's list compare with what you consider to be the five best thrillers? Just add your answer in the Comments box below.

Youth Art Month is at the Library

Youth Art Month is celebrated during the month of March to emphasize the value of art education for all children and to encourage support for quality school art programs.

The Zionsville art teachers have been busy displaying student work throughout the Library-art is up, down, and all around! Take a peek at the display cases at the Fifth Street entrance and stroll around upstairs in the fiction and non-fiction sections-you will find some wonderful works of art.

If your 1^st through 5^th grader is particularly excited about YAM (Youth Art Month) he/she can even participate in a project the teachers left for the Youth Services Department.

Perhaps you have heard of Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh? Well, we have the Starry Night image and are going to create our own Community Masterpiece. Starry Night has been sectioned off into 24 equal pieces and the color has been removed. We need 24 children to color one section of the painting and we will then assemble the pieces on the bulletin board by the Exploration Station. When all of the pieces are complete, we will have our own version of Starry Night. What a fun way to celebrate art!

We want to thank the Zionsville Art teachers for their hard work in this great community project.

“Art Education develops self-esteem, appreciation of the work of others, self expression, cooperation with others, and critical thinking skills. All of these skills are vital to the success of our future leaders—our children.” -Council for Art Education

Teen Tech Week

Here in Zionsville, our Library has made it in the national spotlight. You live here, so you already know how great the Library is, but I’ve got some awesome news for you. I need to give you some brief background information so this can all sink in, so just read on so you can appreciate what I have to tell you. The American Library Association is the oldest and largest library association in the world. They help librarians and libraries alike to really cool cutting edge stuff. They have lots of smaller organizations inside ALA, like one that caters just to young adults. This association holds something called “Teen Tech Week” every year for one week in March. Yeah, we totally want you to watch DVDs, play video games, and surf the internet. I know, I don’t sound very much like a librarian, but I am and you still haven’t heard the great news (but I do think being encouraged to play video games in the library is pretty excellent news). Each year, school and public libraries across the country celebrate Teen Tech Week. The ALA wants us to celebrate so much, that they give away ten grants for $450 for libraries and librarians as a way to celebrate with technology. Did you guess my big news yet?! The Hussey-Mayfield Memorial Public Library is one of TEN libraries in the country to get this grant! Join us on Wednesday, March 9 from 4:00 – 5:30 as we make light up robot keychains. Yours does not have to be a robot, I’ve got a Stewie Griffin from Family Guy and a Hello Kitty in the teen display case. We’ve got lots of supplies, but we’d still like to see you register. This is just a small part of our celebration, we’ll be using grant money to help advertise Teen Summer Reading to make our own READ posters. So check the blog again in May and be sure to look at the middle schools and the high school, because you just might see someone you know who has their own READ poster thanks to one of ten national grants. Woot!