Week 4 Charlotte

Monday 21 April


A meet and greet day with the Outreach team at Main Library. Many of the staff in the team gave up their precious time to sit with us for 30 minutes and talk about their various programs.

Programs offered at PLCMC by the Outreach department include:

• Book by mail


• spanish computer or storytime sessions and


• classes for teachers and the community on the importance of literacy


• Programs to the local prison


• Programs at the local homeless shelter

Meryl, Manager of Outreach took both Lynette and I out to Sugar Creek branch to observe 12 families enjoying a spanish storytime.

We met up with Jason and Angela at ImaginOn and chatted to us about "Story tubs to go."

They are themed tubs with a selection of books, games and activities and are available for loan by any librarymember.
They are popular items for both groups such as play groups and individuals to borrow.
All tubs are catalogues and are housed and checked apon return by Outreadch staff at ImaginOn. This takes the added presure off circulation staff to check boxes if returned to a branch other than ImaginOn.

We also visited the Homeless Shelter and we recieved a tour of the centre which includes a herb garden and the art gallery. Here they have some great artworks produced by homeless who then sell them. They loved showing the Aussie girls around their art work and tried to get us to buy some to take home...they were quite impressive works, but definitely would not fit in our cases.

We also observed their first resume writing computer class for the homeless.
A bank of laptops which are owned by the library for the purpose of taking to venues to run classes were set up and staff assisted interested people to write resumes.

Tuesday 22 April Department Meetings and Presentation to the Core

Lynette spent the morning with Linda the Manager of Collections the Collection's team.
PLCMC also has floating collections in all branches except Checkit out, which is a very small outlet in a one of the Bank building in the CBD.

• Cataloguing is outsourced but selection is still done inhouse at the library. Baker and Taylor is the database used to assist selection
• Serial ordering is all performed via Ebsco
• Similar to Yarra Plenty, PLCMC also has Playaways, ebooks from NetLibrary and mp3 files (via Netlibrary)
• Electronic resources are also subscribed to via a consortuim arrangemend with education institutions in the Charlotte area.

Jane spent the morning discussing in more detail with the Outreach team.

We both were taken out to lunch at the Cosmos with the Collections team.

The afternoon was filled up with a presentation to the CORE Group (Managers of: Community Engagement, Organisational Resources, Research, Innovation and Strategy and Experiences@ the public library) about YPRL and the similarities / differences between us and PLCMC.
The session ran for 2 hours with lots of sharing and questions for us and the group.
We have alot in common and they are all going through the challenge of a restructure, so we can understand having gone through this 2.5 years ago.

Wednesday 23 April Independence with April, Community Engagement Lunch

The Circulation Manager of Independance Branch , April spoiled us today by swinging by the hotel to pick us up and take us to her branch.....so no walk up to the sky walks and over to Main Library in the morning.
We spent the morning at Independence branch, Lynette in a public computer class (Introduction to the Internet) and Jane in a storytime session.

We both chatted to various members of the team and toured the branch. They have a great childrens area here, the parachute room, a sign above the desk saying "Just as me!" and the community artwork here is just as impressive and adds to the character of the branch as in the other branches we have visited.

The team made us feel extra welcome with two boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts (hmmm we shared!) and coffee.

The Engagement Team had booked us for lunch in Dillworth, a suburb with galleries and art culture, Chauna and Dick picked us up and we had a great chat and also caught up more regarding the libraries publishing arm, Novello.

In the evening we were treated by a guided tour from Amy to Concord Mills ( a factory outlet shopping centre)for a brief shopping fix and then a movie "Leather Heads" which has George Clooney staring in it, some of the scenes were shot here in Charlotte so we felt it appropriate that we saw it here. Movie tickets here are only $6!

Thursday 24 April ImaginOn Teens area and Branch Tours with Lori

ImaginOn was our first stop today. We worked with Teen Services and staff member Michelle (would love to have her come and present in Australia to the YPRL team).
We were able to see the educational play designed for primary school children "SchoolHouse Rock" shown in the theatre with about 500 children, parents and teachers.
The theatre is run independantly from the library The library also had a show running in the library called "Alphabet Soup" where more children were being entertained
We visited the Teen loft and "Studio I" where computers and software are specifically set up for the making of videos and music tracks .

