2022-09-23 SPLAT Curiosity Report: Volume 12, Issue 8
Featured Story
A Notary Public
Does your library have a notary public on staff? Mine doesn’t, but I get requests for notary services all the time. It’s easy enough to redirect customers to nearby banks or to our city hall, but lately I’ve been wondering why we couldn’t start to offer these services too.
Looking at notary services in Idaho, it doesn’t seem like they are commonly offered in libraries. In fact, I could only find two libraries advertising notaries on their websites: Garden City Public Library and Jerome Public Library. Some other libraries have addressed community interest in notaries: University of Idaho’s Library directs users to another office on campus, while the community Library Network suggests that users check with their banks or city/county offices.
It may be that notaries are accessible enough to our communities through financial and government institutions, but there are people in my community that I know trust the library more than they would a bank. And in truth it wouldn’t be that difficult or expensive for libraries to facilitate certification for interested Staff. In Idaho the process of getting a commission as a notary Public is simple. The applicant purchases a 6-year surety bond, applies through the Secretary of State’s website, and purchases a notary seal stamp. Depending on the bond company and any additional supplies a notary might want, it takes somewhere between $85 and $275 for a notary to start offering services. It’s not peanuts, but compared with some of our more expensive databases it starts to look downright affordable for a library to cover those set-up costs.
Cost is of course not the only consideration a library would need to make before adding notary services. It would be important for any organization to consider scheduling and demand – if you work in a larger library and only have one staff member who can notarize, they might get swamped in requests. There is also the question of legal liability – Nobody wants to get sued over a procedural error! But many notaries will purchase insurance against Errors & Omissions, and from other accounts I’ve read it seems pretty rare. Given the potential benefit to the people we serve, I think it would be great to see more Idaho libraries offer notary services.
Simon Clifford
Fail Forward
We’ve all been there. You pour your heart into a program, and no one shows up. You try something new, and you fall on your face. Sound familiar? Fail Forward is the place to share your failures, and give you the opportunity to share what you learned from them. Did you promote your program in a different way after no one showed up? Maybe you took a new approach to the new thing you were excited about? Awesome! Share your story via our online form so others can learn, and realize that failure is often part of the process.
Fail Forward
When I was younger, I used to think of not reaching some goal as failing and final. As I have matured, I see now that failing is a learning opportunity. You can use that experience to examine what worked and what didn’t work and decide what you could do differently the next time. One of my sons is a long distance runner. In high school whenever he would not meet the time goal that he set for himself in a race, he would get very upset and really come down hard on himself. I tried to teach him to examine that experience and decide what he could do differently in the next race to meet his time goal. He is only 19 now and is still learning how to shift his focus from what he didn’t achieve to looking at things more objectively and deciding what he can learn from his experience. It is very easy to get mired down in what didn’t happen instead of shifting your focus on what could happen.
Tania Harden
Crush Corner
Is there a library you follow on social media who is always doing new and exciting things? How about a blog you follow that inspires you? What about a new idea, book, or resource that you want to share? Library Crush Corner is a place for those working in Idaho libraries to share what inspires them, and who or what they’re crushing on… in a professional sense. Share your story via our online form so we can publish it in a future issue!
Crush Corner
I love these “I’m with the banned” shirts for sale at Detroit’s Royal Oak Public Library. Modeled after a concert tour t-shirt, these shirts are going for $15 a pop during banned books week. No online sales, but if you have friends in the Detroit area, maybe one of them will be nice enough to pick one up for you. Proceeds go to Friends of the Royal Oak Public Library.
(Editors note: more information about these shirts (and pictures!) can be found at this link)
Owen Prout, Ada Community Library Victory
SPLAT explores the ever-evolving library world and supports library folks as they adapt to meet the needs of their communities. Library folk throughout the state of Idaho volunteer to serve on the Special Projects Library Action Team (SPLAT). Learn more about SPLAT at splat.lili.org
SPLAT is brought to you by the Idaho Commission for Libraries and was made possible, in part, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (LS-246156-OLS-20). The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.