In our neighborhood, Louis Yarc was the king of the hill.

When we all got together to play the game on some bales of hay, Louis was the undisputed winner. I still have vivid memories of him, in the midwest summer twilight, fending off the regicidal lunges of as many as 8 other boys. He'd dance around them, hoist them over his shoulder and toss them off, or just muscle them down.

I've decided that there are just two kinds of libraries in America: the ones you can see, and the ones you don't.

The libraries you can see are the ones that relish their communities. You'll see library meeting room chairs at local plays and band concerts. You'll see library program fliers on a table by the volleyball tryouts. You'll see library staff everywhere -- any meeting of any group around. You'll see library buildings in the heart of downtown.

The libraries you don't see are the ones that just don't get out much.

Douglas County Libraries just held its 9th annual staff day -- the one day each year when we pull all of our staff together for a variety of training workshops.

There's a lot on our plate. Technology continues to transform what libraries do -- hence our sessions on new electronic databases, features of our catalog, and more.

When libraries across the country rolled out their Internet workstations, the truth is that we really didn't know how they would be used.

Sure, we HOPED people would see them as portals to the many databases we have purchased, full of all kinds of authoritative information.