Friday, March 15th from 9-3 there will be a "Media Mission" event where we will be going through the same steps we did with the periodicals. We've scheduled this early to help with the parking situation. The early birds shouldn't have any trouble. There are more than a dozen boxes of cd's, tapes, microforms and the like that we hope to sort, discard, and redistribute to clear overburdened shelves. Again, you can arrive anytime and leave anytime for this (hopefully) one-time event. Parking is a little easier at 9 than the rest of the day, so arrive early if you can. Laurel will try to be there by 8:30 to open up Lots of people are needed to get these jobs done, so if you have a few hours to give for the benefit of your genealogical organization and library, please add this event to your calendar. We really, really need YOU! For more information you may contact Laurel at president@gfo.org or 503-513-5500. Here's a draft of an upcoming Insider article that may interest you: Sunday Mornings at the Library After the map sorting event described below, a new event was born-the concept of planning library work parties for most Sunday mornings when the library is closed, the building is quiet, traffic is light, and parking is a breeze! We understand that this is not the ideal time for everyone, but if this is a time you can help, please do. Events will begin at 9 am, but volunteers may arrive any time after that, up until around 12 when the library opens. Work may continue until later, but there will likely be something to do at least until noon. If in doubt, you can call the library to see if there's still "partying" going on. There are many things that need doing: Ongoing organization with the maps for certain, additional processing of media, probably some effort toward book sales, missing books and media hunts, and anything else the library might need. It's also been a great deal of fun meeting new people not often seen in the library. Periodical Sorting Party Back in January a group of wonderful volunteers came together to help sort about twenty boxes of donated periodicals. That day, we were able to reduce that number to only six boxes, and with the hardest part done, we have processed all but one. This not only generated much needed space in the library workroom, it enabled us to get missing issues in collections we have onto the shelves where they are available to all of you, and made the duplicates available on the free table outside the library to anyone interested in them. This project will be repeated from time-to-time as donations are received and processing is needed. Maps - April 7th Following the successful periodical sorting party, we scheduled Map Quest in March, aimed at doing the same with the GFO's collection of maps. Many, many thanks to all of you that came for the Map Quest. With so many wonderful volunteers we had maps located from their various hiding places and roughly sorted in just a few hours. It was exciting to see what a wonderful collection of maps we have and didn't know about. It will take some time to get them all sorted and cataloged, but we have made a great start. We are planning to continue working on this project on the first Sundays of the month at 9:00 am until noon or whenever. Come when you can. Doris Cruickshank, map project coordinator Media - April 14 As of this writing, a Media Mission is planned for mid-March. We hope this event will be as successful as the two previous and will be ongoing for a time. If media (microfilms, microfiche, cassettes, DVDs) is something you like (or even if it isn't, but you want to help), mark your calendar for April 14th and come to the library then. Collection Development - April 21 Donated books will go through the first steps in processing to decide if they will be added to our shelves. Those destined to be sold will need a little research beforehand. Special skills: None. If you can look up books in our library catalog (with provided training) and record their catalog number or look up book prices from three specific websites (training provided) and jot down your findings, then you have the perfect skill sets to help out. Goals: To allow the collection development committee to focus on the books we need rather than spending time screening duplicates; to find the books we can sell to clear more shelves in the workroom while binging in much needed funds for the GFO. We hope you will want to be part of this effort and will come to help on April 21st. Collection Organization-April 27th If you've heard that the GFO will be getting a new library catalog--it's TRUE. To prepare for the migration of our old catalog holdings we have lots of preparation to do. One of the activities taking place on 4th Sundays will be a hunt for missing items. Another will be helping find catalog anomalies so a cataloger can correct them before migration. There are lots of little things to be done to make migration go more smoothly. This can be a lot of fun, and promises you will become more familiar with the library layout and the collection.