Lori from training kindly took us out on the road again to visit Mint Hill, Matthews and University branches. Matthews is a funky branch developed around a train theme. Univesity is where Kim (one of the exchange people who are visiting in September) is based and we caught up with her.

Friday 25 April Freedom, Beatties Ford Road and Main Library visits

Today we where picked up and chauffered out to Freedom by the branch Manager Vanessa. Freedom is a public library and school library partnership which is going strong. After meeting with staff we were given a grand tour of the school by one of the student representatives.

We snuck in a lunch stop at a beautiful Thai resturant.

We also visited Beatties Ford Road a branch currently in the planning for renovations.


Saturday 26 April Shopping and a Party

April learnt we like shopping and took us to North Lakes Mall. For luch we tried some southern food called Hush Puppies - no they are not shoes although they do have this brand over here, it is fried corn bread, interesting but not something I will introduce to the menu at home! We also tried sweet potato chips which were quite yummy.

In the eveing April picked us up for a party Susan had kindly organised at her house with a great spread of food and this was a great opportunity to catch up with Kim and Mark (the selected staff members for the exchange) and other staff outside of the work environment. We had a wonderful night chatting to all attending and sharing ideas on libraries and our cultures.

Touring PLCMC Week 3

National library week

Began in Charlotte, with big plans and discussions held with relevant staff on how the Main Library would celebrate the end of the week.
Lynette and I attended the meeting to observe how the branch planned a major event. I could not help myself and added a little input into the process.

It is impressive how many local food organisations gave support to the event and donated food for the occassion. The evening would be called an Orientation to the library; a tarot reader, cartoonist, coffee guru, beer tasting, and book disucssion group were also organised for the night event.

Reference Services
We received a grand tour of second floor of the Main Library and the reference collection and services from Mimie on Monday. PLCMC Main library has a large reference colletion which also incorporates "The Foundation Centre Cooperating Collection" which is a collection of resources that people / organisations can use to research funding opportunities from foundations, as well as a vast collection of government documents.
Reference services at the Main library include desk reference, telephone reference, email and a collaborative chat refernce (using 24/7 software) similar to the AskNow chat service operated in Australia.

We actually found time in the day to catch up on our emails and visit a few of the staff in the Main Library and touch base with them again.

Leadership Group Meeting

Tuesday 15 April - saw us make a presentation about YPRL to the Leadership Group (which includes Library Managers and Region Managers)
John from North County is a great chair for this meeting and keeps attendees to the agenda and ensures actions result from the discussions.
It was a good opportunity to meet up with the Branch Managers and to learn more about the world they work in.

Jail Visit
Wednesday 16 April
In the morning Jane and Lynette went to JAIL!!!!!!

Oh yeah U'all we did not pass go nor collect $200........... actually this is Book Club Program PLCMC that Kate at Morrison Library runs. Similar programs are also run through the Outreach department at Main Library where they have five staff in total visiting the jail and various times running a range of programs.

The jail was a Central Juvinelle Jail for Teens, Kate from Morrision picked us up from our Hotel and took us to the centre. She attends the jail on a fortnightly basis and does an amazing job encouraging the youth to read and discuss literature.
We met with 6 guys who immediately wanted to know if we boxed back at home with the kangaroos! Do you remember the moving "Kangaroo Joe"? I think they have seen this too many times.

The guys were fasinacted with our accent and kept asking us questions to hear us speak. I also think they enjoyed learning more about Australia and no doubt bragged when the returned to their division that they had meet two blonde aussie girls today at their book group. I could have spent hours at this program as to my amazment all the guys had read the book and all got deeply involved in the discussion.

Community Engagement Team / Novello Press
The afternoon saw us meet with the Community Engagement Team for lunch at the Restaurants for Reading event. This is a fundraising event involving a number of resturants in the area which give a percentage of money made over the lunch period to the library - hmmm something we should try to make happen in Australia.
The lunch was an opportunity to meet members of this team and better understand their roles. We also grasped a better understanding of the Novello Program run in the library thanks to Amy.
Novello Press is a PLCMC sponsored literary publisher.
It specialises in local authors in the North Carolina area, and run major events program for the community annually. We now have a book each to contribute to the YPRL collection so Novello can now claim they can be found "internationally"!

The remainder of the afternoon was spent with Frank Director of Research, Innovation and Strategy ......... sharing ideas about branding, online training and core competancies and collaborative sharing of web resources.
The conversation was so involved that before we all knew it it was 6pm.

