It has become my mantra: "there are only two problems in life. There is growth, and there is decline. Pick one."

Most of the problems faced by Douglas County Libraries are the result of growth. There is growth in demand -- a really staggering jump in the books, magazines, videos, and music the public checks out from us, an explosion of questions that public asks our reference and children's librarians, big leaps in the number of people that come to programs and meetings.

The Douglas County Libraries have gone through two phases. The first ran from about 1990 through 1996. This was the period in which the district was established, and began to grow.

The second phase was from 1996 through 2005. This was the period of our adolescence, when we began to resemble our more mature neighbors. Specifically, this meant the spread of departmentalization. We launched reference departments at most of our branches. We added children's departments. At Highlands Ranch, we added a Reader's Advisor station; at Philip S. Miller, a Teen Tower.

Guest Column

By: Rochelle Logan, Associate Director of Support Services, Douglas County Libraries

Recently the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of changing some of the provisions in the Patriot Act that affect how easily federal law enforcement could search and seize library and bookstore records.

In the past couple of weeks I attended two workshops that stay with me.

The first involved a gathering of visiting librarians from Bulgaria. Largely through the efforts of Nancy Bolt, our State Librarian, some seven libraries in Colorado have formed "sister library" partnerships with Bulgarian public libraries.