Authors Galore!

Just in case you live in the central Florida area, let me fill you in on what you may have missed in mid-March. For a week in the middle of March, the Lake County Library System sponsored the Fourth Annual Festival of Reading! At our Opening Day Event at Venetian Gardens, the Leesburg Public Library Annual Author Dinner, the W. T. Bland Public Library Author Luncheon, and at all of our libraries, 4,700 attendees saw over 20 authors such as Tamar Meyers, Bob Morris, Elizabeth Becka, Charles Benoit, Nancy J. Cohen, Mary Anna Evans, Joe Moore, Lynn Sholes, and Gary Corsair.

Many of these authors have won awards for their published works. Folks traveled from some distance to attend these programs, and were treated to a mixture of practical information on how to write and get published, the latest information on new books, and humorous anecdotes about how the speakers became authors and what they wrote about. Kids heard stories, met authors, read books, make crafts, flew kites, and voted on their favorite pizza.

The theme this year was “A Taste of Reading” and included several cookbook authors, writers about food, and chefs sharing samples of their work with everyone. For more details about what went on this year, see our website:
www.lakeline.lib.fl.us/news_and_events/annual_events/festival_of_reading/default.aspx

The Program Coordinator for the Lake County Library System is already making plans for the Fifth Festival of Reading to be held in 2008. The theme is tentatively scheduled to be “Romancing the Book.” Will your favorite author be included? Who would you like to see appearing at your local library? Let us know!

Keep reading,

Marian Dewey

Something New!

This blog is something new for the Lake County Library System located in Tavares, Florida. Everyone in the technology field is now talking about Web2, a new generation of Web-based services — such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and blogs — that emphasize online interaction among users. Web2 will allow us to use the internet to talk directly to YOU. I plan to use this blog as just one way to reach people who are not aware of the services and programs we provide, and introduce them to those services and programs and to the unlimited possibilities they represent. Just in case you don’t know, according to Wikipedia, “a blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.”

This is actually the perfect time to begin. This year, the Lake County Library System will be 25 years old. The library cooperative began with 3 libraries and over the past 25 years has grown to thirteen different locations throughout this county. In 1998, we began offering internet access at all of our locations, as well as public access computers, and in the past year have added wireless access for the public at all sites.

In future blogs I hope to highlight various services and programs that our libraries provide. Other staff will also contribute to this blog to answer your questions and to provide insight into those unlimited possibilities I mentioned (excited yet?). I hope that once you are familiar with what we do, it will encourage you to visit our website and our libraries to meet the friendly staff, and make use of those wonderful services and programs.

There are people out there who are talking about whether libraries are still relevant and what role they play in the community. I, of course, firmly believe that libraries are more than relevant, they are essential. Write me and let me know what you think, and I’ll share your comments with other readers.

Please check back to see the other topics we’re talking about, and

Keep reading.

Marian Dewey