While walking home and stopped by Mimosa Grill (now a favorite eat out of ours) and sat outside for dinner.The weather is interesting here as it is still quite cool at lunch time yet when 5pm comes around it warms up again until around 10pm, like a summer evening.

Library Visits
Thursday 17 April
And the week is flying by as it has for the last two weeks (has it only been two weeks!!!). We have made a wonderful new friend in Lori a staff member in the department of training and she kindly took us on a round of branch tours.
We visited Scaleybark, Hickory Grove (this branch is moving and will be redevelopmente in the near future), Carmel and North County Branches. At the North County branch we attended the annual Collection Management seminar which gave us insight into how the organisation runs the collection side of libraries.

We stopped off on our way home to visit our first Home Depot store and boy was Lynette in heaven - can we organise a crate to send things home????!!!! No we did not buy anything but it was so tempting. Following this visit we negotiated the bus system to find our way home to the hotel.

Friday 18 April
A late start in the day because of the National Library week parties at ImaginOn and Main Library, which we attended both (we liketo share)
The morning off gave us the opportunity to travel the Light Rail to where ever it ended up. It is funny as we find ourselves often assisting locals travelling the light rail on where it goes or how to buy a ticket and hey we are the tourists...I guess it is the Librarian in us always willing to assist the community.
To our delight we found the last stop was by a shopping centre (which is designed more like our home maker centres) and did a little retail thearpy (shoe and clothes shopping!). As it drew near to lunch we discovered a "Hooters" close by.......yeaph I said "Hooters". So what can we do???? One must experience a little American culutre when it is on offer...and yes we went to Hooters for lunch!!!
Sorry to offend any of you out there but it had to be done and we needed to experience the great America icon for u'all !
We are yet to experience GRITS though. After are rather questionable meal (stick with the drinks) we had a photo with the Hooter girls much to the jealousy of the blokes in the resturant, (they wished they had their cameras).

After this entertaiment we headed back on the light rail to Main Library to assist in the setup of the evening party. The night at Main was very impressive with amazing food and a mix of young and old audience. The visit to ImagineOn saw us being intorduced to a drink called RAZZLE DAZZLE (lemonade, sugar, ice and strawberries) which provided plenty of zing (not the type Libby at YPRL refers to!!) ALL I can say is what a sugar rush and boy did it make me talk faster....if that indeed is possible.
We decided it should have come with a WARNING notice, I pity the parents of the night!!!!!

They had a huge audience of 500 attending the theatre performance plus an audience in ImagineOn. Both programs where amazing and well attended. Well done to all staff and there combined effort resulting in a successful evening event.

After the events we gathered a few staff together for what has become a regular Friday activity for us and headed off to Therapy!

Saturday 19 April
Not a day of rest for us yet! We headed to Concord Mills (a factory outlet centre twice the size we have at home) and did a quick fix of retail thearpy.

We zoomed home to change for the muscial Wicked. Anne from Main Library had kindly offered us tickets; in almost the front row; for the musical as she had already seen it for the matinee
What an amazing experince and Australia does not get the show until 2010!

We then rushed home and headed off with Susan for a whirlwind tour of Charlotte and then to a great dinner at Mark and Kates place with staff from PLCMC. I was a great night and a chance to catch up with Mark amd Kim who are coming to Australia in September.

Week 2 at PLCMC

Monday 7 April - "Walkabout"
Today was our "walkabout" day, assigned by Patrice in tradition of the Australia culture. We backed tracked a little and stopped by a few departments and places we wanted to revisit after week 1.
The morning commenced with a meeting between Patrice and Susan on updating our calendar.
We touched base with Meryle with regards to the Outreach department.

A self guided tour of the Main Library helped us to gain our whereabouts and talk to staff working on the floor who we had or may not have meet in our first week, still meeting new people!

Headed off late in the morning to ImaginOn (which is about a block and a half from the Main Library) and spent some time with the staff and manager Beth in the children's area, visited the shop (which will soon be going online) and made some purchases.

We love the free standing information desk as you enter the front foyer.
The mezzanine has been reworked in this branch for a parent space/area and works well, we took advantage of our time and sat there observing the interaction between the children and the props on the ground floor and the working of the overall center.

The "CheckIt out" Outlet was next on our agenda for the day. A lovely branch set amongst offices and eateries housing a small sized collection, no public pcs just the catalogue. The floor is amazing with old brochures and dust covers from Novello (which is PLCMC's own publishing outlet) sealed under a clear lacequer.
This is the only branch that does not have a floating collection due to the nature of their library.

