by Joe Miller,
Director of Development
I’d like to start this week by thanking those of you who came out to the opening night of “Shadows on the Mountain” last Friday.
More than 50 folks turned out toward the end of a rainy day to view Vivian Blackwood’s oil paintings and watercolors and to hear Vivian talk about her art. I learned a lot about the use of texture and light and about what separates art from mimicry.
I also got to meet several new people and to put faces to names I’d heard or met only in correspondence.
I continue to be honored and humbled to be part of such a supportive community – one filled with people who are happy to spend their Friday evenings supporting local artists and our public libraries.
If you missed the opening, don’t worry! You’ll have four more chances to attend, as the show moves to each library branch around the county. (We’ll be in Green Bank, starting the end of April.)
In the meantime, if you’d like to take advantage of a free watercolor class with Vivian, give us a call at McClintic to reserve your spot. The class is on April 22 at McClintic and runs from 6 to 8 p.m. Space is limited—as of the time I’m writing this, there are only three spots remaining—so make sure you reserved yours.
Vivian will be offering classes at each branch. Keep an eye out for dates.
We’re really excited about the library as a venue for showcasing the talented artists who call our community home.
Our program is one of the many ways that libraries around the country are supporting their local communities in ways that go beyond providing access to media.
For example, starting in 2018, Maryland’s Baltimore County Public Library (BCPL) began offering a Pop-Up Shops.
BCPL had already begun a series of workshops for would-be entrepreneurs. The library discovered that many workshop participants were in the very early stages of establishing businesses—they had products, but no established venues for selling those products.
So BCPL set up Pop-Up Shops at three branches on Small Business Saturday. For the initial show, BCPL recruited 59 vendors. Because there were no vendor fees to participate, the program allowed would-be business owners a low-risk way to test the market for their goods.
The library then supported vendors, offering free class-es on organizing a vendor table and developing a sales story and provided assistance in developing signage, packaging and displays.
The event has since expanded to five branches and is so popular that the library now has vendors complete an application form.
BCPL isn’t the only library with programs to support small businesses.
Spokane County Library District (Washington) encourages patrons to visit local small businesses by offering prizes for completion of various activities at brick-and-mortar stores. Our summer-long story walks have a similar function—the pages of a story are displayed on the windows and counters of local merchants.
Meanwhile, the engineering department library at the University of Iowa and the library at the University of Puerto Mayagüez (Puerto Rico) help patrons navigate the complex patent process.
Libraries are all about supporting their local communities, whether that be through traditional lending of books and other media or through programming that supports literacy or community enrichment.
And small businesses are a vital part of every community. There are an estimated 33 million of them in the US. That’s 99.9% of all of the businesses in the country. Collectively, they employ nearly half of all workers.
So, if anyone out there is looking to start a business, your local library is a good place to start your journey.