Josephine Community Libraries, Inc.

The Illinois Valley Friends of the Library is hosting a booth at the August 9 Blackberry Fest. The booth will include information about Josephine Community Libraries and will sell JCLI tee-shirts. Children's books will be available for free. Miniature donkeys, dubbed the “Dewey Decimal Donkeys,” will be on hand to meet and greet.

The Illinois Valley Friends of the Library meets at 4:30 on the first Wednesday of each month in the Library Room of the Illinois Valley Senior Center, 520 East River Street in Cave Junction.

Josephine Community Libraries is sponsoring a free summer children's reading program, book exchange, and "Buddy Read-in" for students of all ages.

The program takes place every Thursday from 10 am to 12 noon from July 3 through August 7. The location is 1519 NE F Street in the courtyard of the Parkway Village shopping center (behind Gooseberries).

For more information, contact Sharon McBerty, lv2gp@msn.com, 476-2477. Special thanks go to Ginny Stegemiller of Parkway Village, who has donated the space for the program.

Local author D.L. Snell signed books at Booklore & More on Friday, August 1 and donated 50 percent of the proceeds to Josephine Community Libraries. Booklore & More is located at 122 SE H Street in Grants Pass, and the signing was held during First Friday Art Night.

Then, on Saturday, August 2, JCLI hosted a sale of books by eight participating local authors at the Fantastic Flea Market in the Daily Courier parking lot at Seventh and J streets in Grants Pass. These authors donated some or all of the proceeds of their book sales. The annual flea market is an annual fundraiser for nonprofit organizations.

The participating authors were D. Aardvark, Erin Bayliss, Larry Cushing, Phil Nickel, J.D. Roque, and Teresa Stover. The works included children's books, novels, software references, memoirs, and short story collections.

Xtreme Dream-come-true!

Zonta Club of Grants Pass has made Josephine Community Libraries its primary local beneficiary of its annual Xtreme Dream raffle fundraiser. The drawing took place at the Concert in the Park on July 22. Karen Jordann was the lucky winner and she won a $10,000 shopping spree at Field's Home Center.

Ten thousand dollars from this fundraiser will be designated for the purchase of public access computers when the library reopens. Josephine Community Libraries thanks Zonta for this grant that will directly help people in our community in so many ways.

The "Library of 2020 Vision Workshop" was held on Saturday, June 21, at the City Council Chambers, in Grants Pass.

This vision workshop was an opportunity for us to imagine the Josephine County libraries of the future. While this event was not directly about the current library situation, defining the long-term vision will inspire and guide our current efforts to reopen and operate our libraries.

Results of the vision workshop will be compiled by JCLI board member and workshop coordinator Bill Peterson.

Make a sign, wear a costume, bring your dog, or just come as you are to the "Walk a Mile for the Libraries" march at 10 am this Saturday, May 31. We'll meet at the parking lot of the Grants Pass Library (corner of 5th and C Street NW). We'll walk through downtown to raise awareness to help reopen our libraries throughout Josephine County. This event is sponsored by Grants Pass Friends of the Library. For more information, contact Barbara Ketley, londonfg@cpros.com, 955-4440.

Community members who would like to have excerpts of their stories read at the library memorial celebration are invited to send stories of under 1000 words to Josephine Community Libraries, P.O. Box 1684, Grants Pass, OR 97528 or to info@josephinelibrary.org (with “Story” in the subject line).

These stories may be used in the organization’s historical record to show the impact of the libraries for future generations; they may also be used in fundraising and promotional materials.

By submitting their work, authors agree to permit Josephine Community Libraries to reproduce and disseminate their work in print or electronically. However, the authors otherwise retain all rights over their submission.

We are now in Week 2 of our five-week membership drive, which started May 17 and runs through June 21.

The drive kicked off on Saturday May 17 with our successful commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the day that Josephine County Libraries closed its doors to the public. About a hundred of us marched from Growers Market, past the Grants Pass Library, to the Josephine County Courthouse, holding signs and banners and chanting "We miss the books all shelved and stacked, please help us bring our libraries back!" At the Courthouse, various speakers shared why they missed the libraries. There was also music, and a presentation of check for $1,000 raised by Riverside Elementary students.

The exciting and fun Murder Mystery Weekend fundraising event was held on April 12 and 13, 2008 to help reopen the libraries in Josephine County. For just a $5 donation to Josephine Community Libraries, would-be detectives were entered in the event, called "The Mystery of the Golden Goose Mine."

This event invited wanna-be Sherlocks to uncover the lost gold mine buried under one of the downtown businesses and solve a very unusual murder.

This event was the brainchild of Brady Adams, member of the Josephine Community Libraries Board of Directors and President of Evergreen Federal Bank.

While the focus of the event was fun, volunteers were on hand at three strategic locations throughout the downtown clues circuit to provide information about the effort to reopen the libraries. Read the press release (pdf, 26kb).

Josephine Community Libraries, Inc. put on several events during the week of March 2-8 to celebrate Read Across America Day. Read the press release (pdf, 26kb).

Penny Drive. Students in District 7 schools participated in a Penny Drive to help raise money to reopen the libraries in Josephine County. The Penny Drive started February 19 and it ended March 7. Nearly $1,000 was raised by students in our community!

Group Read. Monday, March 3 was Read Across America Day and celebrates the birthday of Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel). As part of the nationwide festivities, Josephine Community Libraries hosted a group read outside the entrance to the closed Grants Pass library branch at 200 NW C Street. Parents and school groups brough children, blankets, and books to read to the children between 2 and 4 pm.

Art Night. On Friday, March 7, Josephine Community Libraries had an information table at First Friday Art Night at the Henderschott School of Guitar, 227 SW G Street in Grants Pass.

A facilitated library vision workshop is being planned to gather ideas from the wider community about a vision for the library of the future that will provide the basis for our long-term strategic plan.

The date of the vision workshop will be announced soon. For more information, send email to info@josephinelibrary.org.

Zonta Club of Grants Pass has chosen Josephine Community Libraries as its sole beneficiary for its annual Xtreme Dream Raffle fundraiser to take place this spring. The grant request was for $10,000 to purchase ten public access computers when the libraries reopen. The extent to which Zonta can fund these computers depends on the success of the raffle. Tickets will be sold between May and July. Read the press release (pdf, 24kb).

We now have a presence on YouTube! Turn up the volume and press the Play button!

Thanks to talented volunteers Kamie Clarke for creating the jingle (wav, 1.4Mb) and Patricia Snyder for creating and posting the video.