Saturday, April 16, 2011

L is for Library

And once again, blogging has fallen a little bit by the wayside because I was helping to open a completely new library satellite branch in the Pittsburgh Public Market!




This doesn't have anything to do with D&D, Savage Worlds or anything else roleplaying related, but libraries are basically my life outside of gaming. In my Marketing and Public Relations class at Pitt's library school, we had the opportunity to work with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh to open a very small library branch at the Pittsburgh Public Market in Pittsburgh's Strip District. It's part of an initiative to try and find new service models that provide important library features with a relatively low budget. For the non Pittsburgh natives, the Strip District is a stretch of about 10-15 blocks loaded with wholesale markets, assorted ethnic groceries and fantastic restaurants. Patton Oswalt did a hilarious stand-up bit about the Strip's Pennsylvania Macaroni Company, mistakenly identified as an Italian restaurant, but still hilarious.


See? It says so on the cover!

The Strip District hasn't ever had a dedicated library, so setting up a small satellite location where patrons can pick up holds, bring kids to storytelling on Saturdays or check out cookbooks after they pick up their meat and dairy is a pretty phenomenal event. Even particularly unfortunate circumstances while we were doing promotional chalk art (long story short: my girlfriend's purse was stolen, but we got it back 5 hours later from a good Samaritan who found it on the ground with everything except cash still inside) couldn't stop the day from being a triumph.

2 comments:

  1. Awesome (except for the thievery).

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  2. Neat blog. That is a good feeling to be able to work on something so needed.Too bad about the purse, but how cool that it did not ruin your day!

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