Eee-yah!

Greetings! I have lots of new news to pass along (and whine about)!

First, the City of Hiawatha is hosting an event on September 6th from 12pm to 12am called "Fill the Sandbags
For Students" Floodfest. The goal of this event is to raise roughly $25,000 (hopefully more) to assist students displaced by the floods in the Cedar Rapids Community School District. The event will be held at Gutheridge Park and will include local bands, food vendors, children's activities, and a live charity auction. All net proceeds from this event will go to the Cedar Rapids Community Schools Foundation for assistance in helping students affected by the floods. This is a great way to get out help those in need and raise money for a very good cause. Oh, and I should mention that I'm on the committee that is planning this and I can say that we have some super cool things to auction off! So be there!

Second, Pat and I are planning to do a display in September that will coincide with Banned Books Week. For those of you who still don't know (because everyone should by now...) Banned Books Week is like, totally my favorite week of the year. Totally. Banned Books Week and intellectual freedom rights are the main two reasons why I love being a public librarian. For real. Anyways, more on this to come later!

Finally, I am addressing this last issue because I am so tired of answering this question 30 times a day. We still don't know when the online catalog is going to be back up. Sorry, we just don't. The biggest reason, is that we don't have an accurate counting of what we lost in the flood. All three libraries lost materials due to it and although we are getting a better picture of what was lost, we are stil lnot completely and totally sure. So, all I ask is for your patience and understanding (so that I don't flip out the next time someone asks me that question!).