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Friends of the Sacramento Public Library News
March/April

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Friends Brave Rainy Weather to Attend Annual Meeting

Our story tellers- (LtoR) Lesley Gale, Mary McGrath, and Ann Rothchild
Our story tellers- (LtoR) Lesley Gale, Mary
McGrath, and Ann Rothchild
January probably isn’t the best time for the Friends to hold its Annual Meeting for all members, but those who attended were glad they came. The social hour that kicked off the meeting enabled those who came to sample delicious refreshments and check out the books and other items that were offered for sale during the silent auction, which ended up raising over $350, more than covering the costs of the meeting. During the meeting various leaders gave reports on what they have been doing: Friends’ President Cherril Peabody, Friends Treasurer Arnold Loveridge, Foundation Executive Director April Butcher, Library Director Anne Marie Gold, and Book Den Board Liaison Joanne Murphy.

Friends Nominating Committee Chair, Terry Chekon, presented the slate of Officers and Board Members for the coming Year. The following officers were elected: Cherril Peabody, President; Joanne Murphy, Vice- President; Lois Shumaker, Secretary; and Arnold Loveridge, Treasurer. Members at large who were elected are Terry Chekon, Ruth Craft, Doug Davolt, B.L. Kennedy, Robert Kimball, Ross Kuehner, Nancy Law, Carolyn Marmaduke, Anil Mehta, Joan A. Rogan, Lois Shumaker, Charlene Ungstad and Matthew Wilson. Outgoing Board Secretary and longtime Board member Melva Mills was presented with a dining gift card in appreciation of her service. The proposed changes to the By-Laws were adopted by the meeting participants.

After the business meeting storytellers from the Sacramento Storytellers Guild told wonderful and very different stories. The spinners of tales were Mary McGrath, Lesley Gale and Ann Rothchild.

Several door prizes donated by local businesses were awarded at the end of the meeting. The Friends are very appreciative of these donors and urge members to support their businesses. They are Gonul’s J Street Café, Sweetwater Restaurant and Bar, Opa! Opa! Greek restaurant, and Vic’s Ice Cream, Inc. Grace Frasche, an individual donor, presented a gift certificate to Shari’s Berries. The Book Den also presented two gift certificates for the store.

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The President's Corner
I have been feeling really blessed by a wonderful crew of volunteers who put in tons of hours lugging around and sorting books, looking up book prices on the Internet, stocking shelves, cleaning toilets, shopping for supplies, stuffing envelopes, writing publicity and more – and this is just for what we call the System Friends, our umbrella organization that raises funds for the entire library system. There are also many volunteers who do similar tasks for the 28 Branch Friends groups. With all of us, we have almost 500 volunteers, a very impressive number!

I’d like to introduce you to a few of our Book Den and Warehouse volunteers. Barbara Carr and Diane Rogers co-manage the Book Den store. Their involvement with the Friends dates back a number of years to when they managed the Better Books section of the big annual sale at Cluny Clubhouse. Barb is the non-fiction expert and Diane handles the fiction. They both take lots of books home to look up on the Internet, and usually they both work two days a week or more at the store stocking books and reorganizing to always make the store better. They both served on the Friends board for several years, too.

Two key people in the Warehouse operation are R.J. Ellison, the Warehouse Manager, and Brian Dias. R.J. supervises and helps train the Warehouse volunteers and purchases a lot of the supplies needed to keep our operation going. Brian is in charge of our Internet sales and supervises our all-important second sorting, deciding which books stay in the warehouse or go in the store and which books go. As part of those duties, he looks up many books on the Internet to determine appropriate pricing.

These four are just a few of the dedicated volunteers who give their time to help raise funds for the Sacramento Public Library. Next time you visit the store, come and say hello to them.
Cherril Peabody

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Branch Friends News The branch libraries offer many programs for children and teens, most sponsored by the System Friends or Branch Friends. Consult your local library for the complete schedule.
Arden-Dimick
Friends of the Arden-Dimick Library Board will meet Wednesday, March 5 at 3:30 pm. The Open Book Club last book in series, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, will meet Wednesday, April 16 at 4:00 pm. Both activities will be held at the library, located at 891 Watt Avenue.

Belle Cooledge
The Belle Cooledge Friends will have a giant clearance sale of books on March 29 in the Community Room from 12:00 to 4:30 pm. The library is located at 5600 Land Park Drive.

Carmichael
Carmichael Friends continue to hold a book and magazine sale on the first weekend of each month, 11:00 am to 4:00 pm each day. A generous donation motivated the Friends to purchase a MyReader2 for the Carmichael Library. This is a piece of adaptive equipment for the visually impaired (a CCTV). The donation came with the stipulation that it be used for this purpose. The library is located at 5605 Marconi Avenue, Carmichael.

Elk Grove
Elk Grove Friends is holding its Spring Book Sale Friday and Saturday, April 18 and 19. A Friends-only preview sale will be held on Thursday, April 17 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. Hours for Friday’s general public sale are 3:00 to 7:00 pm; On Saturday the general public sale will be open from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. The library is located at 8962 Elk Grove Blvd.

Franklin
Franklin Community Library Friends are planning an Internet and email workshop for a Saturday in March led by two board members, one of whom is their student board member. (The date will be posted at the library.) A Digital Camera workshop is scheduled for April 19, led by another board member. The group is arranging a Knitting for Adults workshop in March-April, dates to be posted at the library when available. The library is located on the Franklin High School campus, 1055 Franklin High Road, Elk Grove.

