Here's a message from Marybeth Levine, executive director of the Detroit Area Diaper Bank, who is braving the wind and snow to collect diapers during our drive.

We are pumped up for this year's diaper drive. Thanks to Canton Patch for helping us get the word out.

Bring diapers of any size or brand to CPL on Wednesday November 16 and Thursday the 17^th, from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM. The diapers will go to Detroit Area Diaper Bank, a nonprofit charitable organization that distributes diapers to Michigan support agencies.

CANTON, MI—Imagine swaddling your toddler in a paper towel or plastic bag because you are out of diapers and don’t have the resources to buy more. That’s the challenge facing thousands in Metro Detroit and the reason the Canton Public Library has partnered with the Detroit Area Diaper Bank for the third annual Stuff the Truck Diaper Drive, November 16 and 17.

The library will collect diapers of any size or brand, newborn through adult, including pull-ups, swim diapers and open packages, from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM on November 16 and 17. The diapers will go to the Detroit Area Diaper Bank, a nonprofit charitable organization, who dispenses them to SE Michigan partner agencies serving people in crisis. Last year’s drive netted over 26,000 diapers.

“The diaper drive helps us fulfill our mission of connecting our community,” states library director Eva Davis:

We now offer a printable PDF version of our monthly program calendar. This version includes all library sponsored November 2011 programs.

Canton, MI—The celebration of Diwali, also known as the festival of lights, will be the feature of a multicultural program on Wednesday, November 9, 7:00-8:30 PM at the Canton Public Library.

This all-ages program features Nadanta, a classical dance troupe directed by Chaula Thacker, musical performances by Shilpa Modhak and samples of traditional festive food. There will also be henna demonstrations, a fashion show of colorful costumes from different parts of India and Rangoli floor designs.

Diwali, a Hindu festival, honors the renewal of life and the triumphs of light over darkness. This program is part of a series of multicultural programs, sponsored by the Friends of the Canton Public Library, to promote cultural experiences and understanding. The Canton Public Library is located at 1200 S. Canton Center Road in Canton, MI. For more information, visit www.cantonpl.org.

On November 16 and 17, the library will be hosting a diaper drive to benefit the Detroit Area Diaper Bank. For a fourth straight year, the number of children living in poverty is up and many families in our community struggle to provide clean diapers for babies, the handicapped and elderly. Last year we collected over 26,000 diapers to help Michigan families. We need your help to stuff the truck donated by Fat Chef in a Little Coat catering. Bring diapers, any brand or size, baby through adult, to the library on November 16 and 17. Open packages are acceptable; if diapers are loose, please indicate size on the package.

The November/December issue is available online now as a pdf document. You may subscribe to an RSS feed of library communications by pasting http://www.cantonpl.org/forpress/rss.xml into your feed reader.

We now offer a printable PDF version of our monthly program calendar. This version includes all library sponsored October 2011 programs.

We now offer a printable PDF version of our monthly program calendar. This version includes all library sponsored September 2011 programs.

Withdrawing books is an ongoing process at the library, and our thoughts are always on being “green” when it comes to disposing of withdrawn books. I have once again had the pleasure of working with the Girl Scouts. Maha Zahid, a member of Troop 40196 in Canton stared working this summer on her Silver Award and her plan was to set up a book donation campaign to collect books for Bennett Elementary School in Detroit. Bennett Elementary was closed in 2007 because of a fire and has been undergoing renovations with a scheduled reopening date of August 29^th, but there were not enough funds to replace the library. Maha decided to help and contacted us about setting up a drop off box in the library. One thing led to another and we spent the summer donating withdrawn children’s books. Every Wednesday, Maha and her mother picked up the books from the library for delivery to Bennett this August.

The September/October issue of Connections is available online now as a pdf document. You may subscribe to an RSS feed of library communications by pasting http://www.cantonpl.org/forpress/rss.xml into your feed reader.

