The 2012 holiday book sale and associated special fundraisers raised over $3,000 for the Association! The Blueberry Festival book sale committee organized this growing event for the third year, held at the Inn at Montrose from November 29th through December 1st. The festive book sale brought in $1,797.20, the Christmas boutique raised $466.45, a 50/50 raffle took in $419.00, and sales of the Joe Welden book added $360.00, for a grand total of $3,042.65.

Thanks also to Angela Shelton who brought her book, The Adventures of Tilda Pinkerton: Book 1: Crash-landing on Ooleeoo, to be sold and then gave the association all of the profits from the sale.

Toby Anderson (SCHS&FLA Board President), Angelia Houghton (HGB Librarian), Ray Telnock (Rotary Board President), Bob Welch (Rotary Treasurer)

The New Milford Rotary has awarded the Hallstead-Great Bend location a grant of $500 for new book shelving, which will be ordered soon. We extend our thanks to the Rotarians, who are continuing a long tradition of supporting library services in Susquehanna County.

The first-time "Bingo for the Library" was a huge success! Over ninety people played in the twenty-game Bingo event on Sunday, April 15th at the Montrose Fire Hall, and raised over $2,200 for the Association. We thank Kim Freeman for planning, organizing, and running the event - read on for more thank yous!

You can now log in to the new Evergreen online catalog with your barcode and the last 4 digits of your phone number. You can view and renew your checked-out items, but please do not place online holds yet. We hope holds will be operational next week, but for now please call or visit your library to request items.

Our circulation system has been switched from the Millennium product we have used since 2002 to an open-source program called Evergreen. Thank you for your continuing patience as we learn the quirks and capabilities of the new system. This change is being organized by Commonwealth Libraries, because this will eventually be a state-wide system. As a result, all libraries will have to share borrowing policies, and they have been pre-set by the organization running the new system (see below for more details). Here are the major policy changes

• Videos and DVDs circulate for 1 week.
• Fines are .25 per day for all items except DVDs (which continue at $1 per day). This means VHS tape fines have been reduced.
• Circulation notices for overdue items will be sent more quickly (7, 14, and 21 days after the due date).