Zach Stier, Ronda Kelley and Tammy Troup, Ericson Public Library, March 27, 2026

Yes, done our program today from the Erickson Public Library joining us in the studio. Mr. Z, Zach Steer. Hi, good morning. And thanks for taking time to come in. Yeah, I love it. Hang out in the control room with me. I like to be in control.

We have on the phone, we have Rhonda Kelly and Tammy True. Good morning, ladies. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. All right. Well, we're getting ready to talk about the month of April. Got to ask quickly. March got a couple of days left. But how'd it go, Bob?

I mean, you had spring break in the middle. We did everything. So yeah, just speaking on children's, everything was busy and great. Spring break. We had programming and had really good turnout for that, too. And so we're going to wrap up March next week.

I'm pretty excited for next Tuesday's family fun because it's going to be Hot Wheel Science. I haven't done a program about Hot Wheels and I'm a huge fan of Hot Wheels. And we got a track and Hot Wheels has an entire science line of activities.

So I'm pretty excited to test it out. So really want to say thank you to a generous patron who dropped off two bags of Hot Wheels. So I thought that was really cool. So I'm pretty excited to end that. I'm going to pass my grandson. It is so much fun. There's so much fun.

So pretty excited for that. Well, again, that'll be coming up next week. Next Tuesday, 6 p.m. Yeah, to finish it off. What's April show? What do we got going on in here besides April Fool's Day? So April will be another busy month.

I do want to preface that next Friday we are closed for the spring holiday and then we'll reopen on Saturday the 4th. So I just want to start there. But Story Times on Wednesday and Thursday at 10 a.m. I want to give a special shout out to our friends at Ledges State Park.

We will be doing Story Time on April 16th, which is a Thursday at 10 a.m. at Ledges State Park. I haven't done a Story Time at Ledges before. So I'm really excited. And it's part of a grant that we have to offer more bird programming.

So we're going to do a bird watch activity and Andy Bartlett's going to help run that with me. And with this grant, I have a whole bunch of supplies, including cards that show popular birds in the Midwest that can help in our identification.

Because if one asks me, I'm just going to say it's a yellow bird. It's got wings. It's got wings. So our wonderful music and movement program will be on the 10th and 24th at 10 a.m. So we'll continue that.

And then just as our Hot Wheels program, we have our family fun programs on Tuesdays. Those will be on the 14th at 6 p.m. and on the 21st at 6 p.m. On the 14th, we're going to do spring trivia. The library does subscribe to Kahoot.

A lot of kids and families know Kahoot and using it in schools. So it offers us a way to do trivia live and there will be prizes included. So we always live with a good trivia game.

And then on the 21st at 6 p.m., I just put this program together because I like parties and dancing and glow sticks. So we're going to celebrate the fun of spring and have a glow stick party, which I'm excited about that's on the 21st at 6 p.m.

And a craft will be included in that as well. We're getting round to that Earth Day time. Yeah, we sure are. I know Tammy's got a really neat program to talk about in regards to Earth Day. I want to also give a brief shout out to our friends at Iowa State Extension and Outreach.

We've been doing a program a month with them. It's different than Clover Kids. It's called After School Program with Iowa State Extension and Outreach. Our April one is on the 20th at 4 p.m., which is a Monday.

And then our friends at Youth and Shelter Services, YSS, have been doing a program once a month. That one is on Tuesday, April 21st at 4 p.m. They've set theirs to be about bracelet making and just really building opportunity to connect. So snacks are included in that.

And then my wonderful after school science is on April 9th at 4 p.m. And it's going to also be a bird related program and talking about the migration of birds. And I'm pretty excited to unveil what that will be about. I have two final things.

So we also are working on a grant with Health and Human Services, HHS, through Iowa, to really focus on a youth initiative around September 11th. So we are starting this project early. Our friends at both Trinity, Lutheran, Sacred Heart, and Boone Public.

The students are working to write out kindness prompts on recipe cards. Those will be going to first responders. Each responder will receive a bag of items. They're metaphoric around what they do and giving thanks. And we'll be distributing those out in early fall.

