News & Announcements

I love this time of year because April brings the celebration of National Library Week .  It started in 1958 after Gallup polls had shown the trend that Americans were spending record amounts of money on radios and television sets while spending significantly less time reading books.  The American Library Association teamed up with American Book Publishers to promote libraries and reading with the very first National Library Week, using the commanding tag line “Wake Up and Read!” This year the week falls from April 6th through the 12th with the theme of “Drawn to the Library”, giving libraries and their communities an opportunity to celebrate all that we do.   

The “we” of that previous sentence is the most important to me. Library Workers Day is celebrated on the Tuesday of National Library Week and it is a day to honor Santa Cruz Public Libraries' mission-driven staff in every corner of the organization, who come to work each day with the desire to serve and do good for our public.   When you arrive at your local library branch or use our digital services, you might not realize just how much goes into providing impactful library services.  SCPL staff make it look easy, but it’s actually complex with much of the work happening behind the scenes.  

During this one week of the year alone, approximately 500 physical books & circulating materials will be ordered, another 500 received & catalogued, and 700 eBooks & eAudio titles will be acquired by our Collections Management team.  Approximately 3,900 patron holds will be filled across our ten locations, 240 Link+ requests for items from outside libraries will be processed, and 10,445 items will be transported from branch to branch.  Librarians will assist with over 500 research or reader’s advisory questions in person, on the phone and online.  Our Outreach team will make 15 bookmobile visits and 4 jail reach visits.  Our librarians will offer, often in partnership with local Friends groups or other organizations, 96 scheduled programs & meetings, including Advisory Council of Teens meetings, in person tech-help sessions, Project Scout tax assistance programs, Tales to Tails reading sessions, poetry workshops, table top games programs from Bridge to Mah Jong, crafting workshops from crochet to quilting, storytimes and toddler programs, a virtual author talk, film screenings, LEGO programs, STEAM workshops, a Pokémon program, book discussion groups, language conversation groups, nonprofit outreach office hours, a mobile health clinic, a County Supervisor’s office hours, as well as adult programs for new parenting, stress relief, composting, Tai Chi, aging, self-esteem, trivia, the history of fairytales, and mosquito & vector control in Northern SC County.  

While this is happening during the week, crews will be working to keep the branches in good repair, transporting items among locations, making sure the technology and website are functioning, coordinating volunteers, training staff, paying bills and making sure the message of our good work is being communicated through media and partner channels.   

All of this in one week–one typical week at Santa Cruz Public Libraries.  To recognize National Library Week you can find in our April calendar multiple opportunities to attend a screening and discussion of the film “Free for All: the Public Library”.  I encourage you to check it out or click on the links above to find out more about National Library Week or Library Workers Day.  In the meantime, please join me in recognizing my amazing colleagues, the staff of Santa Cruz Public Libraries.

Christopher Platt

Director of Libraries

 Mensaje del Director de Bibliotecas

News Archives >>