We also squeezed in some time to go to the Levine Museum of the New South and gained a better understanding of the history of the area. This is a museum which takes you on a very personal journey and leaves one amazed at the history and thinking for days afterwards.

Tuesday 8 April - PR team

Today we attended a staff morning tea to welcome David Singleton a new member of the team at Main Library.
Sarah Poole and her team PR spent the morning with us and we shared our processes and ideas together on Marketing, branding and regional programs......all something I could spend the week talking about, we shall book some more time to make some plans and possible future projects for YPRL and PLCMC.
Lunch was spent with the team learning more about each other and the work being done at PLCMC.

Wednesday 9 April - Web Design & Tech Central
Paul from Wed desgn generously gave up whole morning discussing web design and information relating to this for PLCMC.
PLCMC has deeloped many online games for children and young adults so they can exploreand interact online, an area that Yarra Plenty has yet to explore.

The afternoon was spent at Imaginon with Robin on Tech Central Tech Central is a place designed for children and teens so they can use the Internet and play online games.

Thursday - Sunday NEW YORK CITY
pics to be posted

Week 1 at PLCMC

The week is flying past, can hardly believe we have been gone a week and a half. Both of us are still adjusting to the time difference and also the serving portions here - we order entres and still share. Now we have settled into Charlotte we have found some great local grocery stores which have fresh produce or plenty of options to pre made meals. The sign above the deli/pre made meals section says "You have worked hard enough, now let us make you meal tonight"!

From Minneapolis to Charlotte
The flight from MN was an all American style experience. We left the Holiday Inn motel with snow just starting to fall, we had to laugh at each other as we look as though we had both caught a bad case of dandruff whilst walking the streets of MN.


We arrived at the airport to find our plane delayed because of the snow and a storm in Chicago (all Chicago flights were cancelled causing chaos in the airport).

We boarded our plane and sat in the run way queue of 10 planes waiting for a second runway to be open.
As we departed from the ground thunder and lighting began.
We looked at each other and said "goodbye cruel world".

Well we made it to St Louis missing our flight by half an hour. The next plane to Charlotte was 6.30pm, then a delay, then another delay and then oh my God! We were not leaving until 9.30 pm.

Arriving at 2.30pm and not leaving until 9.30 that is alot of waiting around and no decent shopping and we had let the laptop go flat the night before.....crazy times.
We eventually arrived in Charlotte around 11.30pm wide eyed and weary travellers ......

Our first day at PLCMC
Tuesday was our first day and we had a 9.30 am coffee "meet and greet" with staff from around the County.
Must I say we were very popular!
We meet more people than most can pack into a lifetime...remember names, now that is the challenge, there are two Jane's!

It was great to be greeted and made to feel so welcome, we have alot of opportunities over here and networking and sharing is in overdrive!

ImaginOn and the Main Library
A tour of ImaginOn and the Main Library was our first tour for the day
Pictures of this incredible library and theatre can be viewed from here

A lunch at a local regular hang-out was also held and we meet Mark and Kim who are coming to Yarra Plenty in September on the exchange for 5 weeks, we are already making plans for this.

Wednesday. A visit to Morrison and Freedom Libraries
On Wednesday we managed to walk from Mint Street (where our hotel is) to Tryon Street and Martin Luther King Street.
Staff are surprised that we walk this far every morning (it amounts to a 5 minute walk and add in a stop at one of the many coffee shops along the way Carribau Coffee shop is our favorite ....yeaph named after the moose).

Patrice took us around to two regional libraries, one called Morrision (named after the family who donated the money) the other Freedom (a combined school and public library).
Both were very impressive but had oversize reference desks.

Morrison Regional
More pics of Morrison Regional

More pics of Freedom Regional

In our drive around we discovered, much to our disbelief, drive thru ATMs. Crazy I know however quite common place and well used.
What will they think of next you wonder.... they also have drive thru wakes where you can drive thru and view the body....YUCK OH!
The afternoon enabled us to talk to the web development team and the Outreach team where we learned how these tow departments function.

In the evening we headed to a basketball game and Mark got us court side tickets. The local team playing was called the Bobcats, so we cheered them on and wanted them to win, alas they lost. Lynette and I got our picture taken with the local mascot!


