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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAugust 21, 1985August 21, 1985 Last September, several of the northern suburban Hennepin county children's librarians were invited to our library for a sharing workshop. Each librarian was asked to share one special way of telling a story, t chose to perform a one- man puppet show~ something I do with each of my storytimes. Several weeks later, I was asked by the Hennepin county library program coordinator if I would be interested in participating in a two week exchange program with their library system to perform some of my puppet shows. I was interested. After Becky received approval from the library board and the city manager~ the exchange program was set up for the first two weeks in August. Ruth Harris, the St. Anthony Village librarian~ replaced me for the two weeks. She was a guest storyteller for two pre-school story hours, and also shared two Hennepin county films with our children. Ruth also shared many good ideas that I hope will be implemented in the future at the Columbia Heights library. During my two weeks with the Hennepin county library system, I performed thirty- one puppet shows in twenty-five different Hennepin county libraries. I also performed puppet shows in s school in St. Bonifacius~ a museum in Long Lake, and the Maple Grove shopping center as part of the Bookmobile program. I performed three different plays: Little Bunny Fop Foo~ The Singing Dragon, and The Three Little Pigs. ~y total audience for th~s two week period of time was approximately three thousand people. Ridgedale library has their own television studio, and as part of the exchange program ! was asked to make a video tape of my show for cable television. The video tape will be edited and distributed sometiv~e this fall. The volunteer coordinator for Hennepin county arranged transportation for me with drivers that were familiar with the location of the different libraries. The volunteer drivers picked me up each morning at the St. Anthony library. The Hennepin county library system is one of the best and most ~rogressive systems in the state~ and I found it very interesting to be a s~all part of it for two weeks. When I was not performing my puppet shows~ setting up, taking down, and traveling between librarJes~ I had specific tasks to perform and some time to tour most of the libraries. I was able to pick up many new and different ideas that we could possibly implement here in Colun~bia Heights. It ~as very interesting to observe the use of computers in their libraries knowing that we will also be using computers in the near future. Hennepin county libraries vary a ~reat deal depending on the size of the community they serve. Many of their libraries that serve heavily populated areas are large and beautiful, and offer a great variety of services. Some of the libraries that service smaller areas; and areas farther away from the cities~ are quite small, but still offer many services and any book owned by the system is available to any patron in the county no matter how ~ ail i~i~e ]ib~-v~ry is. The entire experience was ~ great opportunity for me and I considered it an honor to have been asked to share my little puppet plays with all of the other libraries, great and small, but I must admit~ I am very happy to be back home where I belong. Jo Scudder Cl~ildren's Services Specialist