April 10, 2015 - Center Noon Lions Club President Casey Williams (left) is seen presenting a check for $2,500 to Joan Huff, Library Facilitator, for the Fannie Brown Booth Memorial Library Summer Reading Program.
The Center Noon Lions Club presented the Fannie Brown Booth Memorial Library Summer Reading program with a check for $2,500. Joan Huff, Library Facilitator, announced from now on the program will be known as Center Noon Lions Club Summer Reading Program. During the Lions Club meeting held on Thursday, April 9, 2015 she discussed some of the programs currently at the library as well as the Summer Reading Program.
"I want to thank you so much for your contribution to our Summer Reading Program, our summer reading program has really expanded, this [last] year we added a new age group," said Huff.
There are four sessions for each of the groups and Huff described how they added an 8-12 year-old group, tweens, which by the third program they actually had to limit the attendance because of its success. Some of the activities which were featured last year included science experiments and this year they are hoping to have the same kind of programs and not have to limit the groups.
A large group of about 60 4-8 year old children attend the reading program and for that group Huff says they always have a good magician, puppet show, and storyteller. This year she says a man will be bringing live animals to help educate the children and his program is called Creature Teacher, "This is going to be a first for us in the Fannie Brown Booth's Redditt room, but we're going to have live animals and he teaches the kids about the live animals."
The kids keep a log of what books they have read and for how long they have read and at the end of the six weeks there is an awards program with a party for the kids who read through the summer.
The library has once again received its full accreditation as a state library in Texas. Huff gave some additional statistics and stated the library has had 22,000 books checked out for the year again and 2,149 eBooks have been downloaded from the internet through the electronic library. This figure is an increase of 1,000 from the year before and at that time 100 a month were being checked out and at this time there are now 200 a month being checked out.
Wil Blackshear intoduced Joan Huff, Library Facilitator, as the program for the meeting.
Huff informed the Lion's Club members how many books the library has currently and shared the goal of how many books she would like to see in the library, "We still only have 3,400 [eBooks] which we need about 24,000, but they're very expensive."
Huff said anyone interested in downloading an eBook can go to centerlibrary.org to access the library website.
Huff remarked the state legislature slashed the library budget in 2012 which lost a grant the library received every year of about $6,000 which is half of the library's book budget, "Thanks to the community we've been able, especially the sorority and the Lions Club and the different civic groups we've kind of made that money up."
The biggest thing Huff says the libraries across the state lost due to changes in the legislature was training for new librarians and updates in technology. To help combat this loss the Pinewoods Area Library System (PALS) was formed to help keep up standards, training and knowledge for librarians.
It's through the help of organizations like the Lions Club making such generous donations which helps to put knowledge into the hands and subsequently the minds of today's children.
