Vol. 35, No. 1
March, 2005
VOLUNTEER NEWS
VOLUNTEER RECOGNITION MARCH 12
All volunteers should have received an invitation to the upcoming volunteer recognition on March 12 at 11:30 AM at the Phoenix Art Museum, 1625 N. Central. We hope all volunteers will join us to enjoy lunch and music, view the collections of the museum, and celebrate with other volunteers and library staff. This is our one opportunity during the year to pull together all the people who contribute to the success of the library.
We are especially pleased that this year we have ten volunteers who will be recognized for 1,000 hours of volunteer service. The volunteers are: Joseph Baum, newsreader at Sun City Talking News; John Cummings, Phoenix machine repair; Jack D. Elliott, Tucson machine repair; Fred Halleman, Sun City machine repair; Pam McCune, Phoenix studio reader; Bob Ryan, director at Sun City Talking News; John Schumacher, developing a digital recording format as well as a little bit of most everything else at Sun City Talking News; Jack Spells, The Springs machine repair; Sam Strizich, Phoenix machine repair; Don Trudeau, Mesa machine repair.
If you are a volunteer and did not receive an invitation, call Jeanie at 602-255-5578.
FIRST OUTREACH TRAINING
It is a continual challenge to get information about the Talking Book Program to people who need the service. Library outreach happens anytime a volunteer, staff person, Friends’ member, and library patron or community member shares information with another person about the talking book service. Outreach Librarian Jill Bartlett makes dozens of visits to a wide range of groups each year to get information to people who can benefit from talking books. She has responsibility for the entire state of Arizona which is a lot of territory.
Recently volunteers have begun helping meet that challenge in a structured way. Jill held a first training for a group of three Outreach Volunteers on February 11, 2005. These volunteers will either give presentations about library services to small groups living in assisted living homes or care centers or they will attend health fairs or exhibits to give information to as many people as possible who attend the event. One of the first large events they will help with is the five day Maricopa County Fair which is at the fair grounds in Phoenix in April. Outreach volunteers will work along with staff to cover the sixty hours that the library will maintain an exhibit.
Library staff is excited about having this first small group of trained Outreach Volunteers to help us expand our resources to get the word out about talking books. Thanks go to the three volunteers in the inaugural group.
WELCOME TO NEW VOLUNTEERS
Staff and volunteers welcome new volunteers who have joined
us since the fall.
Ginny Alexander – technical services assistant
Bobby Booth – technical services assistant
Anna Branigan Sweeney – reader
Larry Christensen – machine repair
Cynde Cochran – home delivery
Connie Flynn - reader
Lewis Lacy – machine repair
Alma Myers – director
Don Myers – reader
RuthAnn Peterson – reviewer
Carol Petzold – machine repair
Sharon Randall – director
Ben Smith – machine repair
Angela McClellan - director
THREE VOLUNTEERS OF THE QUARTER
Usually we recognize a single volunteer as Volunteer of the Quarter but this time we have chosen three volunteers for this special thank you. Our Volunteers of the Quarter are our three in-library, long-time and very faithful winter visitors, Pat Procak, Dorothy Larson and Glenna Atwood.
Pat Procak has volunteered at the library every winter since 1986. She and her husband began spending winters in Arizona in 1983 and right away Pat started volunteering as she always had done in her home states of New Jersey and New York. In 1986 Pat heard about the library from her sister-in-law and she decided it was time to make a change from the hospital setting she was in. The Braille and Talking Book Library has been a good fit for her ever since.
Pat auditioned to be a reader and she has done every job in the studio except read full length books. In the early years Pat read magazines and special projects. She remembers two particularly challenging projects, one which was the words for songs in an Easter hymnal for a blind choir director who needed all the punctuation included as well – such as “Alleluia exclamation point Alleluia exclamation point.” The other was a knitting pattern with all the knit, purl, knit, purls. Pat has been a monitor and in recent years, a reviewer. She is such a capable reviewer that she can smoothly pick up any kind of reviewing project at the beginning, middle or end. Pat says the variety of projects, the mission of the library and the appreciative atmosphere keep her coming back to BTBL.
Pat also volunteers with St. Vincent de Paul and is an avid golfer. She is a retired secondary school teacher and school counselor. She and her husband have five grown children and nine grandchildren living in many different parts of the country.
Dorothy Larson is from DesMoines, Washington, southeast of Seattle. She and her husband began coming to Arizona following retirement from their own business where Dorothy did the books for her husband who was a building contractor. They bought a home in the Aztec Mobil Resort Park in east Mesa where other friends from Washington lived for the winter months.
In 1995 Dorothy began volunteering at the library with other residents from the Aztec Park. She had always been involved in some kind of volunteer activities and wanted to continue in Arizona. She started as a book inspector in the mailroom and has since done many other jobs in technical services. She has helped shelve books, strip labels from cassette containers, search for missing tapes and duplicate tapes. She says she likes doing different jobs and has been interested to learn about all it really takes to provide cassette books to library patrons. She is especially grateful to be back in Arizona and back at the library this winter because most of her months since she was here last year were spent recovering from serious health problems. But she says she is feeling good and glad to be able to give her time as a volunteer for a program that she feels provides a needed service to a lot of people.
