The Friends of Tyrrell County Public Library received reports from the board of directors and Librarian Debbie Davenport and elected officers during the group’s annual meeting on Dec. 9.

Suzanne Griffin was chosen to succeed Steve Bryan as president. Inetta Sykes is the new secretary, replacing Vi Crowder. Minnie Lou McGowan will take over treasurer’s duties from Dwight Wheless.

Bryan concluded his three years as president by calling on all members “to maintain your membership and just make the organization stronger so that we can provide even stronger support for our library.”

The board acknowledged that “the librarian and her staff are doing work that is excellent and beyond expectation.”

The Friends provided $1,282 to match a grant that provided four AWE learning computers in the children’s area plus some 20 launchpad tablets to use with Under Five programming, at a total cost of $12,000.

FOL was also instrumental in the expansion of the graphic novel section. “This market has exploded with interest from our 7-14 year olds, and we wanted to able to reach out to this age group. Our part of this expansion was between $1,500 and $2,000,” the report stated.

“Graphic novels are expensive,” the board explained. “Our donation to the book budget enabled the library to double the Juvenile and Easy holdings of graphic novels as well as increasing the YA holdings by one-third.”

“FOL also was instrumental in helping carry out the Valentine Day Program with Mickey, Minnie and Elmo. We reached children (and adults) at home, as well as visiting Potter’s House, Mother’s Helper and the daycare in Creswell. This program was carried out under the threat of snow and while the library was closed,” the board reported.

 

LIBRARIAN’S REPORT

By Debbie Davenport

Tyrrell County Public Library

The library staff has been extremely busy this year with finding new ways to reach our public while still keeping the programming that has worked in the past.

In February, we offered Valentine Deliveries to adults and children alike with Mickey, Minnie and Elmo as our delivery folks — with snow threatening no less. Included in those visits were Mother’s Helper, Potter’s House and the daycare in Creswell. This was a huge success and will be expanded this upcoming year to pre-K through first graders at Tyrrell Elementary. Thank you for your support in this endeavor!

In March, we had a spur-of-the-moment opportunity to host the N.C. Science Festival one Sunday afternoon and had an amazing turnout for such a rainy day — and while the library was actually closed because of work being done to the interior! We hope to host them again in the near future.

In May our new webpage became available and can be found at pettigrewlibraries.org. We also participated in the Spring Fling at TES and had a booth set up with information, bookmarks, candy and a game for the children to play. We also offered a book signing later in the month of “North Carolina’s Blacklands Treasure” with Philip McMullan, Cy Rich, Joe Landino and Steve Barnes. Our chair sponsorship started at the end of May and ran to the middle of June, when all were spoken for.

Summer Reading took place in June and July. We had six programs on Wednesdays and three on Mondays for the pre-K program from TES. These programs included: Blackbeard the Pirate; the NC Aquarium on Roanoke Island; The Balloon Lady; Pettigrew State Park; Kid’s Zumba; and Gabby and Shari Crail of Elements (Fueling your Engine the Healthy Way). A couple of those programs had more than 80 people in attendance. We had a grand total of 47 participants to the reading portion of the Summer Program — more than a hundred percent higher than the previous year — who read a total of 2,047 books. Six of those participants read more than 75 books each.

In August, we sponsored a program with the Local Government Federal Credit Union to talk about the services they offer. In a disturbing twist, no one attended this program, but we hope to try again this upcoming year with a different time and different month.

In September, Linda Markham started her adult-coloring workshops. Once a month she instructs attendees on methods to expand their coloring repertoire. This program is well attended and will meet again on Dec. 15. Also in September, we hosted a book signing for Valarie Hicks Caple, author of “Daring to be Women After God’s Own Heart” and “Love Simply Is: a Collection of Poetry and Prose”.

In October, we relaunched Under Five programming and combined it with visits from Head Start twice a month. Tami Phillips says this has been working out extremely well with guaranteed attendance for all the hard work. Terese Benton also started showing a newly released kid’s movie once a month. In October it was Ice Age: Collison Course; in November it was Finding Dory; and this Friday, it will be The Secret Life of Pets. All have been well attended with last month’s showing netting 79 attendees. Terese says the secret is in the popcorn!

Also in October, Debbie started an adult movie night, showing Stephen King’s 1990 miniseries It on the Friday before Halloween. There were a total of seven attendees and all had a good time. In December, she will be showing the new release Suicide Squad and hopes for more attendees to keep this program going.

In November, Ashley Johnson started our new adventure/fantasy programming with Dungeons and Dragons for adults. They have met twice with nine attendees thus far and they are having a great time. Debbie hosted first graders from TES as they learned about Community Helpers. While here, they were instructed on how to get a library card; read a story; and toured the library. As they were touring, they helped Debbie search for her hiding turkey, George!

In December, the adventure and fantasy programming continued with an expansion of a D&D group for teens. They met early this week with seven attendees. After basketball season, more will be coming as the D&D group from CHS will join in.

We received two grants this year. The EDGE Technology award allowed us to purchase a new digital projector and document camera. No more sharing a projector with Washington County! The projector is an all-in-one style with a DVD player and speakers. Linda has already been putting both to good use with her coloring classes and the projector has also been used for movie nights. Other groups have used the projector while on the premises.

The other grant was an LSTA Literacy Grant that was used to purchase four AWE kid’s computers and 20 Playaway Launchpad tablets for younger children. I am happy to report we have the highest usage in the Region on the AWE computers, and the Launchpads have come in handy with some of our younger patrons. Thank you making that 10 percent match to make this purchase possible!

Just to let you know, Summer Reading was changed to Summer Learning by the State Library in November. We are currently trying to decide if we will continue the reading portion of the programming or push more for on-site events.

Also, the Coloring Workshops with Linda, as well as the D&D groups with Ashley and Under Five programming with Tami, will continue into the New Year. When there are kid’s movies available, Terese will show those if possible, and Debbie will see how the adult movie night does next week for continuation of that program. There will be some expansions in the adventure and fantasy programming and we will continue to explore other options to reach our community.

Thank you for supporting us in our continuing endeavors and we look forward to working with you in 2017!