Libraries are wise to forge community relationships

One of the core beliefs of the Delaware County Dis­trict Library is to be good stew­ards of the pub­lic funds entrusted to us, and to me that trans­lates into form­ing part­ner­ships and col­lab­o­ra­tions in our com­mu­nity, to save money and to max­i­mize resources.

DCDL has forged and con­tin­ues to forge col­lab­o­ra­tions with busi­nesses and orga­ni­za­tions, pub­lic and pri­vate, at every oppor­tu­nity for the bet­ter­ment of our com­mu­nity. Many of these rela­tion­ships will be famil­iar to you while oth­ers may sur­prise you, and I think you will be impressed with their breadth and diversity.

The library has fruit­ful rela­tion­ships with dozens of local busi­nesses such as Fun­da­men­tals Teacher Store, Bee­hive Books, Global Vil­lage, Grady Memo­r­ial Hos­pi­tal, the Colum­bus Zoo, Dairy Queen, McDon­alds, Mei­jer, Wal­mart, Costco and of course, The Delaware Gazette, as well as other local media. We are mem­bers of the Cham­bers of Com­merce in Pow­ell and Delaware, the Ostran­der Civic Asso­ci­a­tion and the Orange Town­ship Busi­ness Association.

We reg­u­larly part­ner with many, many com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the League of Women Vot­ers, Delaware Arts Fes­ti­val, Delaware Cul­tural Arts Cen­ter, Thurber House, Coun­cil for Older Adults, Delaware County Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety, Peo­ple In Need, Preser­va­tions Parks, the Delaware Lit­er­acy Coali­tion and the Delaware and Pow­ell YMCA’s, to name a few.

Clubs such as Delaware Rotary, Delaware Lions, Friends of the Library and the Kiwa­nis have all been long­time part­ners of the library.

And, of course, we have an asso­ci­a­tion with every school in our ser­vice dis­trict, work­ing with librar­i­ans, teach­ers and stu­dents on a daily basis to strengthen and enhance edu­ca­tional experiences.

Why do we seek out and fos­ter all of these rela­tion­ships? Because it makes good sense to use our pub­lic funds to help our com­mu­nity in the most cost-efficient ways pos­si­ble. Being good stew­ards of our funds is truly fun­da­men­tal to us, and work­ing with oth­ers epit­o­mizes that conviction.

Is Les Wexner from Columbus?

Les Wexner was born to Russ­ian Jew­ish immi­grants in Day­ton, on Sept. 7, 1937. He attended The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity, major­ing in busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion and briefly attended law school but left to help his par­ents run their store in a sub­ur­ban Colum­bus. In 1963, Les Wexner bor­rowed $5,000 from his aunt to start “The Lim­ited” (so named because the store focused on cloth­ing for younger women, unlike his par­ents’ gen­eral mer­chan­dise store). The Lim­ited opened its first store in the Kings­dale Shop­ping Cen­ter in Upper Arling­ton. Over the years he has built a large retail­ing and mar­ket­ing con­glom­er­ate, which cur­rently includes: Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, Henri Ben­del, C. O. Bigelow, The White Barn Can­dle Com­pany and La Senza. He and his fam­ily live in New Albany. I checked in Cur­rent Biog­ra­phy for this information.

Why are Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions held on Tuesdays?

Accord­ing to Hats in the Ring: An Illus­trated His­tory of Amer­i­can Pres­i­den­tial Cam­paigns, between 1788 and 1845, states decided their own vot­ing dates, result­ing in a “crazy quilt of elec­tions” held all across the coun­try at dif­fer­ent times to pick the elec­tors — the men who would cast their votes for pres­i­dent on the first Wednes­day of Decem­ber. In 1792, a law was passed man­dat­ing that state elec­tions be held within a 34-day period before that day, so most elec­tions took place in Novem­ber. With the impact the rail­road and tele­graph had on more quickly con­vey­ing the news about elec­tions, Con­gress decided it was time to stan­dard­ize a date. Mon­day was out because it would require peo­ple to travel to the polls by buggy on the Sun­day Sab­bath. Wednes­day was not an option because it was mar­ket day and farm­ers would not be able to make it to the polls. So it was decided that Tues­day would be the day that Amer­i­cans would vote, and in 1845, Con­gress passed a law that pres­i­den­tial elec­tions would be held on the Tues­day after the first Mon­day in November.

What is a meme?

A meme is “an idea, behav­ior or style that spreads from per­son to per­son within a cul­ture,” as stated in the Oxford Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary. A meme acts as a unit for car­ry­ing cul­tural ideas, sym­bols or prac­tices, which can be trans­mit­ted from one mind to another through writ­ing, speech, ges­tures, rit­u­als or other imitable phe­nom­ena. Sup­port­ers of the con­cept regard memes like genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selec­tive pressures.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked!

Posted by Mary Santos on Nov 23 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.