One of the things that many of us need help with these days is how to handle the complex situations in life that involve many agencies. For example, if we have an aging parent and are concerned about their future- we have legal questions, we have medical questions, we have questions about their psychological welfare, we have questions about how to rearrange their house if they are staying there, or where to move them to if they can’t stay in their house. The Hayward Public library is here to help you. We are having a program called CARING FOR OUR AGING PARENTS-Locally on Saturday October 10 from 1:00pm-3:00. Various social service agencies are coming to answer your questions. We are going to try to provide most of the  answers you will need. Come and join us, as always, it is free. If you live in Alameda County you can call 211 for any social service question.

Once again, we are trying to provide you with the information you need, when you need it and in the form that suits you.

I recently read a great piece by Monique le Conge who is Director of the Richmond, CA Public Library system. She wrote an article entitled 7 Ways Your Public Library Can Help You During Tough Economic Times.
I liked her ideas so much I wanted to customize it; 25 Ways The Hayward Public Library Will Help You Survive Tough Times. Here are my ideas:
1.)    We’re here for you and we lend our materials free of charge. How great is that?! It’s free to get a Hayward Public Library card. It’s the MASTER key that opens every door. The doors of opportunity, of education, of relaxation, of family togetherness, of possibility, and self discovery all can be opened with a free Hayward Public Library card.




2.)    We have public access computers with internet access to help you look for jobs, submit job applications, file your resume on various list servs and receive emails concerning jobs and interviews.




3.)    Those same computers can help you write your resume and we have printers that can print out your resume if you are submitting it in person somewhere.


4.)    Those same computers can also be used to keep in touch with friends and family during these times when we need all the emotional support we can get.

5.)    We loan DVDs and videos to both provide instruction to help you learn something new ( like cooking or Taibo) as well as simple entertainment when you are relaxing.



6.)    We loan audio books and cassettes to help with the commute when you live far away from your job and have quite a commute. The audio books are fiction, nonfiction and language instruction. That means you can enjoy a good mystery while driving, learn Russian or learn Donald trump’s secrets of salesmanship. Put that commute time to good use.


7.)    We also loan downloadable audio books and Ebooks( think free Kindle).Explore these possibilities either during your commute or when doing chores, increase the time you can learn or enjoy books. Someone reads them aloud and you download them to your computer, MP3 player or other device.




8.)    We loan Books. These come in all shapes and sizes, fiction, non-fiction, in various languages and for children, teens and adults. Books can teach us how to write a resume, how to conduct a job interview, how to write a cover letter and which jobs are going to pay us what we need to make. Books can also take us away from the everyday reality by transporting us to another time, another place, even another galaxy. They can make us see the world differently, they can help us to understand the world in which we live and they can help us to change ourselves.



9.)    We have book groups where you can join a community of readers and explore mystery books, literary books, autobiographies, or books from around the globe. These groups can provide a forum for discussions and can also provide a loose structure to explore a subject like autobiography. The group means you don’t have to do all the work yourself. It is not like a college class but it has the rewards without the papers, the exams and the professor. It can provide companionship, intellectual interaction and some great reading.




10.)    We provide computer classes to get you started in the complex world of computers.




11.)    We offer English Conversation groups as a means where people learning English as a Second Language can come together and practice speaking English.




12.)    We also offer a wide range of one time programs ranging from an evening learning about Arabic Calligraphy to Japanese Brush Painting. We offer music  from local musicians, local authors come to talk about their work, we provide programs detailing how to avoid Termites, Fall prevention, craft programs as well as how to improve your writing.



13.)     We offer yoga workshops every month to give you an opportunity to come and learn to relax, to breathe and even to laugh.


14.)    We encourage and teach  literacy as the most fundamental skill that will keep us employed, employable and enjoying life.  We provide this valuable life skill in both English and in Spanish.


15.)    We offer an extensive range of programs for children, starting the day they are born.


16.)    We offer programs for children and their parents together.


17.)    We offer programs for teenagers. Some of these programs are just fun( like crafts), some are  computer games and some of them are actually learning skills and growing as a person- such as a recent photography project that culminated in a city wide gallery showing of their photographs.


18.)    We offer library services for shut-ins and seniors who can no longer get into the library. We bring the library materials out to them.


19.)    We offer a repository for living Hayward local History. We are continuing for a third year to collect video stories of Hayward residents telling of their lives in California and specifically Hayward. Come in and tell us your story. We want to save it for the generations of the present and the future.


20.)    We answer questions. If you need to know how to get to that interview in Oakland but don’t know the way, you can ask us and we can print out a map or show you on your map how best to get there. We can tell you what year Benjamin Franklin was in France if you want to find that out. We can tell you who is offering classes in Excel in the Hayward area if you want to improve your skills. We can give you the telephone number for East Bay Works. We can find the poem that starts; It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. We can answer where to find Health or Medical issue answers(see recent entry in this blog).


