Let me tell you what happened to me today at work.

First off, the library system has had this reading program for adults that runs 8 weeks, through January and February. In my branch, I was the point person for this project, handling promotion, displays and coordinating the drawings for prizes. I spent a ton of time deciding how I wanted to promote the program in our building. I came up with what I thought was a super clever idea that integrated the name of the program with different themes that presented a unique set of books to focus on each week.

My boss actually had one of my coworkers take pictures of some of my displays and they are posted on our Flickr page. (Mine are all of the pictures that don't have book shelves in them--you see some of the graphics I created, that I am pretty proud of!!)

So the program is officially ended now, and I am done with that project. Well, today at work, one of the women who regularly frequents my library, and was one of the winners during the program, came in to deliver to me a hand written thank you card! She wanted to let me know that she loves the program and that she appreciated the prize that she won. It was so wonderful to get feedback about the program. She really seemed to enjoy it. She also made a suggestion about using the information on the entry forms to create a new display, which was something my boss and I were considering doing. Now I will be doing it for sure.

Okay, so that's pretty cool, right?

Then, same day, I get an email from the head librarian of one of our largest branches. A couple months back, she sent out an email asking for stories about people using the library to search for jobs. I happened to have had a great one, so I emailed it to her. I got a nice thank you back from her. I have no idea how many stories she received (as she sent the email out system wide) but today she sent me an email letting me know that she had to appear before the county Board of Commissioners. She gave a presentation on how libraries are enhancing services to support the community in this time of economic hardship. It was a really nice speech that she gave (they sent a video of it, so I have seen it) and at the end of her speech, she was citing examples of how libraries help people and she quoted me! She basically read my story to the Board, verbatim, as an example of how libraries and librarians help people find better resources to search for jobs. It was so cool.

But to top it off-- in her email she also mentioned that the woman who writes the county newsletter was also there. That woman wants to quote my story as well, in the newsletter. I gave the go ahead, and now I am going to be in print for this same story.

All of that good news and pat-yourself-on-the-back moments came on the same day. It was so awesome to know that what I am doing does make an impact on others, whether we see it or not, but it sure is fun when we get to see it.

Yay for me!

11 days.