Dorothy and her husband have three grown children, five grandchildren and two great grandchildren. On the days she isn’t at the library, Dorothy enjoys swimming, golfing, riding a stationary bike and ballroom dancing.
Glenna Atwood is also from the Seattle area from the town of Auburn. Glenna and her husband were friends with Dorothy and Warren Larson through many years of square dancing together. The Atwoods retired a few years after the Larsons and began spending winters in Arizona. Their second winter here they purchased a home in the Aztec Park.
That same year, 1996, Glenna and her husband Wayne began volunteering for the library. Wayne was often the driver for the group that made the fifty mile round trip each week from the Aztec Park to the library. This winter Glenna is the driver because Wayne has had to stop volunteering due to his health. Since her first winter at BTBL Glenna has always volunteered in technical services. She, like her friend Dorothy, does many different jobs – book inspection, duplicating, preparing books. She says “there is always a worthwhile project that needs to get done” and she is glad to help in whatever way is most needed. Glenna has a special feeling for individuals living with disabilities because her oldest daughter is deaf. One of Glenna’s other volunteer commitments for many years was at the Washington State Library for the Blind in Seattle.
Glenna retired from nineteen years as a school secretary with the Seattle Public Schools. She and Wayne raised eight children. They have thirteen grandchildren and three great grandchildren. When she isn’t volunteering, Glenna enjoys golf, cards, water aerobics and shuffleboard.
We are most fortunate to have these three winter visitors as dedicated volunteers. None of these three women has missed a winter here at the library since each started volunteering many years ago.
MOST READ ARIZONA BOOKS
In the last issue of the newsletter, mention was made of
the book titles that have circulated most during the previous
year, both from the national collection and from our locally
produced Arizona collection. We want to recognize the following
recording teams whose titles appeared on the 2004 Arizona
most circulated list.
Volunteers’ names are listed in the order of reader, director, reviewer.
Judy Johnston, Marilyn Pentkowski, Elaine Adikonis -
When We Went First
Class
Evelyn Howell, Theresa Tate, Joan Miller -
These Is My Words
Tom Fagan, Joe Best, Ruth Wysocki -
The Lawless Land
Joe McCord, Bob Ryan, Wyla Hohn -
Western Union
Doris Walker, Kim Bell, Adrianne Casto -
A Race for Glory Run
Jim Yeater, Joan Miller, Elaine Adikonis -
Spirit of the Mountain Man
Janet
Pinhorn, Frank Holman, Pat Thomas -
Deadly Sanctuary
Dick Lovins, Curt Hills, Pat Procak -
Destination Tombstone
Joe McCord, Bob Ryan, Kathy Downs -
They Left Their Mark: Heroes and
Rogues of Arizona History
Dee Elder, Ann Fogarty, Joan Miller -
Outlaw Mountain
Lois Brock, Claire Bibeau, Joyce Doyle -
All My Rivers Are Gone: A Journey
of Discovery
through Glen Canyon
We applaud and thank all of our recording teams for the many hours they give
to add each and every title that becomes part of the Arizona Collection.
SEEKING SPANISH SPEAKING VOLUNTEERS
We are seeking volunteers who can produce books in Spanish. As a state that borders Mexico, we are collaborating with several other states in the National Library Service network to increase the number of titles recorded in Spanish that are available to library patrons.
To produce any book in our recording studio we need three volunteers – reader, director, reviewer. To produce a book in Spanish in our studio, a volunteer reader must be a fluent speaker of both Spanish and English. The volunteer who serves as director, that is the person responsible for operating the taping equipment, must be able to read and pronounce Spanish correctly but does not necessarily have to be a fluent speaker. The reviewer also must read Spanish and have a good facility with pronunciation but does not have to be a fluent speaker. So if you or someone you know has these skills and would like to put them to use producing books in Spanish, call Jeanie at 602-255-5578.
NATIONWIDE RECOMMENDED READING LIST
Recently the director of the Wolfner Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped in Missouri offered to compile and publicize on the web a list of recommended reading that exemplifies network libraries’ local recordings that expand and enhance the national collection. A priority for state recording programs is to provide books that focus on the uniqueness of each state. All states with local recording programs were invited to submit three titles for the list. Choosing just three books from the Arizona Collection was really difficult since the collection contains several thousand well recorded titles. The three titles selected were: These Is My Words (a novel inspired by the memoirs of a young woman living in the Arizona Territory during the late 1800’s), NavajoWeapon (an account of the development and achievement of Navajo code talkers during WW II), and Arizona Goes to War (essays about servicemen and women from Arizona on the war front and home front with foreword and introduction by Senator John McCain and state historian Marshall Trimble).