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In December 2022, we started offering passport services at the Juniata County Library. You can complete the entire application process in one place, including us taking the photo and mailing it in. We had no idea how the service would be received. What unfolded in the next 10 months has been nothing short of spectacular.
Some background: there are three passport agents here at the library (I am one of them.) We accept walk-ins but highly recommend appointments. We can renew current passports as well as help you apply for a new passport. Once the application is complete, it is mailed in and the new passport is mailed directly to you. The process is complicated but with our training and great customer service we make it simple. If you would like to get a new passport, visit our website to download the application and read about the documents you'd need to bring: https://www.juniatalibrary.org/programs-services/passport-services.
So far in 2023, the library has made over $20,000 in passport services and processed over 450 new passport applications. We have had people come from as far as Bellefonte and Harrisburg, processed applications for someone as young as four months old as well as a family of nine. What did I say about spectacular?
The income from passport services is a huge boost to the library. It allows us to increase the pay of our hard-working staff, improve our technology and facility, and as a result offer you high quality library services and programs.
If you would like to make a passport appointment, you can do so on our website, over the phone at (717) 436-6378 or in person.
News from Friends of the Juniata County Library
The Friends will be selling tee shirts and sweatshirts with Friend of the Library logos during September. They will be delivered in October. An information sheet and order form can be found at https://www.juniatalibrary.org/donate/friends-of-the-library.
Their next book sale will be held from Oct. 16 to the 19.
Book of the week!
If you are going to read one book, give this one a try...
Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier by Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey
(New adult nonfiction: self-help, personal growth, spiritual) -- 272 pages
In a nutshell: An accessible road map to greater fulfillment, connection, and magnanimity.
During the 2020 pandemic, Brooks, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Business School, began a column in the Atlantic, "How To Build a Life," offering practical wisdom and tools for a purpose-driven, satisfying life. A fan of Brooks' work, Winfrey writes, "This man was singing my song." Over the course of this collaboration, Brooks presents "clear, science-based information about how your happiness works and then instructions on how to use this information in your life." Winfrey contributes intermittent, brief notes about experiences and opinions--e.g., "It's about happier--a relative, contextualized, fluid condition, not some perfect fixed ideal....Happier is not a state of being, but a state of doing--not a thing you wait around and hope for, but an achievable change you actively work toward." After defining happiness ("a combination of enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose"), the authors focus on the benefits of and skills required for emotional self-management ("metacognition, emotional substitution, and adopting an outward focus"). Winfrey suggests writing down words to that effect and taping them to your refrigerator: "Your emotions are only signals. And you get to decide how you'll respond to them." Brooks delineates simple, actionable steps such as keeping a journal. "Spend more time enjoying things that amaze you," he writes, emphasizing how to consciously cultivate gratitude, humor, hope and compassion. An example of his advice includes, "Unfollow people you don't know...whose posts you simply look at because they have what you want." He posits that family, friendship, work and faith "are the pillars on which a good life is based," and he focuses the final four chapters on each of these. Brooks is masterful at synthesizing enormous quantities of research into a simple and supportive text.
Bottom line: A quick read, this hopeful book will benefit readers searching for enriched well-being. I recommend also checking out his other book "From strength to strength: finding success, happiness and deep purpose in the second half of life."
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Vince Giordano has been the librarian and director of the Juniata County Library since 2015.