Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Bluegrass!
Recently we noticed that our CD music collection was seriously lacking in bluegrass music. I have no idea how we allowed that to happen. I quickly set about ordering the beginnings of a bluegrass collection for us. Come by and check out:
Can the Circle Be Unbroken - The Original Carter Family
Bill Monroe Anthology - Bill Monroe
The Complete Mercury Recordings - The Stanley Brothers and The Clinch Mountain Boys
The Essential Flatt & Scruggs, 'Tis Sweet To Be Remembered - Flatt & Scruggs
Heaven Bound - The Best of Bluegrass Gospel - Various Artists
Bona Fide Bluegrass & Mountain Music - Various Artists
And for those who are interested in a history of bluegrass music I purchased a DVD "High Lonesome, The Story of Bluegrass Music."
Can the Circle Be Unbroken - The Original Carter Family
Bill Monroe Anthology - Bill Monroe
The Complete Mercury Recordings - The Stanley Brothers and The Clinch Mountain Boys
The Essential Flatt & Scruggs, 'Tis Sweet To Be Remembered - Flatt & Scruggs
Heaven Bound - The Best of Bluegrass Gospel - Various Artists
Bona Fide Bluegrass & Mountain Music - Various Artists
And for those who are interested in a history of bluegrass music I purchased a DVD "High Lonesome, The Story of Bluegrass Music."
Friday, December 21, 2007
Merry Christmas!
Best Wishes for a Happy Holiday from the staff at the Highland County Public Library!
Highland County Public Library E-Newsletter December 2007
As 2007 winds down I wanted to share with you some of the highlights of the year at the library.
Our local author’s series has been a great success. We’ve had book readings and signings by Donald McCaig, Will Crisp, Paul Klein and Will Vaus. We look forward to continuing the series in the future. We welcome anyone in Highland County with a book being published to contact us and let us know.
Our Summer Reading Program was hugely successful. We had the most kids sign up ever. There were ninety-three participants. Attendance at the programs was also at record levels. Some of the wonderful programs we offered included a return engagement from Puppets With Pizzazz, live animals from the Wildlife Center of Virginia, storyteller Susan Clark, and a visit from Pat Sheridan, District Ranger from the Warm Springs Ranger District. We also offered a weekly film series with free popcorn and drinks which was very popular.
In July of this year patrons of the library set a record in the number of items checked out of the library. We had 3100 items checked out. We’ve also had record numbers of people using the computers this year, and those numbers don’t even cover the number of people who use Wi-Fi with their laptops in the library.
Our book sale in October was a great success too. We raised $4300 and offered tens of thousands of books for sale. We’ve concluded that we have plenty of books to sell, what we need is more people to come buy them. We’ll be working extra hard on getting the word out about our little gem of a sale next year.
Some improvements to the building have been made. We’ve replaced our old water fountain with a new, wheel chair accessible water fountain. We also replaced our old furnace, which had given us twenty good years, but was on its way out. In our computer section we replaced two internet access computers with new computers running the Windows Vista operating system.
All of the good things that happen at this library are due to the people who support it, by using it, by giving us their time, or by contributing money. We’d like to thank all the volunteers who help make this library the wonderful place that it is. We’d also like to thank the community organizations that helped us out this year, including the Monterey Lions Club, the Monterey Garden Club, the Highland Homemakers, the Highland Arts Council, the Mill Gap Ruritans, the Monterey Presbyterian Church, the Highland County Volunteer Fire Department, WVLS Allegheny Mountain Radio, and Marty Leech’s Civics class. Finally, we’d like to thank the Highland County Board of Supervisors, who recognize the value of the library and the services we provide.
If you’ll have some time on your hands after the Christmas rush passes we have some great new titles at the library for you to check out. We have Sue Grafton’s “T is for Trespass,” Nora Roberts’s “Creation in Death,” Denis Johnson’s “Tree of Smoke,” Dean Koontz’s “The Darkest Evening of the Year,” Diane Ackerman’s “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” Frank Delaney’s “Tipperary,” and the last two books in Conn Iggulden’s Emperor series “Field of Swords” and “The Gods of War.” In non-fiction we have two new biographies, Eric Clapton’s “Clapton, the Autobiography” and Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up.”
Our local author’s series has been a great success. We’ve had book readings and signings by Donald McCaig, Will Crisp, Paul Klein and Will Vaus. We look forward to continuing the series in the future. We welcome anyone in Highland County with a book being published to contact us and let us know.
Our Summer Reading Program was hugely successful. We had the most kids sign up ever. There were ninety-three participants. Attendance at the programs was also at record levels. Some of the wonderful programs we offered included a return engagement from Puppets With Pizzazz, live animals from the Wildlife Center of Virginia, storyteller Susan Clark, and a visit from Pat Sheridan, District Ranger from the Warm Springs Ranger District. We also offered a weekly film series with free popcorn and drinks which was very popular.
In July of this year patrons of the library set a record in the number of items checked out of the library. We had 3100 items checked out. We’ve also had record numbers of people using the computers this year, and those numbers don’t even cover the number of people who use Wi-Fi with their laptops in the library.
Our book sale in October was a great success too. We raised $4300 and offered tens of thousands of books for sale. We’ve concluded that we have plenty of books to sell, what we need is more people to come buy them. We’ll be working extra hard on getting the word out about our little gem of a sale next year.