But you have an opportunity now to write a prompt yourself. So we'll have an area in the Children's Department to start that, the beginning of April. Then I want to give a shout out to another partner of ours, our PEO chapter here in Boone.

They are sponsoring our story walk for April out at McCose Park. And the book that we chose is Worm Weather. W-H-O-R-M. Real worms. I don't know. They might be hanging out, but it's a fun opportunity to go out and read and connect with your family as well.

So last thing I'll say, and then I'll let Rhonda take over, is in May, it's a transition month for us, as you know. So we're going to make final plans for summer reading.

And for me, I go visit all the schools and daycares, Head Start, all of that, to talk about our reading program. So our regular scheduled programs will not be occurring to allow us for that transition.

However, we're going to be beginning some programming because in October we celebrate our anniversary. Big anniversary for you. Big anniversary. So I will be doing Storytime on May 13th, which is a Wednesday, and Thursday the 14th at 10 a.m.

Tammy had a really great thing about different eras. And so 1901 is our first, of course. So one of the most popular books that came out that year is Peter Rabbit, Tales of Peter Rabbit. So that will be our theme, and I'm pretty excited to be doing that. So stay tuned on that.

Yeah, Beatrix Potter. That's right. Good job. All right. I've been done practicing. There you go. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate it. But again, plenty of things coming up. Lots of things. Yeah, just that's just kids.

So I mean, I know you guys have been kicking around ideas about summer reading for a little while already. Summer reading, it seems like once you get in the groove, we start really early to start percolating some thoughts and ideas.

But then we start really cementing everything and putting things together. Yeah. Coming together. All right. Thank you. You bet. Rhonda? Yeah. Can you top all that? I know, right? How do you follow Zach? I don't know. So yeah, we're looking forward to transitioning to April.

Our Mindful Monday programs, which we host every Monday, will be transitioning to Calm in a Book, which is exploring self-care rituals for every day. It's actually a book that we'll be reviewing together that won't officially be released until the month after.

So it'll be nice to go through that and get some feedback on our Mindful Monday participants in that book. But we're looking forward to doing that every Monday at 7 p.m. You can do that via Zoom if you register on our website calendar, or you can come and attend in person.

And we always have some beverages and some nice time to just sit and relax. We always play some relaxing music when you first come in. Do you just get regular people that this is my Monday, I'm coming to the library? We do. Yeah, which is great.

You know, it becomes a soothing self-care ritual for them, you know, that we can have community together. And then we always follow it up with a group meditation, which is really nice.

So it's just a way to connect and just, you know, learn ways that you can take care of your mental health. And a lot of times we do talk about physical health things like mindful eating and things like that, too. So every month we have a different theme. So it's fabulous.

It's one of those things that, well, gosh, some time ago we talked about dealing with loneliness, right? Right, exactly. So we cover many, many different topics. Yes, and it does help to combat that and learn how to deal with that as well. All right. Absolutely.

We are continuing with our monthly Lego Club. And this month, it actually falls on April the 2nd. So that's Thursday starting at 4 p.m. and drop in. I'm sorry, Wednesday, not Thursday. No, it is Thursday. Oh, my goodness.

We've transitioned a few of our programs to different days to see if it works better. So, yes, we are doing Lego Club on Thursday now. And as Zach mentioned, we're closed on April the 3rd all day for the spring holiday for the Easter weekend.

But we are open this Saturday, April 4th, and that Saturday is a Saturday storytime. So Easter will be the theme. So if you're looking to do something with your family on Easter weekend, come. We'll have, of course, some goodies and activities, songs, stories.

It'll be a lot of fun. So come and celebrate Easter with us Saturday, April 4th at 10 a.m. And then Monday is actually a day off school for most of the schools in Boone. So we always like to have something for the kids to do at the library. So we are doing Fold a Paper Cat.

And it is like an origami. But if you look on our Facebook page or our website calendar, it actually looks like an actual picture of a cat that you'll be folding. So we've had a lot of good reaction. People looking at the poster.

So there seems to be a lot of excitement about that. So that's at 2 p.m. Monday, April the 6th off school. Come on over and make yourself a little paper cat. You get to take home with you. All right. Yeah.

