An overdue Happy New Year from the Healdsburg Library staff. We’re returning to most of our usual library events for all ages–Homework Help began Jan. 6, the bilingual Intercambio gab sessions restarted Jan. 8 and Read to a Dog is back on Saturdays from 11am to noon.
Every year we like to have some kind of fun, free event to offer for our local families in between school sessions that is sure to be well-attended. This year our Posada event last month as well as the Mike the Magician family event were holiday highlights. The Posada, on Saturday Dec. 13, was a lot of fun with a tamale lunch and face painting, a piñata, crafts and Son Chévere performing. Just before New Year’s Mike the Magician performed a winter magic show on Dec. 29.
We’d like the community’s help this month with a little survey. Like many organizations, the Sonoma County Library recalibrates its strategic plan every few years. Sometimes it seems like we are always working on a new plan, but it really is only approximately every five years. As you may have heard already, a new Library Strategic Plan is currently in the works. In our case, the strategic plan is important, because we make big decisions about our direction and what is important in our community based on what we learn from our community conversations. The plan informs our decision-making process for what programs or outreach we offer, which are attended by hundreds of people every week.
We are currently in an information-gathering phase. In addition to interviews with some local officials and organizations, we are looking for feedback from anyone in the community. We always love to hear from those who use the library day-to-day, but we’re also very interested in hearing from community members who never use the library. Perhaps we are missing an important angle of what is important in our community, so we would like to hear from everyone.
To that end, we have an ongoing drive to encourage our community members to fill out our survey, located online at sonomalibrary.org/plan. The survey is available in English and Spanish, and only takes a few minutes to fill out. People can also come to any branch of the library to pick up and return a paper copy, or fill it out there. It only takes 5-10 minutes to fill out, and gives anyone a chance to make their preferences known. The survey will be open until Sunday, Jan. 18.
It often seems like we have so many programs and services that naming and describing them all is itself an impossible feat. It’s not impossible, of course, but often the time frame we are working with doesn’t allow for a lot of description. One of the services that people may have seen in the library but not known much about is our 3D Printer. We have had a 3D Printer for over 10 years—in fact, the current model is our fourth in the time frame. There are several around our library system, and we have a way for you to learn about and print a 3D object for free at the library.
Those who would like to just look at the printer can see it in action next to our front desk on a black cart. Prints often take several hours to complete, so people can check back and see how something is going as the day progresses. Those who would like us to try printing something for themselves can fill out a request form located online at sonomalibrary.org/3dprinting/. Note we ask that you already have a file figured out that you would like us to use; they can often be found on websites devoted to free 3D objects such as Thingiverse or Printables. Our website will also lead you to design tools if you would like to try your hand at creating a 3D object of your own.
The service provides community members with a way to play with an emerging technology and sometimes even solve a practical problem. We print objects as diverse as small trinkets like colorful animals or keychains, puzzles, boxes or helpful tools such as auto wrenches or window blind cord-pulls. We have some practical boundaries, such as that the object needs to be printable during a short time frame, which makes large-scale projects mostly out of the question. Given the large number of requests we receive, it’s best for us to focus on small-scale designs. Those who’d like to hear more can come by the library and ask for more information. We hope you’ll give it a try this year.
Jon Haupt is the manager of Healdsburg Regional Library, 139 Piper St., open daily.