CANTON, MI—The Canton Public Library announced the renewal of a $2,000 Target grant to be used to continue to support the Family Reading Night program.

“Our partnership with Target continues with the awarding of this grant, which allows the Canton Public Library and the Friends of the Canton Public Library to maintain our commitment to early childhood literacy and improving lives in our community,” said Eva Davis, library director.

Over 2000 people have participated in the Target Family Reading Night program since its 2009 inception. The program offers stories, games and snacks to families with children ages 4-9 and provides a book for the family to take home and share. It encourages early childhood literacy by demonstrating techniques and supplying a book for families to model at home.

CANTON, MI — Friends of the Canton Public Library treasurer Larry Hoelscher had a big smile and a big check for Canton Public Library trustee Michael Siegrist and library director Eva Davis. He and outgoing Friends president Peg Britz presented a check for $10,000, earmarked for the library’s endowment fund, during their annual membership meeting on Wednesday.

The donation is the result of book sales and fundraising efforts by the Friends group, who have contributed more than $64,000 to the library in the past year. The Friends sponsor programs and events at the library such as Connect Your Summer, and purchase materials for the Michigan History, International Language and other collections.

The summer issue of Connections is available online now as a pdf document.
You may subscribe to an RSS feed of library communications by pasting http://www.cantonpl.org/forpress/rss.xml
into your feed reader.

In honor of Memorial Day, the Canton Public Library has teamed up with the Michigan Military Moms to collect care package items for US military personnel serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Donations will be accepted May 11 through May 31. Items requested include:

• Baby Wipes
• Bug Repellent Wipes
• Flavored Drink Mix Packets
• Beef Jerky (no pork)
• Duct Tape or Electrical Tape
• Juice Boxes
• Snack and Energy Bars
• Gold Bond Powder
• Q-Tips
• AT&T Calling Cards

The library is also accepting monetary donations to help defray the cost of shipping. Make checks out to Michigan Military Moms.

Expect to see lemonade stands dotting the Canton landscape on June 12 as the first-ever Lemonade Day Detroit hits the streets. It's part of a metro-wide project with which CPL is proud to partner. From the Lemonade Day website:

Lemonade Day is a nation-wide event that teaches kids the skills they need to be successful in the future. Youth learn to set goals, develop a business plan, establish a budget, seek investors, provide customer service, and give back to the community.

Want to get involved? Register online, or get a registration form at the Children's Desk here at the library. Once registered, you can get your backpack full of start up materials at the same desk. Need help? CPL librarians can point you toward some great resources to help your lemonade stand stand out. Good luck and happy selling!

Anne Heidemann, Department Head for Children's, Tween & Tween Services at the Canton Public Library, was the winner of the 2011 Frances H. Pletz Award for Excellence in Service to Youth from the Michigan Library Association. The award, given annually to a Michigan library staff person who has made a career of outstanding contribution to the field of library service to youth, was awarded last year to CPL librarian Anna Slaughter, making the trip to the award podium a repeat for the Canton Public Library.

The May/June issue of Connections is available online now as a pdf document.
You may subscribe to an RSS feed of library communications by pasting http://www.cantonpl.org/forpress/rss.xml
into your feed reader.

Canton Public Library connects your community.

The year 2010 at Canton Public Library can best be characterized as a year of partnerships. As we faced further budget cuts and increased usage, we looked for partners in our community to help us stretch every dollar. By teaming up with our schools, community groups, other nonprofit and service organizations, arts consortia, and businesses, we were able to maximize our offerings and fulfill our mission of connecting your community.

Grants

Our staff searched tirelessly for grants to help fill gaps in our funding. This year, we were the recepient of several grants, including an Action for Earth Grant, a partnership project between the library, the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, and Project S.N.A.P. that allowed us to train 20 families in environmental stewardship and helped us create and install the mosiac mural just outside the Children's Library. This grant was supplied by the Erb Family Foundation Grant.

