And the Survey Says.....!

Yes! A big "Thank You" to our South Benton Community who took the time and effort to fill out the Income Survey that was sent to some of our households! It is official that we qualify as low/moderate income! That means we are officially eligible to apply for CDBG and possibly other grants or loans as well. In a few days I will be posting the minutes from our July 14th meeting where we had Lori Stephens of Broadleaf Architecture answering questions about access to the new library site from HWY 99, Bill Patton of Streamline Engineering answering questions about the small wetland area on the property and Roger Irvin of South Benton Community Enhancement letting us know about the latest progress the county is making with the Railroad in purchasing the property.

Lori

Will You Be Taking Your Kids to the Library this Summer?

So, everyone, are you taking your kids to the library this summer? The Summer Reading Program in most states this year is "Catch the Reading Bug". You can take your kids to visit and join the programs, check out books for summer reading and in most libraries attend fun performances too! In our library, here in Monroe, we will even be having a performance with BUGS! What I love to tell both moms and kids is that during summer kids can read whatever THEY want! Yep, no teacher telling them to read this or that. They can chose. What fun! Moms...here's a hint...look at the running sidebar on my blog. I have some of my favorite read-aloud books there. These are storytime tested fun books! You could sneak some home and catch the reading bug with your kids! Oh and here's another hint... I did this and still do it for my kids...and it works at the library too! I put "bait" around the house! Yep, I unashamedly bring home NON-Fiction books that look interesting and just lay them on the couch or by the fireplace. Bam! I catch them every time browsing through the bait! Go to the kids section in your library and find some books about any fun or strange subject. Believe me any thing will catch their attention if it's just sitting there on the couch! Make sure you put fresh "bait" out often so they don't get bored... And what's really cool is that, little do they know it, but they are reading without you telling them to! Try it!

The Return of the Repile Man

Yes! The Reptile Man is returning to the Monroe Community Library on Wednesday, May 21st at 3:30 pm. He'll be at the Fire Hall again because we are expecting another big crowd. So, come early if you want to get a good seat.

Richard Ritchey's educational presentation will include over a dozen reptiles. Come learn about snakes, tortoises, turtles and lizards!

South Benton Library Project News by Catie Mange

Happy Spring! The efforts towards a new Monroe Library are steadily moving forward. However we still need more volunteers from the community to assist us with publicizing our efforts and the progress we’ve made. We meet regularly each month at the Monroe Fire Hall on the second Monday of each month at 7:00 pm. Call 847-5174 if you have any questions regarding these meetings. Please join us to learn more about what we’re doing and how you can help.

A couple of weeks ago we sent you an income survey for the South Benton Library Project. If you haven’t returned that survey form please fill it out and send it back now. We are very close to having enough responses for a valid survey, but we still need a few more completed forms. If you’ve lost the form, please call Scott Wilson and he can take your information. His number is 541.924.8473 (daytime) or 541.753.2156 (evening).

Thank you for your cooperation and we hope to see you at the next meeting

Happenings at the Monroe Community Library

Now that we have made it through tax season, everyone can breathe a sigh of relief! But wait, you still have to deal with high gas prices and the high cost of just about everything else. There is good news at your library in Monroe! We're local! For most of you we are just a short walk or bike ride away. No gas involved! We have so much to offer you too. If you check out our website, http://www.thebestlibrary.net you can see that we are more than just a small city library. Monroe's library is a branch of the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library. This means that you have access to everything that is in either the main library in Corvallis, the Philomath Library, Alsea's new library or the Bookmobile. You can request anything you see on our library's website and, using your library card number with PIN, it will be brought to you here at the Monroe Library! You'll get an email or a phone call telling you it's here and you can come down and pick it up. It's that simple. Don't see what you want on our website? Heard of a new book that the library doesn't own yet? You can request the library to buy it! Remembered an old book that was a childhood favorite and you don't see that we have it? We can put out an Inter-Library Loan request. This means our library borrows it from another library for you! Now that's service!

I am pleased to announce the return of "The Reptile Man" on Wednesday, May 21st at 3:30pm. The Reptile Man has been a big hit in Monroe for a few years now, so if you missed him last year, here's your chance to enjoy some really creepy crawly friends! After school ends in June, we will again have our Summer Reading Program here at the library. This year's them is "Catch the Reading Bug!" There will be a slight change in the day of the week we will have performers here at the library. This year's performers will come on Wednesday afternoons at 12:30 pm. If your children attend the Art in the Park program, they will be walked to the library for our Summer Reading Program performances each week. Look for flyers at the library and coming home with your kids from school soon. We will also be having fun things for the teens to do at the library as usual this summer.

See you soon at the Library!

Finally! What you've all been waiting for.....

No, not the money for the new building! But... we will be having the first meeting of 2008 next week. I would like to invite all South Benton area residents to come on out to our meeting which will be held again at the Monroe Fire Hall.

South Benton Library Project Meeting
Monroe Fire Hall
Monday, February 11, 2008
7:00 pm
Come and join us!

