Sometimes I'll tell people about my upcoming events at the library and they are shocked. Recently I was telling a friend about our teen cooking classes and she couldn't believe it. "Why on earth would a library have a cooking class?!" she wondered. It's a fair question. Lots of people still think of libraries as those hushed emporiums of the serious and scholarly. In last weeks' charades with Scooby, a 4-year-old, when posed with the dilemma of acting out "librarian" simply put her fingers to her lips as if to say "Shh." Everyone knew immediately what she was getting at (it was sad.) So what happened? Why are libraries now raucous, busy places, with cooking classes and such?
I've always said my job is to connect people with ideas. Notice how the word "Books" doesn't come into play there. Books are part of it, of course, but ideas are everywhere: books, movies, games, classes, just hanging out...so we include all of that into our standard library procedure. Looking up a recipe for tiramisu isn't the same as making it with guidance and a bunch of your friends--which do you think will be more likely to encourage a 15-year-old to cook?
Next week's 'Queen for a Day' spa program is another stumper for some people. Why paint girls' nails and do facials and their "colors"? What is the idea we're promoting anyway? Beauty comes from bottles?! I have some problems with that idea, but let's face it, makeup is fun, especially when you're 12 and just figuring all that girl stuff out. Anyway, boys are allowed too, as long as their willing to paint their fingernails and wear a tiara. Basically, I just want these teens to have fun and play and maybe learn about skin care, hair care, and even *gasp* makeup. After all, most of them are going to be using it.
Waat do you think about the library's new role? Do you agree with the makeup? The cooking? And how'd you like last night's Bubble Wonders program? Let us know. And now I've got to go make some tiramisu (yum!)--scb
almost done!
15 years ago
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