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Many non-profit organizations have a supporting group that helps them fundraise. Libraries have what is called Friends of the Library groups that can hold special events and fundraise for their library.
Our Friends of the Library group consists of dedicated and supportive library champions that have consistently supported our library in word and deed. They are responsible for accepting and managing book sale donations and then holding the book sales, the annual kayak raffle (coming soon, by the way!), maintaining the gorgeous garden outside the library, volunteering at the library and more.
Annual membership to the Friends of the Library as well as proceeds from their fundraisers and book sales go provide the funds they can use to support the library. The Friends also accept donations, which are tax-deductible.
But you may wonder what is the difference between donating to the library and donating to the Friends? Allow me to explain:
Donations to the library go towards purchasing specific books for our collection, buying mobile hotspots, funding children's programming or simply helping keep the lights on. If you want your donation to go to something immediate, a donation to the library is right for you.
Donations to the Friends go towards the library making special purchases, such as purchasing new printers, computers, making improvements to the library building and more. If you want your donation to go toward a special purchase that may not happen right away but will have a long-term benefit to the library, a donation to the Friends is right for you.
Simply put: donations to the Friends do not go toward daily operations. Either way, you are supporting the library, but it is important to know where your donation is going and what it will do.
Not every library has a Friends group, and if they do they can often not get along with the library's leadership. The Friends of the Juniata County Library have raised more than $122,000 since 2009 -- an unbelievable amount that shows how fortunate we are to have such a supportive Friends of the Library group. Join the Friends today.
Book of the week
If you are going to read one book, give this one a try …
The Fields by Erin Young (2022) (New adult fiction: small-town and rural, police procedurals, crime thriller)
Consider yourself warned: British author Young's debut crime novel, the first in a planned series, is grisly and dark, and readers who dislike gory scenes should be wary.
Set in a version of America's heartland that rejects salt-of-the-earth stereotypes, the book opens with a desperate, bleeding young woman fleeing an unseen menace through an Iowa cornfield. When her body is found by a local farmer the next morning, newly promoted Riley Fisher, Black Hawk County Police's first female sergeant, realizes the dead woman is a childhood friend. The discovery brings back painful memories of trauma even as Riley struggles with family issues in the present.
As more women disappear and disturbing signs of cannibalism are revealed, Riley begins to think the gruesome murders may not be the work of a single serial killer but part of a larger conspiracy that could reach far beyond the Midwest. An unsettling, foreboding atmosphere permeates the novel, mimicking the depression Riley fights to keep at bay and the region's collective despair over economic loss at the hands of big agriculture.
Young is at her best when she's writing from Riley's point of view: Riley's battles with personal demons and casual sexism in the police department make her a solid foundation for a recurring series. But the complexity of the plot requires too many points of view -- even the killer weighs in in overwrought asides -- and Young is forced into too much explanation and exposition. She's determined to shine a light on a real problem -- the destruction of family farms to feed corporate greed -- but the book's overly complicated narrative gets in the way of her ability to simply tell a good story.
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Vince Giordano has been the librarian and director of the Juniata County Library since 2015. Donate to the library today! It takes less than a minute. Visit our website or write to us. www.juniatalibrary.org | 498 Jefferson St. Mifflintown, PA 17059 | (717) 436-6378.