31a. Anoka County Library, Johnsville Branch, Blaine, MN--Revisit

First thing I noticed was a sign inviting me to look for Wally the Walleye, who is hiding in the library in a new place each week. If I found him and told the librarian, I would get a sticker. I didn't find him. I usually can't spot the rabbits at Trader Joe's, either. *sigh* I did spot the "word cloud" poster, however. This week's question: favorite ice cream flavor. Hope it isn't just for kids, because I added mine.

The children's area has a bright windowed alcove with an Art Cart, a play kitchen, and a table with "placemats" laminated onto it. (These tables seem to be ubiquitous in Anoka County this summer.) I made notes of several books on display that were new to me, and I want to look for them in my home system. A couple of young teens were shelving; very nice to see that.

The adult area has carrells along one wall, at least eight public computers, comfortable seating for browsers in a couple of areas, and a table with a built-in chess/checkers board. No game pieces, however. Oversized books are shelved flat, a practice I'm seeing (or noticing) more and more.

This write-up seems slim. Perhaps that is because this was the fourth library in the ACL in one afternoon; it's hard to stay fresh. It may also be because I spent a good chunk of time talking to the librarian, a transplant from Arizona. Among other things, we talked about the Bookawocky summer reading program kickoff last weekend. The theme here was "bubbles" and she showed me pictures of kids (and adults) standing on a plastic "milk crate" in the middle of a kiddy pool of powerful bubble stuff, while a hula hoop was used to pull a bubble up and around them. The looks on their faces: priceless. I expect that the faces of staff were also priceless when they realized that one thousand people had turned out for this event!

For more information, go to http://www.anoka.lib.mn.us/about/locations/acl-johnsville. Perhaps they'll post some of those bubble pictures.

6/14/2013, car