For Barbara

This blogpost is dedicated to dear Barbara Hurtgen who left us two nights ago.  Barbara was a long time library user and supporter, along with her husband Andre,.  She had a wry wit and was a prodigious reader and gardener.  My indoor garden grows greener thanks to gifts from Barbara.  A white and purple streptocarpus that she gave me bloomed early this year, I'm sure as a tribute to her.  The below is one of my favorite images.  June Adinah took it and Susan Covert, a major Barbara fan, shared it with me.  Like that rhododendron, we are all better off to have been in her midst.

Building update:  our welcome desk has been delivered and is being assembled as I write this post.  This begins to make the whole prospect of re-opening even more real.  New upholstered chairs are now installed around the library including two in our new teen area.  Servpro will be delivering the cleaned books starting this coming Monday.  More than 1,000 boxes...into the community room.  National Library Relocation starts the sorting and re-shelving process on Wednesday May 8th (you may recall that the boxes are random and fairly randomly packed, some marked with contents, others not).  But...oh rats, that's right, a significant amount of shelving won't arrive until May 15th (thank you Aurora, Inc.  In case you are in the market for new shelving, think twice before ordering from this company...)  So we'll be puzzling the puzzle next week.  Will keep you posted.  Think sunny thoughts.