Putting for Dollars: Library Raises More than $10,000 with Golf Fundraiser

“Winter winds and swirling snow failed to dampen the enthusiasm that greeted the inaugural miniature golf championship held at the Southworth Library on Dartmouth Street on Sunday afternoon.

‘We were a bit worried when we saw the snow, but we had a great turnout in spite of the weather,’ said Dolly Sharek, treasurer of the library foundation. ‘We had 274 golfers sign up, and we raised just over $10,000.’

As attendance reached its peak at around 2 p.m., all of the 100 putters borrowed for the occasion were in use on the 18-hole course that wound its way around the stacks on both floors, and a line had formed at the registration table.

Golfers of all ages were challenged by the unique aspect of the library course, which explored all corners of the building with a 10th hole that teed off on the second floor and finished on the first.

Some of those taking on the newly installed circuit were evidently more practiced than others.

The seventh hole brought library trustee Paul Pereira to his knees — and it was not to line up a putt. He was trying to retrieve his ball from beneath one of the stacks.” [SouthCoastToday.com]

I ran into a frustrating issue at work last week. To try to help solve it, I created the ALA Universe in order to help staff track some of what’s going on internally. I had just received an invite to the beta of Netvibes Ginger, the new version that lets you create a public page anyone can view, so I decided to test it by creating this resource. I sent an email about it to all staff and encouraged them to sign up for their own accounts if they want to also track their unit’s blogs, wikis, etc. Then they could add the feed for new documents added to our internal knowledge management system. We’ll see if anyone finds it useful, but I’ve already gotten a few comments from staff who think it will be valuable to them.

I could have used SuperGlu instead, the way I did two years ago for the La Grange Park Public Library proof-of-concept, but I wanted a scannable view, rather than a river of news. Michael Stephens has posted about Netvibes several times with other examples that might give you ideas for how you could use the site. Ginger should go live for everyone in a couple of weeks.