2025

 This year I learned the following life lessons:

1. It's important to explain to people how I feel. I can't really say more then this but I hope this sentence helps you next year.
2. Avoidance is bad - At the start of the year, I thought the best way to handle the sadness of staff constently moving on was to ask them all not to tell me. 
   
   The idea was by the time I figured out they where gone, I would be used to them not being around and it would be less sad and less of a shock. 
   
   Thanks too therapy, I learned I can handle the shock, it is just as sad regardless of when you find out and by knowing where someone is I don't roommate(worry) about if there ok and why I have not seen them.
   
   So instead of telling staff "I don't want to know if you move on", I started telling them "it's ok to tell me when you move on". 
   
   This lead to some nice goodbyes, talks with Staff about people we both miss(which is actually very nice), knowing staff who moved on have a great new job and some of them(my friends) have stayed in touch with me or promised to do so. I consider this definitive proof that "avoidance is bad". 
   
   
3. 'Change can be hard but accepting it can be useful' - My friend from the library Rayne said this regarding the New Integrated Library System.(more on the system latter) It She is correct, it's inportant to get used to change even if it's scary. 
   

 I will keep learning new things next year! 
Now for Things I did this year: 

• FanFest was on this year and it was great. Images of what I saw can be found here. If your on a PC(Mac's are PCs) you can leave a comment on anything you find interesting.
  
  This year I went to Emobodory, The miniture painting and The photo booth and the Trivia. I also went to the Cosplay Contest, the ones I remember seeing at the time where a roman soldier, The hourse God from Breath Of The Wild and India Jone's Dad. The library has not released photos of the contest but they do exist. I'll post here if they decide to release them.  
  
  I had a blast, another 12/10 Library Program. Fun Fact Greg from the Camera Club was the photographer for that event. He does not know why they have not been posted either. The best was seeing the cool costumes like the Ghost Busters.  
•  Me and Mom went to Devereaux House for Calture Days, it's a very nice historical house. We also went on a tour of a pottery studio. Next year I will see what I can make at Glazed Expressions on Main Street. 
• The Library has a New Integrated Library System, that is they changed the software they use to mange your checkouts, holds, etc. I think it's 8 / 10, they are some things I love about it and some things that could be improved. 
  
  On of my favourite fractures is that receipts printed from a service desk now tell you how much money you saved(stats will come latter in this blog entry). 
  
  One of the things I don't like is that holds stay on your account until you "check in"(NOT out) and you can ask the staff to remove them when you check out if you use a service desk. 
  
  If you want to hear a lot more about the NILS comment here(or email me) and I'll tell you more if there is enough interest from different people.
  
  
• I tired lawned bowling but it Did not go so well. 
• I played this very fun game as a library program, you can read more here.
• With the NILS you can make shareable lists, here is one of Best things all time the library has to offer. It's every expanding so check back time to time :) 
• I wrote this before the new system tracked how much you saved.
• Check out all the stuff I did at the library! Some of them have descriptions(not sure if these show up on mobile), so you can learn more about them. 
• My sister got married. It was very lovely. 

 Statics:

 Que Sonic Score Music(since that's when it shows you states) 

Number of Emails revived about the New Integrated Library System: 281

Number of emails I got from a library: 2,484

Number of study rooms used: 2

Number of Book A Librains: At least 5

Number of program's attended: At least 20 

Number of times 3D printed: 2 -3 times. 

Most library use: A month after New Integrated Library System cam online.

Money saved by using the library: $7,536.54

Things to look forward too in 2026

• Staff member Ben has a secret project he is working on for March. It will be "Hypercool" and be something not offered at any library he knows of but offered at other organisations. I hope it's pottery since I put in a suggestion about that a few months ago and it can take 6 or so for the library to be able to take program suggestions. 
• I am doing an 8 week craft couse at HHPL soon.
• Mom and me have talked about and we think I should find some groups to join with younger people in them.(A lot of my clubs are made up of people closer to retirement) 
• FanFest will be great! I updated this blog in 2026 and I made a $20 donation too FanFest(heard this is a good time to do it, since serrius planning has started now).
• Mom wants to have more company over, which is nice. 
• I also want to expand my interests to outside of HHPL.  

