Laura Sherbo with her mom at ALA

One of the first sessions I attended was the Unconference (wonderful, by the way).  At the Unconference I was talking with one of the other attendees about this being our first ALA and she said, “Oh wait! Someone forwarded this to me this morning.  There is free food on Saturday! Give me your phone number and I’ll send you the information.” Lo and behold it was the ASCLA Awards Ceremony.  Initially I was a little indignant.  How could these moochers attend the awards ceremony for anything besides honoring Laura?!?!?!  Maybe they are serving champagne, I thought, to console myself (turns out it was pretzels shaped like Mickey Mouse).  Or maybe ALA just knows that the best way to spread a message is with free food.

On Saturday I dressed in my conference best and went to meet Laura and all the other conference goers enjoying mini quesadillas and cake pops.  I also got to see Jeff Martin again and meet Laura’s Mother, who is twice as nice as she is charming. As an aside, I now look forward to my own mother’s presence at all future awards ceremonies in my honor.  The awards honored librarians, students, partnerships, and programs in specialized libraries with five different awards.  When the presenter read all the wonderful reasons why Laura won her award, Laura received the loudest round of applause of all the recipients. I can only imagine the myriad of emotions and admirations running through the minds of every person in the crowd.

Laura has been my supervisor for three years now, and more than anyone I have ever worked for, she is able to motivate her staff to greatness.  In the beginning, I was astounded by the loyalty everyone felt toward her and the Institutional Library Services, but now I understand.  Through budget cuts and layoffs, it becomes more abundantly clear with each hurdle she has encountered, that Laura is dedicated not only to serving the underserved, but also her staff.  She has the strength and high standards of a Titan, while still somehow making her staff feel comfortable giving input, starting new programs, and questioning her decisions, sometimes incessantly, probably much to her chagrin.  In short, Laura is the embodiment of leadership and all of us at ILS are lucky to work for her.

Also, she said the reason she won the award is because of her staff, which I’m not going to argue, because we’re pretty great.

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The prison and psychiatric hospital libraries were happy to participate in the Library Snapshot Day again this year.  With the libraries open an average of 4.75 hrs for the day there were 1,033 visitors across the state.  Check out the rest of the numbers here.   Also checkout the pictures on our Facebook Page.

Western State Hosptial

To re-new interest in the WSH Library, we began the year by participating in ILS Snapshot Day 1-11-11 and all branches shared stories and pictures on the State Library website.  A month later, a WSH Library newsletter was introduced on campus to highlight the collection’s offerings.  Starting mid-year, classes at the hospital treatment centers were entertained with a weekly show-n-tell—poetry—storytelling format library programming.  District #28 Rep. Troy Kelley accepted an invitation to visit the library and WSH history museum.  The Library is a major supporter of the hospital’s historical heritage and hosted a WSH Museum open-house in September.

In the spirit of thrift,  Eastern and Western State Hospital staff wrote to certain publishers to seek in-kind donations.  The donations received were shared with all 12 ILS branches.  The Forest Institute donated good quality psych education videos to the WSH Library.  Branches shared equipment and materials to maximize shelf-life.  WSH Staff and patients donated books, DVDs, music CDs and artwork throughout the year.

WSH Museum

Ten years ago, I had a library visit from a hospital staffer who excitedly asked me to provide him information about the “dead people in the park.” Although I’ve received some odd questions during my years in the library of a state psychiatric hospital, this request was something unusual even for me. I suppressed a grin and asked him to give me more details. He told me he had stumbled upon a numbered stone during his lunch break walk in the park across the street from the hospital and was sure he had found the old patients cemetery of the hospital. I shrugged my shoulders and referred him to the campus historical expert. He left, and I thought that would be the end of talk about “dead people in the park.”

Not so. Two weeks later I received a call from my friend Laurel who invited me to attend a meeting after work about what to do about those “dead people in the park.” Now I was taken aback. Laurel is typically level-headed. She informed me that not only were there bodies in the park, there were over 3000 interred in a cemetery.Patients who lived and died at the “insane asylum” often had lost touch with their family members. The state bore the responsibility to bury their remains. Stigma about mental illness inspired lawmakers to stipulate that persons buried on site at a insane asylum must not name the deceased. Only a stone marker indicated the final resting place of somebody’s child, parent, relative.

More to follow….

With support from the American Library Association (ALA), Library Snapshot day is a national phenomenon that has quickly spread across the US.

Library Snapshot Day provides a way for libraries of all types across a state, region, system or community to show what happens in a single day in their libraries. How many books are checked out? How many people receive help finding a job? Doing their homework? This initiative provides an easy means to collect statistics, photos and stories that will enable library advocates to prove the value of their libraries to decision-makers and increase public awareness.

We will be having our very own Library Snapshot Day on 1/11/11 in the prison and psychiatric hospital libraries of Washington State.  On this day we will be taking statistics, collecting photos and stories, and we will be publishing the results online.