I have been working my way through one of the self-help areas of the library, weeding or removing books from the shelves that are dated or worn out. I came across a lot of books about “stuff.” How should you organize it? What should you keep? What should you do when you have too much?…

This is the time of year for reflection. Looking through the 81 books I read last year, I wanted to share some of my favorites. I hit the Revolutionary War era pretty hard. So far, Rick Atkinson has published two books in his trilogy on the Revolutionary War. I read the first, “The British Are…

Librarians like to organize things. Because our library is organized, we can easily find the one book you want in our collection of some 32,000 items. If a book is misshelved, it’s difficult to find it among the other 31,999 items. While we are careful to put books back where they belong, they don’t always…

An alert reader gave me several column ideas, even hinting that she herself would be a good topic for one of my columns. The Gering Library recently acquired some podcasting equipment, so I set it up at home and interviewed my neighbor, Shirley Weihing. Last week, Shirley celebrated her 102nd birthday. She was born in…

written by Sherry Preston, Adult Engagement Librarian My stepdad Bill had a stroke in 2012 that left him partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair. My mother, who was in her 70s, was his sole caregiver. She lifted a 180 pound man out of bed and hoisted him and his wheelchair into the van for six…