304. MORE -- Turtle Lake, WI, Public Library

Turtle Lake is a town of just of 1000 people--but towns around these parts will have a library! This library, like many others in small towns, shares a building with town offices and a tourism office.

The book and media collection is small, of course. Or perhaps it is quite large, since patrons have access to materials from the entire MORE group of 50 libraries. A few interesting details include the popcorn machine in the storage room, narrow bookshelves at the end of each pair of shelves in the "stacks," one for Stephen King books and the other for Chilton manuals, and a fundraising "thermometer" that looked a bit lonely.

But once I started talking to the librarian, I realized that the physical library is only an outer shell. The woman working on this Saturday morning introduced herself as the children's librarian. She is at the library six days a week, providing "a safe place for kids." She thought for a moment and then told me that she probably knows more than 60 kids "quite well." After work, her husband helps with homework. Every week there is a craft project and "in three years, there have been no repeats!" When I was there, about a half dozen kids, pre-teens or tweens, were clustered around a couple of laptops. I didn't get a good look at the kids' corner for the best of reasons--it was full of kids!

Once a week, the local kindergarten class walks over for story time, a craft, and a snack.

I did not get her name, but February 1, 2015, will mark her third anniversary with the library.

There is, of course, an "adult" librarian who works mornings during the week!

For more about Turtle Lake Library, go to http://www.turtlelakepubliclibrary.org/. They don't appear to have a Facebook page, but you might consider going to the Contact Us link on the library page and sending the children's librarian best wishes on her third anniversary. Just sayin' ...


1/31/2015,  car