Thursday
Thursday we headed to the library thru the sky walk network, which we were shown thru at lunchtime yesterday. We can walk to the library on the outside in the street (which most people here do not do) or we can walk thru all the main buildings and connecting enclosed bridges (known as sky walks and well heated). It is any wonder people are suffering from Vitamin D deficiency as the way the city is set up you can chose never to walk out in the open. However we were very grateful for this concept tonight as we walked home (back to the hotel) and it was raining.

Today we spent some time at the Main Library and then headed out to South County Library

More pics of South County Regional

We sat in on an an induction training session conducted by Lori Reed to observed the way PLCMC conduct sessions for new staff
lunch with trainer Lori Reed

We spent Thursday evening at the CentraslPiedmont Community College listening to a selection of jazz, choral and gospel music. It was a great way to end the day

Friday 4 April
A busy day with our tour guide Patrice driving us around Charlotte to Community Branches. We saw Mountain Island a library by the lake (one of the newer libraries). The community artwork there was a beautiful stain glass window swirl which incorporated the lake and the tress. Each branch allocates from their budget 1% towards a community art piece.
We meet two local ducks sitting by the reading area.
I was impressed with the furniture, the chairs were made from old seat belts and highly durable and clean up well when spills and other mishaps occur! They also had lounge chairs with roll out stools and little arm or desk rests.
There was a strong focus on teen activities and staff had developed boxes (similar to children's storytime tubs) for Goth sock puppets and leggo building kit - a handy idea and both have proved very popular. Other branches can request the kits.

We have noticed alot of branches have incorporate a small theater prop in the children's area and leave puppets or dress ups in boxes for the community using the library to help themselves anytime the library is open. A simple yet effective idea for engaging the children without needing programing or staff time allocation.

Sugar Creek another branch was located near a school. The building had a job centre and police quarters. There was also a major ATM drive thru centre opposite the library. This branch was another example of a popular place well used by the community.

Lunch was held at the "Charlotte Club" with lovely views of the city. The view for those scared of heights (me) could be a little challenging however the grey day and clouds helped to make the distance to the ground a little less threatening. The meal, company (Charles, Kim, Patrice, Lynette, and myself) and staff serving us were most enjoyable. Some of us saved room for dessert and the creme burlee was perfect.
Before we knew it we where back to the Main Branch and off visiting again. This time Patrice took us out to her local branch Midwood Plaza. This was a smaller sized building full of customers busily working on the PCs, looking for books, being assisted by staff. The community gave the impression that this was their place to be.

After a day of work Lynette and I were taken by Tony and Chauna to Therapy. We need one of these in Melbourne near South Morang! It is a a small but lovely cafe/bar which specialises in Martinis. What a way to finish off the week, thanks Tony for showing us this one!!!!


Saturday we got up early for some retail therapy and headed to South Park at 9am only to discover the shops don't open until 10am. We have found ourselves a driver for our time here TJ, who took us the short cut South Park and later that day (much later) promptly came and picked us up when we had had enough shopping. On the advise of staff at Charlotte, Main Library we headed for the Cheese cake factory for lunch (this is alot different to the Cheese Cake shop we know back at home where you can only purchase cheesecakes). We did not have to queue but when we left people were queued out the shop and down into the plaza waiting for a table! This is very typical for restaurants in America. Here it is a famous cafe with a huge menu and portion sizes you can only dream of. We shared a appetizer and then we for dessert....a brownie for me which ended up being three pieces with three scopes of icecream... I managed half of one piece. Lynette had played it safe and ordered a bowl of strawberries which included a punnetts worth!

Sunday 6 April
A lazier day today!!! We headed out in search of a decent coffee and discovered the main town shops do not open until after 12noon. I guess most people are at church. We found a Starbuck open and then did a little grocery shopping at Reids when they opened at a 11am. We were frowned upon when we tried to buy a bottle of wine to go with our dinner and told to come back after 12noon - we have learnt our lesson. Later in the afternoon we visited the Discovery Place and then took a horse and carriage ride around parts of the city we had not seen.

South County Regional

South County Regional

A coffee shop is located just inside the front entrance of the library

Computer kiosks are located around the library. They allow patrons to access computers all around the library within a semi private space

Play equipment is housed in all children's areas. It is available for children to play with at all times.

South Cpounty Regional has a well equiped training room. WE attended a staff induction session on databases to observe how PLCMC train new staff.