21.)    We are going to be here. We have the daily papers, come in and read them. We have magazines you can follow international politics, design from Martha Stewart, Oprah’s monthly interest, magazines explaining men’s health issue. Come in, relax and read them without having to subscribe.


22.)    We loan music cds. Come in and see what relaxing or stimulating music we have from around the country and across the globe.


23.)     We offer free legal help, two to three times a month, we have a lawyer into the lawyer to answer library patron questions. The sessions are brief, just fifteen minutes but they are free, confidential and will help start the solution to the problem bothering you.


24.)    We offer many of these services in Spanish, Chinese, Farsi, Vietnamese and Hindi.


25.)    We have online services such as an online catalog, events blog, Refresh Your Life Blog, reference books, database offerings,  the ability to put  books on hold that  you are looking for, notification of the status of your books, online payment of fines, and many many other online resources.

Taking a line from long ago and far away and changing it a bit…;

Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.

(I think this was an R.Crumb line; Drugs will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no drugs. I like mine better- no offense RC)

‘image: www.freeimages.co.uk’

When I hear people talk about public libraries, many people think of old fashioned public libraries. We at Hayward have really changed into one of the new wave of public libraries. We do many things that help people when and where they need that help. We are always interested in hearing from people who have suggestions of how we can use our tools to reach more people. Do any of you have any suggestions? Would people like tweets from the library? If you answer yes, what kind of information would you want to receive? Someone suggested that appropriate tweets would be only when our plans changed; such as if the scheduled “Lawyer in the Library” program was cancelled for one day but was rescheduled for another. Are there other suggestions?

          It’s another week and I am going to report to you that I am still on track and I hope you are as well. Getting things done is a great feeling. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, why aren’t I doing this task? Let’s say it’s a hard phone call to inquire about a possible sale. Let’s say it’s a cold call. If you believe in what you’re selling it’s an easier call. Sometimes the tasks we don’t want to do, tells us a lot about our job in general or what we’re doing with our lives.

          This Wednesday we are having Craig Nathanson, the Vocational Coach come to give a presentation at the Hayward Public Library. He is all about helping you find out what you really want to do with your life. If you have ever heard people who love what they do, they always say the same thing- jeez they pay me for this when I’d do it for free.
          Vocational coaches are not therapists. They don’t care what your father said to you when you flunked out of college chemistry. They are only interested in helping you achieve your self-stated goals. If you say you want to become a librarian (let’s pretend) then a vocational or a life coach would help you figure out what steps you needed to go through to achieve that goal. The list might be
     1.) Volunteer in a library so that you can find out more about them and the jobs contains within them.
          If, then after working in a library, you decided that you wanted to become a librarian then the first step would be to get into an ALA approved MLIS(Masters of Library and Information Science) degree program.
    

      1.) Find which universities offer the MLIS degree. Where are these universities? What does one need to gain entrance to them? Do I need to take a GRE? How long does the program take? What kinds of subjects would I study?

          A vocational coach would help you reach each goal. Help you to look at what obstacles were standing in your way and how you could overcome those obstacles.

          Sometimes a life coach would also help you redefine your goals. Maybe working in a library as a Library assistant would be as satisfying( except financially) as being a librarian. Or maybe there is another vocation that shares a lot of the traits of being a librarian without having to go to graduate school.

          A Vocational coach can also be a weekly check-in about how we’re doing accomplishing what we say we want to achieve. They can help us celebrate our victories and how to better understand our failures or our detours.

          Let me know if you have used the services of a life coach or vocational coach.

          Remember everyone is welcome to join us Wednesday May 6 from 6:00pm – 8:00 to hear
Craig Nathanson; the Vocational Coach’s workshop then he will be selling and signing his books.
835 C Street, Hayward, CA 94541 call (510) 881-7098 for more information. This is a free workshop and no preregistration is needed.

What do you think of when you hear the word refreshing? A cool glass of water?  A swift mountain stream?  Gaining new strength and energy?  Something pleasantly new and different?  All of these and more come to mind, evoking images of renewal and revitalization. Those of us in the middle of life feel the need for refreshment, sometimes without even being aware of it.  We’ve been on the path of life for some time, explored some of the options life has put before us, started our careers (sometimes more than one), surrounded ourselves with family and friends.  We’re feeling a need to learn something new, to shift our attention to something we haven’t thought much about, to develop new skills & new perspectives. Hayward Public Library is beginning a new series of programs called Refresh Your Life to address some of the needs and interests of adults in midlife. A survey was conducted in the Spring of 2008 and you told us what topics were of interest. An ongoing Advisory Group is also being formed to help shape the direction Refresh Your Life takes in the future. If you have some ideas and/or are interested in joining the Advisory Group, please add a comment, contact library@hayward-ca.gov, or stop by the library and talk with a librarian.

This project is supported in whole or in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.