Ukes in Libraries: Check It Out

Daniel and I are thrilled to start 2019 off working at the best place in the world: THE LIBRARY!!!!

“It’s one of the last places you can go that you don’t have to buy or believe in anything to come in.”- Annie Spence, librarian.

Below is a list of the branches where we will be teaching in the Los Angeles area. There will be a limited number of instruments to borrow at each session, and learning materials for all to utilize. You can bring your own instrument, whatever shape it is in, and we will do our best to make it playable for you, or check out a ukulele kit from your local LAPL branch!

While we are on the love-affair with libraries topic, listen to what This American Life has to say about them.

JANUARY

17th San Pedro Branch LAPL 4pm

19th Memorial Branch LAPL 2pm

26th Santa Monica Main Branch Kids 2pm, Adults 3pm

26th Venice Branch LAPL 3 pm

28th Fairfax Branch LAPL 5pm

FEBRUARY

2nd Venice Branch LAPL 3pm

9th Santa Monica Main Branch Kids 2pm, Adults 3pm

9th Venice Branch LAPL 3 pm

16th Los Angeles Central Library 2pm

21st Playa Vista Library 6:30pm

23rd Santa Monica Main Branch Kids 2pm, Adults 3pm

23rd Los Angeles Central Library 2pm

MARCH

2nd Los Angeles Central Library 2pm

6th Jefferson Branch LAPL 3pm

7th Playa Vista Branch 6:30pm

“A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it. That includes health information. And mental health information. It’s a community space. It’s a place of safety, a haven from the world. It’s a place with librarians in it. What the libraries of the future will be like is something we should be imagining now.” ―Neil Gaiman in The Guardian

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Ukulele Lending Library

Imagine this- flash a library card and you can check out an instrument for a month at a time. Now that is civilized! Further proof that libraries are the greatest of human institutions: ukulele collections!

Kids of all ages(!) play ukes from the Killian Mansfield Collection at the Phoenicia Library grand re-opening in January.

The Killian Mansfield Ukulele Collection at the Phoenicia Library in upstate New York has 30 ukuleles to loan. Their neighbor, the Olive Library West Shokan NY has followed suit and has a new ukulele collection.  We are thrilled to be sending books both of these libraries to compliment their collection!  Our Kickstarter campaign for our forthcoming book COLOR-ALONG UKULELE offers supporters to buy books to be donated to some great causes.  These libraries are among them, and I would like to tell you a little more about them.

Phoenicia Library does after school ukulele programs for elementary and middle grade students.  The library sponsors regular family ukulele classes, jams and occasional performances.  However, the library is woefully understocked in the ukulele teaching/learning materials department. (Let’s help them out there, shall we?)

Here is what a board member Mark Lerner had to say about the library:

“The Phoenicia Library is located in the high peaks of NY’s Catskill Mountains. The library is the heart of our rural community, providing books, information, meeting space, internet access, and programming for children and adults. The 2011 fire led us to an ambitious rebuilding project (entirely paid for by grants, insurance, and private donations), and the newly re-opened library is the first American library built to Passive House specifications, a rigorous standard for energy efficiency that reduces our energy consumption by over 80%. In addition to the Killian Mansfield Ukulele Collection, the library houses the Jerry Bartlett Memorial Angling Collection, a museum of fly-fishing that also lends out fishing rods.”

Mark is a great artist- both visual and musical, and a great friend and currently lives in Phoenicia. Go to his website, or check out his blog, Every Band I’ve Ever Been In.  You can also see his fine work on both of my CDs– he did the graphic design.

And he is the graphic designer for  COLOR-ALONG UKULELE, our method-coloring book being funded on Kickstarter right now.   You can pre-order books until April 1 at reduced cost for yourself or for your favorite ukulele program.

Speaking of libraries- tomorrow I will be doing a children’s program at the Memorial Branch Library in Los Angeles at 10 am. Come show off your library card and sing with me!

Coming soon to a library near you!