Freedom Regional Library

Freedom Regional Library is a joint library with Charlotte Mecklenburg School System.
It allows students and patrons from the local school (joining the library) and the surrounding community access to all of the electronic and print resources available throughout PLCMC.

Entrance to the library

Signage had a chrome dome effect and had circular freatures rather than hard angular lines.

Looking down fromthe top level. Levels are open which allow ample natural light. The top level also has an entrance into the local school

Lounge chairs with side tables allow borrowers to use laptops or do homework in confort.

The children's area is colorful. All children's areas in all the PLCMC libraries have banks of computers. Some with specily selected children's games; other have full Internet asccess

Morrison Library

Morrison is a Regional Library.

It is built on two levels

Entrance to the Morrison Regional Library

PLCMC libraries aslo have a range of "rental books and audio". These are popular titles that are in high demand. Patrons of th elibrary have an option to place their name on a hold list and wait for the popular item, or pay $2.00 and receive the book immediately

Playaways are poular and in high demand at libraries

Upstairs has a hugh amountof natural light. It has study areas as wellas lounge chairs that creates a relaxed atmosphere for recreational reading

Both the young adult and children's areas are bright to encourage young people into the library.

Week1 at PLCMC

The week is flying past, can hardly believe we have been gone a week and a half. Both of us are still adjusting to the time difference and also the serving portions here - we order entres and still share. Now we have settled into Charlotte we have found some great local grocery stores which have fresh produce or plenty of options to pre made meals. The sign above the deli/pre made meals section says "You have worked hard enough, now let us make you meal tonight"!

From Minneapolis to Charlotte
The flight from MN was an all American style experience. We left the Holiday Inn motel with snow just starting to fall, we had to laugh at each other as we look as though we had both caught a bad case of dandruff whilst walking the streets of MN.



We arrived at the airport to find our plane delayed because of the snow and a storm in Chicago (all Chicago flights were cancelled causing chaos in the airport).




We boarded our plane and sat in the run way queue of 10 planes waiting for a second runway to be open.



As we departed from the ground thunder and lighting began.
We looked at each other and said "goodbye cruel world".

Well we made it to St Louis missing our flight by half an hour. The next plane to Charlotte was 6.30pm, then a delay, then another delay and then oh my God! We were not leaving until 9.30 pm.





Arriving at 2.30pm and not leaving until 9.30 that is alot of waiting around and no decent shopping and we had let the laptop go flat the night before.....crazy times.
We eventually arrived in Charlotte around 11.30pm wide eyed and weary travellers ......

Our first day at PLCMC
Tuesday was our first day and we had a 9.30 am coffee "meet and greet" with staff from around the County.
Must I say we were very popular!
We meet more people than most can pack into a lifetime...remember names, now that is the challenge, there are two Jane's!

It was great to be greeted and made to feel so welcome, we have alot of opportunities over here and networking and sharing is in overdrive!

ImaginOn and the Main Library
A tour of ImaginOn and the Main Library was our first tour for the day
Pictures of this incredible library and theatre can be viewed from here

A lunch at a local regular hang-out was also held and we meet Mark and Kim who are coming to Yarra Plenty in September on the exchange for 5 weeks, we are already making plans for this.

Wednesday. A visit to Morrison and Freedom Libraries
On Wednesday we managed to walk from Mint Street (where our hotel is) to Tryon Street and Martin Luther King Street.
Staff are surprised that we walk this far every morning (it amounts to a 5 minute walk and add in a stop at one of the many coffee shops along the way Carribau Coffee shop is our favorite ....yeaph named after the moose).

Patrice took us around to two regional libraries, one called Morrision (named after the family who donated the money) the other Freedom (a combined school and public library).
Both were very impressive but had oversize reference desks.

Morrison Regional
More pics of Morrison Regional

More pics of Freedom Regional

In our drive around we discovered, much to our disbelief, drive thru ATMs. Crazy I know however quite common place and well used.
What will they think of next you wonder.... they also have drive thru wakes where you can drive thru and view the body....YUCK OH!
The afternoon enabled us to talk to the web development team and the Outreach team where we learned how these tow departments function.

In the evening we headed to a basketball game and Mark got us court side tickets. The local team playing was called the Bobcats, so we cheered them on and wanted them to win, alas they lost. Lynette and I got our picture taken with the local mascot!