Additionally, we qualified for our second ARC grant to create a small rain garden at the back of the library, reducing the area of our grounds that needs mowing, watering and pesticide application, and adding native plants to help filter ground water and runoff.

The Giving Hope Women's Giving Circle Grant we received was used to start a book group for girls ages 5-12 and their mothers or another significant woman in their life. This grant, along with the Target Family Reading Grant, and the ALA Great Stories Grant made it possible to host book discussions for both young readers and their families as well as teens at the Starkweather Center, an alternative high school.

The Ford Road Meijer Store entered us into the Pepsi Refresh project and surprised us with a check for $400, which we were happy to accept.

News

Our proactive attempts to streamline efficiency and find other funding resulted in a few new iniatives. In June, we replaced our old hand sorting method with a new RFID system that both checks in and sorts materials to the proper bin for staff to place back on the shelves. Not only does this get materials back into circulation faster, it also saves hundreds of staff hours sorting and checking in materials and reduces the errors that come with handling 6,000 pieces daily. This project also saw the debut of another of our firsts — our patron education video series. We produced several videos to help educate patrons about library services, for example, how to use the self checkout.

In November, we teamed up with the Northville Barnes and Noble for our first-ever book fair. Purchases from the store or online during our fair benefitted the library.

October 2010 was the 30th anniversary of the library, which we celebrated all month with blog posts, historical photos and videos, and online contests. It was amazing to see the growth of Canton from a small farming community to the vibrant, thriving population of 90,000 that we have today. As a result of that growth, we also suffered through an eight-month long road construction project that widened Canton Center Road, making it easier and safer for our patrons to get to the library.

Some other notable news from 2010:

• Our Living Book program debuted, sharing the knowledge and experiences of living, breathing people with interested patrons
• We teamed with area business and Canton Economic Development to develop Check Out Canton, a unique offering of special savings from Canton businesses available for checkout from the library
• Our well-received Summer School for Small Business series kicked off with seven one-hour sessions created just for the needs small business owners and entrepreneurs
• We introduced Text A Librarian, a service that allows patrons to text message librarians for reference question or to request materials
• Storytime sessions were added in the Tamil language
• Our teen librarian, Anna Slaughter, received the Frances H. Pletz award from the Michigan Library Association, recognizing her outstanding service to teens
• We created two items to help patrons understand the library's budget constraints and how we were dealing with them. A budget overview video was created and we also posted a value calculator to help patrons figure out how much replacing CPL services would cost

Partnerships

As we stated, 2010 was a year of partnerships. We made use of many partnerships to expand our services and offerings and offset budget reductions. Here are some of those partners:

• Detroit Area Diaper Bank
• College Night
• Michigan Military Moms Partnership
• H&R Block Recovery Act Program
• Canton Township Economic Development Strategies of Success
• MLK Partnership with artist Byron Reed
• Canton Township Leisure Services Partnerships
• Museum Adventure Pass Program
• Park and Read Program

Statistics

Vital 2010 Statistics

Metric	Total
Museum Adventure Passes Checked Out	1,631
Park and Read Passes Checked Out	186
Check Out Canton Passes Issued	108
Wi-Fi log ins	30,745
Jobs printed	81,017
Reference Questions Received	86,592
Adult Computer Class Attendance	1,836
Summer Reading Participants	4,576
Total Circulation for 2010	1,951,445
Total Library Visits	594,492
Total Library Cardholders	90,516
New Library Cards Issued	7,952
Items Loaned Through MeL Interloan	19,706
Items Borrowed Through MeL Interloan	12,281
Items Added to CPL Collection	21,540
Total CPL Employees	103

Revenue

Line Item	Amount
Property Tax	5,349,475.15
State Aid	30,126.38
Penal Fines	55,347.56
Overdue Fines	138,857.47
Fees	58,206.85
Interest	2,859.58
Misc & Contributions	21,660.53
Total	5,656,533.52