This month at the Delaware County District Library, in addition to celebrating our library workers during National Library Week, we’ve also taken time to thank and honor our library volunteers during National Volunteer Month.
We currently have 17 adult volunteers who come in to our four branches on a regular basis and add priceless contributions to our effectiveness. In the past year, our volunteers have digitized and archived photos and slides, processed staff die-cut requests (those cute cut-out letters and animals you see in story times and children’s crafts), weeded, rearranged and cleaned books, helped with programs, and willingly helped with other day-to-day chores to alleviate the workload of library staff.
In 2015, adult volunteers contributed more than 1,700 hours to DCDL, which is worth the cost of about one full-time library employee.
In addition to our adult volunteers, who range in age from 18 to 80, we also have “volunteens” – teen volunteers. These 12- to 17-year-old students volunteer in shorter time periods during the school year and on school breaks, especially during Summer Reading Club. This motivated group consists of about 750 teens who contributed more than 3,400 hours in 2015.
Both programs are so incredibly popular that we receive more applications for volunteers and volunteens than we can place. Even now, the Orange branch library has already filled all their available volunteen positions for the summer and are adding current applicants to a wait list. We at DCDL love that the community believes in us, supports us and wants to donate time from their busy schedules to us.
This month our volunteers have been showered with love, cards, treats and other goodies from the DCDL staff. It’s just one small token of our great appreciation.
If you have a skill you’d like to share with the library, visit www.delawarelibrary.org/volunteer or stop in to a branch the next time you’re in the neighborhood.
If you’re the kind of person who likes to “listen” while you work, here are some of our newest titles in the collection now available on audio book. Give them a listen!
They include:
• “Extreme Prey” by John Sandford. Invited to join the presidential campaign of his friend, the governor, Lucas Davenport discovers that the governor is being stalked by a would-be assassin who proves lethal to anyone in the way of his target.
• “Miller’s Valley” by Anna Quindlen. Coming of age in a dwindling 1960s farming community in eastern Pennsylvania, Mimi struggles with profound family secrets and the pain of falling in love with the wrong person against a backdrop of dynamic historical periods.
• “The Obsession” by Nora Roberts. Years after discovering her father’s predatory double life, successful photographer Naomi Bowes struggles to hide her painful past from her fellow residents in a community thousands of miles away, a situation that introduces her to a new relationship and forces her to confront her demons.
• “The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time” by Arianna Huffington. Evaluates the role of sleep as a cultural and historical unifier, the impact of sleep deprivation on health, and the science community’s recommendations for how to achieve more restorative sleep.
