Inventory and good books

Originally published in the Ketchikan Daily News, April 2017; written by Tammy Dinsmore

Last week the staff of the Ketchikan Public Library completed our yearly inventory in which we counted 62,223 items. I mean we physically put our hands on each one of those items. Most of us went home each evening still hearing the beeping sound coming from the scanners! Often, during inventory we find items that are in need of repair like torn covers or loose pages, barcodes needing to be replaced, call numbers/letters on the spines need fixing, and once in a while items that have gotten shoved to the back of the shelves and were “missing” get found, so this is a good thing for us to do on a regular basis. I’d like to say thank you for your patience while we were closed those three days, and wow, over seven hundred (yes, 700) of you came to the library when we reopened on Saturday!

So, now that inventory is out of the way, come in and do some browsing! As usual, many new items are making their way onto the shelves.

At home on my kitchen counter right now is a new cookbook “One pan, two plates : vegetarian suppers: more than 70 weeknight meals for two” by Carla Snyder. So far, I’ve made one dish, a bow-tie pasta dish with brussels sprouts and gorgonzola cheese. Yum! It was very tasty. The recipe says it makes two servings but I found that their serving size was too big for me, so it actually made enough for four servings. The leftovers reheated well, and if you wanted to opt for a meat to go with it, I think either chicken or pork would be good. I have several other recipes flagged, and am looking forward to doing some more cooking!

Another book that I am currently reading is a novel called “The hearts of men” by Nickolas Butler. It is the summer of 1962 and Nelson Doughty is at Boy Scout Camp. His week is not going well at Camp Chippewa. Nelson, at thirteen years old, has no friends but is a high achiever, with a large number of merit badges to his credit. Nelson is bullied at camp and a number of bad things have happened to him. He gets his bugle stolen and ruined, his glasses are broken, and he gets put down the hole of an outhouse to fish out a nickel because his “team” lost a bet. He is befriended by one of the more popular boys at camp, Jonathan. Jonathan isn’t doing a lot to help Nelson at first, but as the week goes by, they become better friends. Nelson is also dealing with an abusive home life and after he goes home, things come to a head and Nelson’s life is changed.

This book is well written and spans three different periods in Nelson’s life, the first in 1962, then 1996, and finally 2009. His friend Jonathan from Camp Chippewa plays a role, and I am eager to see what happens throughout Nelson’s life.

Several events are scheduled for this coming week. Check out our calendar online at www.ketchikanpubliclibrary.org or stop in and pick one up.