Ann Zydek

By ANN M. ZYDEK
Library Director, Warsaw Community Public Library

On behalf of the Warsaw Community Public Library Board and staff I wish you a peaceful and happy New Year. Did you bring in 2015 with any special New Year’s traditions? One library employee celebrates by eating corn beef and cabbage, an Irish custom, with his family. My husband and I watch New York City’s ball drop while following a Polish custom of holding prepared fish and silver coins.

Many people make New Year’s resolutions. Did you? Recently I learned that library staff had mixed feelings about resolutions. Half shared they wouldn’t be making any. Others desired to maintain good health and lose weight. Another librarian and her husband list top things they want to do, and plan and save for them. In 2014 they focused on a garden and learning to can food. Other staff like recording their yearly reading using Goodreads.

Experts seem to agree making a resolution concrete is the best way to form a new life habit. Many library resources can help you. In one book “This Year I Will…How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True” author M. J. Ryan believes we develop our own formula for making changes that stick.

I uncovered information at www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/New-Years-Resolutions.shtml on resolutions: how to lose weight, volunteer, quit smoking, get a better education, get a better job, save money, get fit, eat healthy, drink less alcohol, manage stress, manage debt, take a trip, and reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Have you resolved to make a difference in your community? A report from the Harwood Institute states the key to making an impact in your community and staying true to yourself is to turn outward for, “It is within our communities where people live, where the aspirations and challenges we seek to address reside, and where we must marshal resources and public will to make a difference.”

My 2015 resolution is to intentionally face outward and address the space the Library occupies within our community. I look forward to hearing from you as the Library’s new Strategic Long-Range Plan is developed to reflect our community and meet your aspirations, so that library programs and services align.