It was in the 1970’s when my grandmother started sprouting. Despite all I knew from reading Adele Davis and being a somewhat “crunchy granola” myself, I had never sprouted at the time. I was going to Grammy’s house for lunch four days a week. I only had a half hour but she would have lunch ready for me, usually piping hot. I used to say she should go to the senior center to meet people and get together with friends and she would say, “We never went out when your grandfather was alive, why should I start going out now?” I would argue that it wouldn’t be painting the town red, just to see people now and then like when she was working. She was working at Miller’s in alterations till she was almost 70 I think. She seemed to be slightly depressed. Also, I noticed she was fearful of the outside world. This I surmised stemmed from her addiction to talk radio. She would hear people from all parts of the country talking about violence in the streets and in particular what happened to some older ladies who ventured out on their own. She started listening at night when she had insomnia. Larry Glick was her favorite at the time. Then it was David Brudnoy who she called David Breadnose. We kept telling her it was Brudnoy. She used to call sideburns sideboards. This was one of few clues that her first language was not English. She had no foreign accent. There was a cord attached to her bedside radio that led to a speaker under her pillow. This helped her to take her mind off thoughts that might keep her awake so she could drift off back to sleep. Since then, my mom who is married to a snorer and I who have had bouts of insomnia when my cats wake me up for a snack have used the same method to get back to sleep. I always use my Discman and audiobooks from the library’s collection. If you turn the sound down so you can just barely hear it, you may hear only a few lines before you are asleep. Maybe it was the talk radio station that informed her about the sprouts or the newspaper. I don’t know how many large mayonnaise jars were hiding under her sink with seeds and water in them and a square of cheese cloth fastened around the top with a rubber band, but I saw at least two.

Sprouts the Miracle Food was a book request that we got back in September. In January, it still had not come in. It was backordered so we had to cancel and get it somewhere else. I found that it was our only book that covered the topic of sprouting. It was a good thing for the collection that someone asked us to buy it.

When you see a book you want but the library doesn’t have it, don’t buy it yourself unless you want to or have to have it this minute. Ask us to buy it. You can call us at 598-4600 or e-mail us by going to the "contact us" drop down menu. You’ll see purchase request is the second choice. More than nine times out of ten, we will. We like to see that it has a good review. But we are also committed to representing all points of view and serving our customers’ informational needs.

Recently someone noticed we lacked books on leather crafting. They mentioned it to someone at the circulation desk and she told me because I order craft books. I looked for leather crafts books and found few that were new. However, I was able to order some that were older and even out of print. Now we have at least 11 titles on the subject under "leather work" and not only that… We put them on request for the person who asked about it.

Sometimes you see a book in our on-line catalog and it is not yet cataloged. It has been received but it is in Tech Services. The item information says it’s in cataloging. There is often a shelf or 2 of non-fiction books that are waiting to be processed. If you ask a librarian they will call us in Technical Services and we can bring you the book. I think it’s called extreme cataloging . The idea didn’t start with us. It’s a fairly new practice and I can probably count the times we’ve done it. The book has been received so it already has a barcode attached to it. It can be checked out to anyone who has a library card. But it will not have its call number, spine label, dust cover, plastic cover or pocket and stamps. So, someone who is very anxious to get a book can have it but it must come back and be processed before it can be on display upstairs. I am assuming that this book is not on reserve for someone else. This probably would not work with a new best seller. But sometimes you hear about something and you want to find out all about it right now. You don’t want to wait.