 McClatchy
The Friends at Ella K. McClatchy Library have been getting in touch with their past. A DVD about the library’s history and its place in the community is now available for check-out, or for sale at $10. They have beautifully framed family photos hung along the stair wall, and please ask to see the McClatchy Family photo album, assembled from photos at the Sacramento Archives. In March, families will meet with bats, and in April, Puppet Art will visit McClatchy Library. Check at the desk for specific dates and times. The library is located at 2221 22nd Street, Sacramento.

Pocket-Greenhaven
Pocket-Greenhaven Friends of the Library’s Enormous Once-a-Year Book Sale will be held on Saturday, April 26, from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm in the parking lot of the Elks Lodge No. 6, 6446 Riverside Blvd. To donate books or to obtain information, contact Library event chair Kathi Windheim at 392-0101.

South Natomas
Friends of the South Natomas Library will hold a Book Sale on March 15, from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm in the Community Room.
Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on March 17, 6:00 to 8:00 pm with Celtic folk music and Irish food from Claudia’s Kitchen.
Free Tax Help will be availableon Mondays from 1:00 to 5:00 pm. To schedule an appointment, call 498-1000; priority given to seniors (60+ in 2008).
Crochet Classes will be held on Wednesdays, March 5, 12, 19, and 26, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm. The library is located at 2901 Truxel Road.

Sylvan Oaks
Friends of Sylvan Oaks Library will hold its bi-monthly book sale on Saturday, April 5, 11:30 am to 3:30 pm. Donations are accepted at the library at any time, and book sorting takes place every friday morning —everyone is welcome; we have a lot of fun. Friends is also sponsoring a Tea Tasting workshop on Saturday, March, 29 at 3:30 pm and an Internet Searching Skills class (Google to the Max!) on Saturday April 19 at 11:30 am. Teens are invited to a Graffiti Workshop with Artworks@ on Saturday, March 8 at 2:00 pm, and a Comic Books and Graphic Novels Overview with Brian Peets from A1 Comics on Saturday, April 12 at 1:00 pm. The library is located at 6700 Auburn Avenue in Citrus Heights.
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Friends Book Den to Accept Credit Cards

The Friends Board has decided to offer Book Den and Warehouse customers the option of paying for their purchases with a credit card. Some Board members have felt that the Friends have lost sales because we don’t currently accept credit cards. We have learned from Friends groups in other communities that those organizations increased their sales after adding this payment option.

The Board is installing the credit card mechanism on a trial basis and will be evaluating the results to ensure that accepting credit cards does not turn out to be more trouble or more expense than it is worth. We hope to be able to accept credit cards by Friday, March 7, but that is not a firm date. Please confirm by calling the Book Den at 916-731-8493.

Friends Seeking New Board Members

We’re looking for a few men and women who love the library and would be willing to give a little time. You would need to attend monthly board meetings, and serve on at least one committee. Please call the Friends office at 916-264-2880 if you’re interested.

Friends downtown office hours have changed. The new hours are Tuesday 10:00 am to 1:00 pm and Thursday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Office Coordinator: Bridget Bagne, 264-2880
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Oh No! The Next Warehouse Sale Won’t Be until May!

That’s the bad news. The good news is that we will be offering an entirely new batch of good quality books at that sale. What has happened is that we sold an incredible number of books at our January Warehouse Bag Sale and purged many of the remaining books that had not sold after being offered in three or four sales. We had a lot of new, unsorted donations stored elsewhere, but when we brought them over, we found that many of them were books that were not up to our standards to offer to you. Therefore, we have decided to wait until we can acquire more quality books. So, though you will have to wait a while to shop in our warehouse, when you do you will have lots of good new stuff to choose from.

Mark your calendars for Saturday and Sunday, May 3rd and 4th. We will have flyers available soon at the Book Den and bookmarks at the libraries announcing the sale. More information will be published in the next newsletter, although it will be like our other regular sales with Friends members only on Saturday morning, 9:00 am to noon, and everyone welcome on Saturday afternoon, noon to 5:00 pm, and Sunday, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Prices will be $.25 (for cassettes or vinyl records) to a maximum of $2 (hardback and large trade paperbacks).

In the meantime, do visit the Book Den store, which continues to be open each week on Fridays and Saturdays, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm. We have recently done some rearranging and now have a New Fiction section in the fiction room, featuring books published from 2006 to 2008. Also, we have expanded and organized the collectibles and added more paperbacks in the front room, and we have updated our one dollar ($1) book section to include newer books.

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Better Books Needed

Woman Holding Books We’ve already started to get ready for our big spring sale on May 3 and 4, and it has become clearly obvious that we need donations of quality fiction and non-fiction books in order to offer our customers a quality sale. We’d like children’s books, too, but they all need to be gently used books. Remember, we cannot accept encyclopedias or textbooks.

You may deliver your donations to the Book Den warehouse at 8250 Belvedere Avenue on Wednesdays from 9:00 am to noon, or during our regular Book Den hours on Fridays and Saturdays, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm.
Map

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Between Friends is published bi-monthly by the Friends of the Sacramento Public Library. We welcome your input. You may contact the editor at 684-7285 or email to dougdavolt@surewest.net Editor: Doug Davolt Printing: Sierra Copy Distribution: A wonderful volunteer mail crew