I don't go to a lot of conferences. But I just came back from the annual American Library Association conference in Washington, D.C.

I was not alone. There were, by last estimate, over 27,000 librarians in the city. That's a lot of librarians.

But that might be one of the points of the conference. Did you know:

* there are more library outlets than there are McDonalds in this country?

* there are more annual visits to libraries than to all sporting events combined?

We don't always know the effects our actions have on others.

Some years ago, I wrote a column about trying to do things I'd always wanted to do, but hadn't gotten around to. This is probably an aging Boomer phenomena, as witnessed by the slew of books coming out with titles like "100 Places to See (or Things to Do) Before You Die."

But one of my readers, Manijeh Badiozamani, a college professor, took the challenge personally. And she did something she'd always wanted to do: volunteered to work in a kitchen.

This is the second of our guest columns, this one submitted by long time library patron, Sonny Poling. Enjoy!
Written by Sonny Poling

Many of us have an image of homelessness: the raggedy man who sleeps under a bridge, pushes a grocery cart, lives in a cardboard box. Maybe he panhandles during the day, probably to support an alcohol problem.

That problem doesn't really exist in Douglas County, right?

Wrong. According to various social service agencies in the county, homelessness is on the rise, right here. But homelessness isn't a single, or simple, profile.

And it never has been.