Thursday
Thursday we headed to the library thru the sky walk network, which we were shown thru at lunchtime yesterday. We can walk to the library on the outside in the street (which most people here do not do) or we can walk thru all the main buildings and connecting enclosed bridges (known as sky walks and well heated). It is any wonder people are suffering from Vitamin D deficiency as the way the city is set up you can chose never to walk out in the open. However we were very grateful for this concept tonight as we walked home (back to the hotel) and it was raining.

Today we spent some time at the Main Library and then headed out to South County Library

More pics of South County Regional

We sat in on an an induction training session conducted by Lori Reed to observed the way PLCMC conduct sessions for new staff
lunch with trainer Lori Reed

We spent Thursday evening at the CentraslPiedmont Community College listening to a selection of jazz, choral and gospel music. It was a great way to end the day

VOX : friends showcase at the CPCC

ImaginOn

ImaginOn is a collaborative venture of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County and the Children's Theatre of Charlotte.
It provides cutting-edge services and library collections, award-winning professional theatre and innovative education programs to children and teens. Parents must be accompanied by a child or teen to enter.















The entrance




















The information desk at the entrance. From here you can greet and direct guests to all parts of the library

A view for the top level looking down.

ImaginOn has a space just for teens called "The loft"
Cafe style booths provide wifi access as well as aplace to talk and socialise.

ImaginOn has two theatres that provide a venue for professional children's theatre

The children's area splashed with colur also has many computer games that children can access at their leisure

ImaginOn is for children and teens. This is the parent area where parents can wait for their children.

The Conference and Minneapolis

Getting to Minneapolis

We landed in Minneapolis, Minnesota to find the place covered in snow.

We survived a 21 hour flight
The passengers next to us survived the flight by drinking red wine. (they made it through 7 bottles before falling asleep and snoring for the majority of the flight, they were nomads). Hence I did not sleep much and watched 3 movies! We meet the Wild Cats Basketball team on our flight from Dallas to Minnesota.

The PLA conference

The conference had a total of 8,500 registered and was massive!

We managed to meet up with Helen Blowers and Melanie (who used to work at ImagineOn and now the Director of Saint Paul Public Library . Have also meet up with a couple of staff from Charlotte.

At the conference we attended talks on the Ideas Store, Pathways to becoming a director, marketing and innovation.
It is surprising and reassuring to know that we are actually leading the way in what they have done and are thinking.

Librares in the USA are also are facing very similar changes with restructure, change, RFID and ensuring that they are viable to the community and the direction of today.

The conference opening presenter John Woods was very inspiration in his talk and has published a book on his adventures "Leaving microsoft to change the world." He is the founder of the "Room to Read" initiative anbeginning in Nepal. Huis aim is to deliver books to children in the local community and build local library schools.

I wish we at YPRL could look at supporting this inncentive.

We were able to network with many staff from across America and even one person from Hawaii. The Saint Paul's director had a fabulous idea and invited various members of library services to a post drinks and refreshments meet and greet; which we were invited to. They served cooked Brie!!! with strawberries and crackers, very nice.

We snuck out over lunch and went for a walk in the sky walk (hmmm reminds me of Star Wars). We have noticed no one walks on the foot paths and main streets and walking in the open air and thought that not many people populated the main city mall but this is not necessarily true.

They all walk in the sky walk and all the shops are there, there are no shop fronts on the main streets.

We also have been on two conference tours, one to the twin cities and the other to the local public libraries at MN and Saint Paul's.

Here is a photo of the Minneaplois Public Library...beautiful building , built on four levels. It boasts a conference centre and theatre as well as the library itself.
However they still use a card catalogue to search for music scores in their library!!

Today was our first day of rest..... we went to Nicollet Mall Hell'sKitchen for breakfast, we made a purchase of a tshirt and were given a bag promoting the resturant and everyone who we passed for the rest of the day said something about how we hadbeen to this place and how jealous they were of us going there. We also spent the day sightseeing the Guthrie Building and the Mill Muesum with a quick lunch and some unusal drinks we then proceeded to walk 6 blocks (which is by American standards is far and considered a car ride) back to our hotel to crash!

Food has been interesting and Lynette and I have resorted to ordering only entrees or sharing meals because of the size of the proporting.

Tomorrow we are leaving MN for North Carolina (two plane flight). We are looking forward to going to Charlotte and settling for 4 weeks.