James LaRue - myliblog

At the recent annual gathering of the Colorado Association of Libraries (CAL) in Breckenridge two of our people won awards. The Distinction in Library Services award went to Nancy Barnes, our Director of Branches. Nancy helped build the powerful and accomplished team that operates our six libraries. The Unsung Hero Award went to Jon Medrano, our Facilities Manager. Both of them are extraordinary people, the kind who just step in to help and are fun to hang out with (Jon, despite being Unsung, just released an original song I found on Spotify: “On A Wednesday”). Branch Managers Amaranda Fregoso and Ana Gaytan teamed up with Kim Owens, our HR Director, to present on the creation of a stipend for Spanish-speaking skills. A lot of other Colorado libraries are trying to crack the code: an intersection of community need and recruitment strategies. Our folks are ahead of the pack. Alex Garcia-Bernal spoke about our Danish-borne but hyper local program the Human Library. We’ve hosted it 3 time...

When I was 12 I was talking with my mom at the dining table. Suddenly she looked up, stood up and said, “Mother?” She asked me, “Did you hear that?” I’d heard nothing. “I hear my mother calling my name!” she said. She walked around the house, upstairs, out front. My maternal grandparents lived about 300 miles away in Ohio. We didn’t think they were coming to see us. Mom called Ohio. There was no answer. A couple hours later we got a call: My grandmother had been in a car accident, knocked out but okay. When the ambulance came for her, she was whispering my mother’s name, over and over. Years later, I was studying martial arts, and we got a visit from a slender, slightly stooped Chinese man. He was 35 years old, but was introduced to us as a master. He was asked to demonstrate his skills and did three things. First, he asked a sword-wielding student to attack him, which the student did in a great leap. To me, it looked like the master just raised one hand; the student went flying straig...

For some 50 years or so, generations of college students participated in psychological testing. It was easy money for goofy tasks: sort silverware, look at images with your left eye, then your right. But then all that science, because that’s what it was, started to yield results. Here’s one of the experiments that stayed with me. First, you go to the park by yourself and have an ice cream. Second, you get a visit from someone who drops off a sandwich and stays to chat for a while. Third, you make a bunch of sandwiches, drop them off at a senior center, and stick around to chat with the folks there. After each of these, you are asked how you feel a half hour later, a day later, a week later, a month later. Here’s the surprising finding. All of these things make you feel a little happier. But the third task, where you do something for someone else, had enduring results, up to six months later. Science has confirmed that it is literally better to give than to receive. In a world where we ...

Back in March of this year, a Rifle library patron reported to our security guard that a man was apparently sleeping in the bathroom. The guard contacted our staff, and they went carefully to investigate. The man was not asleep. But he was unresponsive and drooling. There are people reading this that are already nodding. They’re thinking with despair, “This is my son.” Or, “My grandson.” Others are thinking, “This could be my wife.” Or, “Me.” Fortunately, library staff had received Narcan training just weeks before from High Rockies Harm Reduction. They called 911 then used the Narcan and by the time medics arrived, they had already prepared our defibrillator. The EMT told us, “If you hadn’t stepped in, the man would have died.” Libraries save lives. At the end of 2023, library staff interviewed almost 100 community leaders. The top issue in our county was housing. But the second issue was mental health, encompassing everything from anxiety to substance abuse. Since 2023, fentanyl has ...

Imagine that you drive north from Montrose, Colorado to Grand Junction. Air quality starts out pretty good, gets worse. You take I-70 east to Glenwood Springs, then angle southeast, but higher, to Aspen.    It looks like the smoke and ash of regional fires (Lee and Elk) flow up both Colorado and Roaring Fork rivers. Upvalley. I felt it in my lungs which is what got me interested. Here's the key to my slapped together chart.     0 to 50 = Good 51 to 100 = Moderate 101 to 150 = Unhealthy for sensitive groups 151 to 200 = Unhealthy 201 to 300 = Very unhealthy 301+ = Hazardous     I suspect this random bit of citizen science (data points from public resources) is no more than that. But wildfires move fast and fire isn't the only concern.

For over 25 years I was a weekly newspaper columnist. That doesn’t make me a journalist. Writing personal essays isn’t the same thing as reporting on the news. But I hung around with a lot of real newspaper professionals. I grew to respect them. I also saw what’s happened everywhere. Newspaper editions got thinner, not only in number of pages, but in the width and height, too. Mainly that’s because the business model for newspapers used to be based on advertising. Now most of that has shifted to the internet. Subscriptions don’t replace the lost revenue. Smaller papers are cheaper. Even big papers with international reputations were struggling. The Washington Post was one of them. In their case salvation came in the surprising form of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. He bought the paper from the Graham family in 2013 for $250 million. At first, Bezos seemed content to mostly leave it alone. In 2017, the Washington Post adopted a new slogan: “democracy dies in darkness.” In February of this y...