What's Happening

Join the LCPL Book Club

The LCPL Book Club will meet at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, July 28th to discuss the book Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford.

"In 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese American girl from his childhood in the 1940s - Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept. Now, forty years later, Henry explores the hotel's basement for the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. His search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country."

The LCPL Book Club meets monthly to discuss books of interest on various subjects.  All are welcome to participate!  If you are interested, please contact the library at 419-533-5721 and ask that a copy of the book be requested on your behalf.  For more details ask or leave a message for Karen Savage.

The NorthWest Signal ran an article on the library's effort to seek a levy on the November 2010 ballot. 

LC library will seek levy in November

By SHEILA NAVEAU
NWS Staff Writer

LIBERTY CENTER - Residents in the Liberty Center area will be asked to support an operations levy on the November ballot for the village’s public library.

Monday night, the Liberty Center Library Board of Trustees unanimously approved the adoption of a resolution to put a five-year, 1.3 mil operation levy on the November ballot, which will raise $130,000 a year for general operating expenses. The 1.3 mils will cost the average homeowner of a $100,000 home $3.31 a month.

The board approved the resolution following the recommendation by the library’s director, Brian Eckel-Hare, who stated more cuts are forthcoming from state funding.

“Ninety-three percent of the budget comes from the state,” Eckel-Hare said. “And we will see another 20 percent decline in funding by 2013.”

Eckel-Hare said the library has already cut services such as evening hours and closed on Wednesdays, and it has frozen material purchases as far as it can and still provide quality service to the patrons.

“Anticipating cuts from the state, the library has nothing more to cut. We are operating at the bare minimum and only have funds for emergencies, nothing beyond that,” he said.

He went on to say that the state is shifting funding to becoming more of a responsibility of the local communities.

“By working together with the community the library can continue to provide a much needed service,” Eckel-Hare said.

Trustees also discussed several issues with repair and clean-up needs at the facility.

“We’ve had no professional cleaning service since we made cuts (last year),” Trustee Cecile Chambers said.

Chambers said there are several issues that need addressed including carpets needing cleaned and vacuumed regularly, tile floors needing scrubbed and waxed, wood throughout the facility is nicked, scratched and water stained, a door is broken, a laminate countertop is chipped, paint is peeling and wall paper needs re-attached.

“It’s a difficult situation since we can’t hire professionals, but we can’t let the library go down just because of finances,” Trustee Pat Heilman said. “That is another good point why we need a levy.”

In other business, trustees:

•Accepted the resignation of board president Bill Bowser. Vice-president Amy Spieth will assume the duties of president and Chambers will take over as vice-president for the remainder of the year.

The Liberty Center Public Library Board of Trustees will meet again in regular session June 28 at 8 p.m. in the library community room.

Article was republished with permission from the NW Signal.

Tom Walton, Vice President of the Toledo Blade, wrote an editorial this Monday about the benefit of libraries to their communities and the ongoing issues with state budgeting.

Click here to read the article on the Blade's website.