It wasn’t until high school that I realized not every mother spring cleans their house like my mom did. My mother went through every room, every closet, every box and organized stuff and got rid of stuff. She gave her children the task of sorting through their own clothes and discarding anything that they did not want anymore. She washed the walls, scrubbed the floors, and every window was cleaned inside and out. Like clockwork, this happened year after year after year. It was during this time that I was allowed to rearrange my room: shift the bed this way, move the desk over that way, and put the dresser over there. It made everything seem new again and the sense of change, no matter how small the change was, made me feel happy.
We have been doing our own type of spring cleaning at Topsham Public Library. We have not gone to the extreme of washing walls, but Cyndi has been busy with reorganizing things in the Young Adult Room. The YA room has been bursting-at-the-seams and in an effort to make things more pleasing to the eye and easier to access, some things have been moved. If you remember correctly, the movie and audio book stacks are right outside the YA room, so we reorganized the movies and made enough room for the YA Graphic Novels to be shelved on the back of the last movie shelf. The audio books were also shifted, and now the YA Audio books are at the end of the other audio books. That allowed us to get rid of the behemoth of a bookshelf that was in the middle of the YA room. Not only did we get rid of stuff, but now there is a table for studying/group work and a comfy chair for relaxing/reading available, and the light from the windows is not blocked by that bookcase anymore. It really is a more pleasing atmosphere. (I would like to take this opportunity to remind adults that we definitely want you to check out the YA room and feel free to peruse and check out items from that room, but please remember this is a safe space for our teens to hang out in and be themselves in, so please, adults, if you need a space to sit and read or study we have plenty of other spaces available to you while you visit.)
Well, Cyndi’s reorganizing bug was caught by Emma. When Emma saw the spinny magazine holder was now available, she made use of it for the graphic novels in the adult collection. The graphic novels that used to be at the end of the fiction collection can now be found in the spinny thing in the middle of the stacks where the couch, chairs, and table are.
We have also moved the new large print books. They are still on the bookcase as you enter the library, but now they are on the front, top left shelf of that bookcase instead of on the back of the bookcase. You will also find that we moved the card catalog computer down to the end of one of the fiction book stacks so it can be closer to the books.
We hope the changes are easy to adapt to. As always, if there is something you need or want and cannot find it, just ask one of the library staff, and we will help you. We do take seriously the needs and wants of our patrons, and we are always striving to make our library not only functional, but also pleasing to the eye. We want you to get the information you need, but we also want to provide you with a place of refuge and escape from the day-to-day grind.