Some improvements to the building have been made. We’ve replaced our old water fountain with a new, wheel chair accessible water fountain. We also replaced our old furnace, which had given us twenty good years, but was on its way out. In our computer section we replaced two internet access computers with new computers running the Windows Vista operating system.
All of the good things that happen at this library are due to the people who support it, by using it, by giving us their time, or by contributing money. We’d like to thank all the volunteers who help make this library the wonderful place that it is. We’d also like to thank the community organizations that helped us out this year, including the Monterey Lions Club, the Monterey Garden Club, the Highland Homemakers, the Highland Arts Council, the Mill Gap Ruritans, the Monterey Presbyterian Church, the Highland County Volunteer Fire Department, WVLS Allegheny Mountain Radio, and Marty Leech’s Civics class. Finally, we’d like to thank the Highland County Board of Supervisors, who recognize the value of the library and the services we provide.
If you’ll have some time on your hands after the Christmas rush passes we have some great new titles at the library for you to check out. We have Sue Grafton’s “T is for Trespass,” Nora Roberts’s “Creation in Death,” Denis Johnson’s “Tree of Smoke,” Dean Koontz’s “The Darkest Evening of the Year,” Diane Ackerman’s “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” Frank Delaney’s “Tipperary,” and the last two books in Conn Iggulden’s Emperor series “Field of Swords” and “The Gods of War.” In non-fiction we have two new biographies, Eric Clapton’s “Clapton, the Autobiography” and Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up.”
Just to let you know...
There won't be this many posts every day. I'm just building things up to get us going.
Holiday Closings
The library will be closed Monday, December 24 and Tuesday, December 25 for Christmas.
We'll be closed Monday, December 31 and Tuesday, January 1 for New Years.
We'll be closed Monday, December 31 and Tuesday, January 1 for New Years.
Computer outage two weeks ago...
For several days, two weeks ago, patrons saw a sign on the front door telling them that all of the internet access computers were down. It was a sudden and total failure. Not a one of the five computers was able to access the internet. My initial instinct was to blame Norton Antivirus. I spent the first afternoon trying to sort out the problem myself. The following day I came in while I had a volunteer to help cover the front desk. I spent two and half hours on the phone with Symantec's (Norton's brand) technical support in India. After all that time they were able to help me get one computer back online.
The next day I spent reinstalling the OS on the other four computers. The reinstall went fine on the two Vistas. Unfortunately that meant a lot of time reinstalling the programs needed to bring each computer up to speed. The reinstall on the two remaining XP's was not successful. The Norton problem still remained. Since we have it in our budget plan to purchase a new internet access computer this year I started to get an order ready to get that done. Then I was going to replace the fifth computer with my old office computer. I know those were extreme measures, but I don't have the know-how or the time to wipe computers clean and start over.
On Friday morning I received a call from India. It was a Norton technical support rep. following up on my issues. I told him about the two remaining computers, which were now rendered useless. He suggested two different fixes to try. Since I had already spent so much time on the phone with them I was able to understand his suggestions. Low and behold, they worked.
It took me until Monday afternoon to get all of the computers fully up to speed. It was very vexing that Norton Antivirus had cost me so much time in lost productivity and I still had no idea what had happened.
On Monday, December 10, I received an interesting email. Solid Oak Software, the maker of our content filter, Cybersitter, was alerting us to the recent software conflict that Norton Antivirus had created with their product. Basically, Norton released an update which declared Cybersitter to be a virus and attacked it, rendering all computers running Cybersitter unable to access the internet. It's explained in PC Magazine Symantec Screwup Is "Worse Than Any Virus."
So now I know.
The next day I spent reinstalling the OS on the other four computers. The reinstall went fine on the two Vistas. Unfortunately that meant a lot of time reinstalling the programs needed to bring each computer up to speed. The reinstall on the two remaining XP's was not successful. The Norton problem still remained. Since we have it in our budget plan to purchase a new internet access computer this year I started to get an order ready to get that done. Then I was going to replace the fifth computer with my old office computer. I know those were extreme measures, but I don't have the know-how or the time to wipe computers clean and start over.
On Friday morning I received a call from India. It was a Norton technical support rep. following up on my issues. I told him about the two remaining computers, which were now rendered useless. He suggested two different fixes to try. Since I had already spent so much time on the phone with them I was able to understand his suggestions. Low and behold, they worked.
It took me until Monday afternoon to get all of the computers fully up to speed. It was very vexing that Norton Antivirus had cost me so much time in lost productivity and I still had no idea what had happened.
On Monday, December 10, I received an interesting email. Solid Oak Software, the maker of our content filter, Cybersitter, was alerting us to the recent software conflict that Norton Antivirus had created with their product. Basically, Norton released an update which declared Cybersitter to be a virus and attacked it, rendering all computers running Cybersitter unable to access the internet. It's explained in PC Magazine Symantec Screwup Is "Worse Than Any Virus."
So now I know.
First post!
Welcome to the new blog for the Highland County Public Library in Monterey, Virginia. My goal here is to provide an outlet for news regarding the library. It's a great way to find out "insider" information about the services we provide. I also hope that you will provide your feedback in the comments so that we can improve services by catering to what our users really want.
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