SBLP Meeting for November 2007

Monday, November 19, 2007

7:00 PM

Monroe Fire Hall

Agenda

I. Call to Order

II. Treasurer’s Report

III. Fundraising Committee Report

IV. Publicity

a. Christmas decorating

b. Raffle Quilt Donation

V. Roger Irvin-Report on R.R. Land

VI. Next Meeting Date?

A Window into Monroe's History

This past Saturday, a few of us met at the Depot here in Monroe and took a "tour" inside. I brought my camera and took a bunch of pictures and I hope to add a few on our blog here and there. This first one I wanted to share with you right away because it's just so much fun! Does anyone out there know who is Carl's Girl? She's so cute in an Olive-Oily way! Makes you wonder doesn't it?

August 13th Meeting Minutes

Minutes: August l3, 2007

Randy George chaired the meeting with 12 people in attendance.

Craig Pelkey gave the financial report.

The $20,000 grant has been received.

The Salerno Family has designated the project for memorial donations in memory of their son, Nikolas.

The Funding committee reported of their meetings:

Grant sources have been designated and amounts targeted.

A budget is being prepared

They will be applying for their first grant from MYHOMETOWNHELPER by Sept. 1, 2007.

The design committee reported of their meetings and progress with the architect.

The need to acknowledge donors was discussed and Alyce Bayne will be handling it.

Members of this project will be contacting Peter DeFazio August l4, 2007 at the Monroe Town Meeting. We will introduce ourselves and ask for his support.

Different types of publicity were discussed and will be looked into before next meeting.

Next meeting: September 10, 2007 – 7pm Monroe Firehall

Respectfully submitted

Janet Begg

Tri-County News Article

This week SBLP has been featured in the Tri-County News. They went and talked to our architect, Lori Stephens of Broadleaf Architecture, and got all the latest news about her design process. You can either pick up this week's Tri-County News, or click on this link!
http://www.triwestnews.com/Pages/TCnews3.html

Thanks Tri-County News!

Library Design Sketches from Architect Lori Stephens

Drum Roll Please! Click on this link and you will see the preliminary design of the New Monroe Community Library!

http://www.broadleafarchitecture.com/monroelibrary.htm

Last Night's Meeting (Aug. 13th)

At our August 13^th meeting of SBLP we had four new community members attend and introduce themselves to the group. Each meeting has been this way, with new faces bringing so many new ideas and such enthusiasm. All together, there were 13 of us there last evening. As our group moves forward, we have all become more aware of the importance of this project we have begun. I can’t stress enough how much we need our whole community’s involvement working for a new library. As the old saying goes, “many hands make light work”. We also had a very nice member offer to write our "Thank You" notes and acknowledgments. Thank you Alyce!

On a different note, today a few of us from SBLP went to listen as Peter Defazio spoke and answered questions at the Monroe American Legion Hall. Our goal was to speak to one of his aides about SBLP and just kind of make them aware of our group and what we are doing to get a new library here in Monroe. The aide was very gracious and assured us that Mr. Defazio would be willing to write letters to help with any grants we are applying for. We might just take him up on that offer!

I heard an interesting thing last night at our meeting...and I'm going to go check it out tomorrow. I heard that the South Benton Communities Historical Association Museum is preparing an exhibit featuring none other than our own Historic Depot! The South Benton Communities Historical Association Museum is open on Wednesday afternoons and so I thought I would drop on by tomorrow and get all the details.

South Benton Library Project Meeting this Monday Night

Hello Everyone,

It's time once again for our monthly South Benton Library Project Meeting. It's this Monday evening, Aug. 13th at 7:00 pm at the Monroe Fire Hall. Our Finance/Fundraising Advisory Team has some news for us and we need to plan on doing some publicity in the near future for the New Library. Hope you can make it and once again, we are looking for each of you to bring a friend with you to the meeting. We have a great group of 12 or so community members that have been faithful to come to the meetings each month. I have been personally inviting everyone who comes in to the library this past week to this month's meeting, who can you invite?

I'll see you there!

What Book Got You Hooked?

I found this on "Neat New Stuff I Found This Week".
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.


• What Book Got You Hooked?

http://www2.firstbook.org/whatbook/top50.php



FirstBook, which gives away books to children, asked people to tell them
what book got them hooked on reading. "Over 100,000 people responded.
These are the Top 50 books that got YOU hooked!" No doubt everybody's
answers would be different, which makes this a great topic for
discussions .

Needed: A Bigger Library!

This picture gives you an idea of why we need a bigger library! Just a small portion of the Monroe Fire Hall full of kids is shown here at one of our Summer Reading Programs...doesn't everyone look like they are having fun? Thank goodness we have a compassionate and library loving Fire Chief, Rick Smith, who let us have all our Summer Reading Programs there these past two months. And he currently opens the Fire Hall for our South Benton Library Project meetings each month. Very nice indeed!

