I'd always heard that Philip S. Miller didn't like being called P.S. Miller.

But it turns out that his only objection was that there was another P.S. Miller in town, and the two sometimes got confused.

To the people that knew him, to his friends, he was Phil Miller. I regret that I knew him too late in his life to call him a friend. But I've always been impressed with the quality of the people who claim that distinction.

Over the next several months, the library will be working on its long range plan. Our planning period is 5 years; a span that will sweep the library into the 21st century.

So far, our long range planning process has involved three basic approaches.

I freely admit it. There are lots of things going on at the library that I don't know anything about. Mostly, I'm ok with that.

I finally figured out that it's impossible for one person to keep track of all the activities of 100 others -- especially when they're as creative as our staff. It's more important that the environment is lively than that I know all about it ahead of time.

Besides, I like surprises. (Usually.)

A few days ago, I got a call from a patron with a complaint. Why didn't any of our libraries provide public computers? It happened that her son was in town and needed to crank out some resumes. She was, she said, shocked that her local library -- and even the Koelbel Library in the Arapahoe Library District -- didn't have a computer, equipped with a word processor and laser printer, available for such a task.