"But I thought you guys were closed!"

NEW INFORMATION: The Main Library will close its temporary location at 6:00 pm FRIDAY, January 5, instead of Sunday, January 7 as previously reported. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please see our regular hours page for information about branch hours on Saturdays.

We will publish any further information on this blog (and other places) as soon as it becomes available.

Not exactly. Here's the rundown:

All of our branch locations are open their regular hours. However, ALL library locations will be closed Friday, January 19, for a Staff In-Service Day.

The Genealogy Department is closed, and will reopen on Saturday, January 27, at noon, with the rest of the library.

The rest of the Main Library is still open in its temporary location at 200 East Berry Street, but it will close at 6:00 pm on Friday (changed from Sunday, see top of post!), January 5, and won't reopen until the Grand Opening Celebration starts on Saturday, January 27, at noon, at 900 Library Plaza (formerly 900 Webster Street).

But! If you receive a notice that a hold is available for pickup at the Main Library, you can come to the Wayne Street entrance of the temporary location of the Main Library to pick it up and check it out during regular hours. (However, please note that it is currently not possible to choose the Main Library as a hold pickup location; only holds that have already been placed will become available for pickup at Main during the period that the Main Library is closed.)

Main Library staff will continue to provide telephone reference service during the period that the Main Library is closed. Please call 421-1200.

On moving

I'm driving a truck for the Genealogy move this week. Well, driving, plus helping load and unload 1000-pound carts of books. Very, very carefully. There are a lot of interesting things to learn, and a lot of great people to work with - Genealogy staff, plus a few people from other areas of the library (like me) and quite a few temporary staff, including several who have worked during the summer. I mainly just get to see the dock staff - other loaders and unloaders - but every once in a while, the rest of them trickle out on breaks, and - sorry, I said this before, but in the interest of emphasis - I realize again and again what a great bunch of people I'm working with.

We're running two trucks back and forth from our temporary location, where we've been for almost four years (ever since I started working here; I missed the last move by about a month), to the newly remodeled facility at 900 Library Plaza (formerly known as 900 Webster St.). At our best pace, we make a little better than four truckloads an hour, which is around 50 carts an hour. And if you multiply that out, you get ... a really big number of pounds per day. It's a great workout and an interesting change of pace. (And I'm sleeping really well.)

Of course, there are frustrations, too - other trucks also have to deliver equipment and services to the new building, which slows down our work, but we know it's all heading toward the same goal: getting the building open on January 27.

Now is the time to learn something new!

I was shelving in the foreign language audiobooks and I realized that if I wanted to learn a new language, this would be the perfect time. It's winter. The library is offering these items for 6 weeks free and clear (and I may even be able to renew come February, just maybe). So think about it. What do you want to learn? What will be new for you in 2007?