Today I would like to let you all know that we have received some very generous grants from some really nice people. Our South Benton Library Project was awarded a $20,000 Planning Grant for Construction from the Wichita Falls Area Foundation in Texas! Also, SBLP was granted $2,000 from the 2007 Long Tom Grange Calendar fund. There is an article in the Aug. 2 Tri-County News http://www.triwestnews.com/index.html , telling about the distribution of this year's calendar funds. We are delighted to be included in this!

Right now, our busy Fundraising Committee members are swiftly working to send in a letter of inquiry asking for approval to apply for a grant from General Mills found here at http://myhometownhelper.com . If anyone knows of another funding avenue, please come in to the library and point me in the right direction! We welcome any ideas...

Architectural Design Teaser!

Today I went to the second meeting with the architect who is designing the new library in Monroe. To me this is probably one of the most exciting aspects of the whole process of the new library. Unveiling the final outcome to the public will be very grand indeed! Being on the design team is one of the perks of being Monroe's Library clerk, I guess...because I am so very humbled by the intellect of everyone else on the team. I am resolved to just be quiet and listen and revel in what we "get" in our new library. Well... I'm quiet now that I asked for a fireplace included in the design! I did! I asked for a fireplace! Not sure we'll get it, but I asked! And now I will just listen. Let me just say on this blog that you will all be WOWed by the architect and the design she is working on. Today she brought us three rough designs, mainly showing how to position the rest of the library in relation to the Depot. The first design was nice. I loved the entrance and how it allowed for a part of the outside wall of the Depot to be showcased. The second design was not really likable to anyone on the team. But the third design. Wow! Loved it right away. And what really is cool is the computer program Lori Stephens, the architect, has. She took us on a virtual tour of the inside of her design. It's just a rough design right now, but it's beautiful. I am just going to tease you with that! Oh, one more thing I will tease you with. You know those two old barns on HWY 99 going toward Corvallis with the cupolas on their roof spans? I think one of them was the old Willamette Egg Farm...? Those old fashioned barn roof tops are being echoed on the roof of the library portion of the design. It's going to be such a striking building to see when you come in to the City of Monroe on HWY 99. Soon, I 'm hoping to post a link to Lori Stephen's webpage where the initial designs will be posted. Keep your eyes out folks!

What Do We Want to Do?

Someone asked me this question today and it took me by surprise! Here is my answer...what's yours?

What I think we want to do is:

Provide a library for our rural community that meets the needs, interests, and dreams of our growing population of library users. What strikes me most about what I'm hearing from our patrons is what they dream their new library will be. This has really captured the imagination of South Benton! Of course, everyone wants to know when it will be built...but questions like, "what is it going to look like, how many computers will we have, and how big will it be?" keep coming up mostly! This library is a huge step in bringing Monroe and South Benton into the 21st Century. But in a way that everyone will be comfortable with. We have many old families with such a unique history in our community and we can't lose that link to the past. I see the restoration of the Train Depot being a way to ease the Monroe Community Library into the 21st Century and like our motto of the South Benton Library Project states, "Linking the Past with the Future". Providing a library for new families moving to Monroe's proposed housing developments will be a key element to our livability. And the new library will be one of the first things that will capture the attention of people driving through our community. What an opportunity to become a showcase for other rural communities in Oregon. We can't pass this up...

Dreams I have heard from patrons for the new library:

Lots of computers
Showcases for artwork
More books!
Quiet spaces found within
Coffee...?
Meeting places


What is your dream?

(My personal dream is a fireplace where anyone can snuggle down and read when it's raining and gloomy!)

July SBLP Meeting Tonight at 7:00

Just a quick reminder to everyone that tonight is our monthly meeting at the Fire Hall. See you there!

SBLP Meeting Minutes June 11, 2007

Craig Pelkey gave the financial report: Little has changed since last meeting. We have not received the $20,00.00 donation that was discussed in last meeting. We remain hopeful.

Lori Pelkey brought the historic preservation award that we received for our efforts to preserve the train depot as part of our project. Dena Elliott and Randy George and Lori were our representatives at the event.

Randy George has received a bid for our logo to be put on a banner. Larry Buckles will be doing the work. Cost will be approximately $1,000. We’re hoping Friends of the Library will help with this cost. The banner will be put on the Train Depot building facing the highway in hopes of generating interest and enthusiasm from the community.

Our logo was also present at the Monroe Fun Run.

Jenny Gray has worked with our digital files so that they may be used for cards, letterhead, etc.

FUNDING: We reviewed information that was gathered on the various organizations and foundations that we would like to pursue. A comprehensive funding plan needs to be designed. We will probably form a sub-committee for funding. Our strategy remains to get the initial architectural designs funded and completed

We also need to bring more community people into the project.

We could use a historian.

Next meeting: July 9, 2007 7:00pm

Respectfully submitted,
Janet Begg

Banner for the Depot

A HUGE thank you to the Friends of the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library for their financial support for the banner that will soon appear on the depot! The Friends recognized our need to get the word out to the public just exactly what this building that magically appeared across from the Monroe High School will be used for. The 4'x30' banner is ready to be picked up and installed on the side of the depot for everyone to admire. Big cheers all around!