And then through a grant that we received from the Lowry Foundation, we've been doing a monthly thing that we call Real Reads, which tweens and teens can sign up. There is a book they get to keep. And then we'll have them come to the library April 7th to talk about the book.

And we get to enjoy pizza together and have a great book discussion. And the discussions have just been fabulous with the tweens and teens. It's amazing just how observant they are and the things that they discuss with each other.

And it's a great, a good place for community as well for book lovers. And then we follow that up later in the month with watching the movie based on the book. So the movie portion of that program will be on April 21st, which is a Tuesday at 4 p.m.

Come have popcorn refreshments and watch the movie. And the book that we are doing this month is quite a popular one. It was one of the suggestions of the attendees. It's a series of unfortunate events, the bad beginning. So we're excited about doing that.

Walking Club will be transitioning to outdoors again starting in April. Hopefully the weather will hold up for us. It's been pretty good recently. So fingers crossed. But even if we have to bundle up, we will do that. So Walking Club, we host on April 14th and 9 a.m.

We meet on the steps at Erickson Library and then we walk toward Cemetery, do a walk around the cemetery and then back up Green Street. But you can set the pace for yourself. You don't have to do the entire walk with us. We typically do about two miles.

But any fitness level is welcome to join us in all ages as well. All right. Yeah. We have been switching up our anime manga, which we usually had every month and doing it a little different each month. This month we just had it yesterday.

We had a couple of high school kids come out for anime manga. And then in April we're going back to the K-pop theme. So K-pop is very popular like Korean music and groups.

And then we usually have a snack to go with that and just hang out with other people who enjoy the same thing that you do. So it just gives them an outlet to meet others. That's April 23rd at 4 p.m. So after school.

And then we've been doing a Saturday book club, which has been going really well. And we've been moving around to different local businesses in town to kind of share the love with other small businesses.

So we've been meeting at B-Fit on Story Street, not Story Street, 8th Street for the past few months. And they have been fabulous in hosting us. So we want to give them a shout out and a thank you for hosting our book club.

We will be meeting in April on Saturday, April 25th at 11 a.m. And the book we are reading is Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood. And I do have a few extra copies here that are available to check out if you'd like to join us for that book discussion.

So come on to the Children's Department desk and ask for Rhonda or whoever is working at the desk at that time. And you can check out a copy of that so you can get together with us and have a great time of community conversation and talking about our book. All right. Yeah.

Busy times. Very busy. Yeah, we like to keep everybody busy at the library. And Tammy, what's going on for some of the adults? Some of the things you've been working on? It sounds like you got some plans for things here. Yeah.

So April is still kind of business as usual before May hits. And we really start kicking off our celebration. And as Zach mentioned, in May we're going to be celebrating 1901 era, June 1926, July 1951, and on and on. So each 25 year increment.

So it should be pretty fun to kind of look at crafts and story times from those eras. But in April, we have a couple fun crafting classes. And sadly, I think those are all filled up. But I'll tell you about them just so you have an idea of what we've got going on.

So we've got one of our community members, Karen Grot. She's going to be guiding us through making mini beaded potted plants. And then later in the month on the 27th, I'll be teaching a Norwegian rosemaling class. And so that's a folk art that's Scandinavian in origin.

And you would probably recognize it if you saw it. You just saw a lot of the beautiful curves and floral motifs. And just really just playing with that folk art and bringing that to kind of our craft awareness. And then we have a number of programs for adults.

On the sixth, the folks over at ISU Extension, they're leading a class called Spot Stop and Avoid Fraud. And this is a program for all adults. And I was actually reading an interesting stat that younger adults are twice as likely to be caught up in fraud scams than older adults.

So if you are an adult, get on over there for that program because we don't want to get scammed and lose money. I think last year in 2025, almost $200 billion was lost because of scams that people are falling for. So let's just nip it in the bud as Don Knotts always used to say.

Well, you know, they just show up and they just keep right on coming. And it's always something, it seems like there's always something new, even though I'm still getting emails from some Nigerian prints. Yes, yes.

I mean, they're adapting quickly and learning new technologies and learning, you know, just the ins and outs of psychological motivations. It's unreal. It really is. It is.

So on the seventh, we have Makenna Niemeyer with Boone County Hospital, who is going to be starting a six week series called Growth and Grieving.

And so that's designed to guide people through the grief process, whatever type of grief someone might be experiencing and at whatever stage they're at. So this is just that six week series to just learn more about grief and then learn about just growing through that process.

We've got Jean-Lucas returning with some Tai Chi classes. As Zach mentioned, on the 22nd, we're hosting a movie for Earth Day called Kiss the Ground. On the 25th, we've got our plant prop table returning.

So if you have some really prolific houseplants, it's a great idea to, you know, kind of get those propagated and bring those down to the library to swap with other folks. On the 16th, we have the Good Gains Company.

So we met last month and I had to dust off my memory because it has been years since I played Euchre, but it was so, we played Euchre.

And then one of the folks that attended, she taught us how to play gin rummy until we were about halfway through and she realized I'm teaching you how to play pitch. So we played pitch. So we did that. It was fun.

I mean, it has been so long since I just sat and played card games. And then of course we had door prizes. On the 18th, our writers group is going to be playing The Quiet Year.

So that's a role playing game where you're part of this kind of like survival community and you're building this world and collaborating and making decisions as a group, as you're building this map to live on. So that's kind of cool to look forward to.

And then we have a number of social services organizations just stopping by the library at different times. We have folks from Access, The Bridge, Aging Resources, Community Family Services. There's so much going on.

And then we also have on the AIDS, if you work with any of the senior service agencies in our area, we have a group meeting at 9 o'clock to talk about the different services that are available for seniors in our community.

And it's just an opportunity to network, meet other folks, learn about services and technologies that can help folks in our community. For example, there's a local organization that provides captioned calling.

So it's actually a technology that you can answer the phone and have captions read to you rather than just trying to struggle to listen to an audio voice call. There's really a lot that can just make life easier and help folks stay independent as long as possible.

So we've got a lot going on and I hope to see all my favorite people at the library. It's lovely getting to know this community. There's a lot of wonderful, wonderful people. Like you said, when you started doing some of the crafting ones, they do fill awfully fast, don't they?

They do, yes. And I wish that we could just leave it wide open, but I mean, I just, I'm trying to get our craft classes to about $10 or $15 per class. And that's for 10 or 12 people. So we're looking at $1.50 of supplies per person.

And so I have to get really creative sometimes, but we have a lot of donations and my crafters are really, really savvy folks. And we turn out some really, really cool crafts. Like just last week, I had a whole bunch of lupa that I grew last year.

So we made goat's milk, soap, and lupa, little soap wedges. And then we made these darling, we folded paper, decorative paper to make little boxes to hold those soaps. They were beautiful. They were absolutely beautiful. And we had a blast. Okay.

Before I let you guys go, I did want to ask because we haven't touched on this for a while, but I do know that we've got a lot of our regular things like Libby and Hoopla and things are available at the library.

And MasterClass, you've got some more MasterClass opportunities back and things like that. If people want to find out more, what's the best way to go about doing something like that? Either Rhonda or Tammy, whoever wants to try to tackle that. So I'm still here, Rhonda.

So folks can access our website, boondotlib.ia.us. And on our dropdown menu, we have a list of all of our online resources. And as Jim said, we have Hoopla, MasterClass, which that's, those are, it's expert delivered classes on topics that folks are truly experts at.

I mean, Tony Hawk gives a class on skateboarding. Transparent Language, and it's an e-learning system for language learning. One of the really cool resources that we have through the state library that we don't really talk a lot about, it's called Mometrix.

And it is this massive database of tests that folks need to either take the GRE or the SAT or the ACT or the different tests that folks need for certification. So like an electrician certification sample test. Like this is all available on Mometrix.

It's a really, really great resource. But those are all available on the online resources page of our library website. And also some digitized old newspapers they can look at as well too.

Yeah, yeah, we have over 175 years of digitized newspapers with, you know, a little, a little, I mean, it's not totally Swiss cheese, but there's a couple gaps just because of what was, what was available. And those are available to access on our website as well. All right.

I do appreciate you guys taking part in the program today, getting everybody updated. We kind of forget about some of the regular things that are there through the website. And again, just, they can always come in and ask if they need help accessing things too.