 

What I got for Cristmass

What I got for Cristmass: 

 

• My Mom and sister framed this photo for me I bought a while ago, so I can hang it up on my wall now!
• Hot chocklet powder
• A very nice blanket 
• A bunch of puzzles suitable for my skill level.
• A gift card for the local Cheese shop :). 
• A secret thing which I am not going to say here yet :).
• Memory for my desktop computer.
• $250 from work. I will spend part of it to pay for my website and the rest I'll save for a pinch.
• $75.00 SuperStore gift card from work.   

Just thought I would share that with you.  

 

If you got something interesting you would like to share feel free to leave a comment.  

 

 

Want more Kanopy tickets

 Hi

  If you want more tickets to stream from Kanopy(and live in Ontario), you can sign up for an Ajax Public Library account and a Newmarket Public Library account without even having to go their. If you can make it Brampton you can get a card their too. 

Study Room booking system

 HHPL says: 

"The study room booking system is still in progress and will be launched later this year."

But I have my debts about that, there is not much left in the year and a lot of holidays.  

Vega Discovery item count

 Vega Discovery lets you count the number of times you checked out an item. Just search for it in reading history: 

 

I borrowed Voyager Season 6 30 times since around 2015(when I turned on reading history)  

Vega Discovery vidoes

 I know most of you, are not big enough library users to care about this but I have made some interesting discovery about the library's new catalogue, they can be found: Boolean Search and Add items to multiple lists. The first one staff don't think is possible but it is :). 

Best of The Best

 Hi 

 I am making a list of the bets HHPL has to offer, I just started now but you can see it Here.

-Jamie marchant  

Allies and Adversaries

 So I had the chance to play "Allies and Adversaries" at the library it was a game like the reality TV shows "Traitors" or "Devils Plan". Basically a bunch of games where you can earn points. Staff member Stef modified it for 3 players(should have been 8 minimum). (One of the staff acted as a player, so it was sadly only 2) 

 

Scrabble Game - This was a team game. If we had more players I imagine there would be more then one team but as it stood we all played together. We had 3 minutes and of bunch of scrabble letters to make words that fit the category. The catch is you can make words that seem to fit the theme but are not words you are looking for. We finished the 2nd two rounds but failed the first. 

 

Picture Game -  We had to look at pictures and buzz in(we had no buzzers so we just made silly sound effects) if we saw the same one twice. Whoever buzzes first gets the points. I did not do that well at that game but one of the other players failed outright, while the other one was a champion at this sort of thing. 

  

Card game - You have the cards 1 - 7. Each round players put down 2 cards face down. Then flip them over at the same time. You then bet on which card you want to play into the centre of the board. If any two cards form any two players match they cancel each other out and those players get 0 points. The heigher the card the more points you get. Each round you put the card you did not use in the "penital box"(tape on the table) and the other card is discarded. The man who won the picture game also won this. 

 

Trater game - Before the games began we each picked up a card, if it had a "x" on it your where the trater and an "o" if your an "ally". If there where more players the would have been a few elimination rounds but with 3 players we only did it once. Everyone puts they heads down and then the traters put they heads up and point to allies to steal there points. 

If the trater is caught he loses all his points. I was the trater and stole the points from the guy who won the other games. He knew I was the trater because I accidentally said something like "So what does the trater do again?". I should have said "Can you please repeat that". 😄

In the end, the player with the least points won because I took the winners points and he took mine by identifying me as the trater Staff member Stef gave the prize to the man with the most points since he did so well! 

It was a lot of fun and I am glad I got to play it. By the way, the man who one everything, thought he was the "number 1 library fan" but somehow I have never seen him before and he does not even have a library card. 😋 Stef knew this man. I can't remember this mans name(UPDATE: I think it's Javen?) and won't say it, even it I did for privacy. 

Overall an outstanding evening.  

 

Also there is an "Easter Egg" on this blog often the colour of text I use for staff members names is what colour I often see them wear. 

 

 

 

 

Lawn Bowling

I tried lawn bowling as I said I would in my year end blog. It was fun! You have to hit a black ball to a small white ball called a "jack". The ball is waited so it will roll sideways for more of a challenge! In a tournament the player who gets closest to the "Jack" wins. These people just play for fun and don't play tournaments that often.

 

It's $100 for the first year and even more after that. If I did sign up I could play 3 times a week. It's fun but not THAT fun, so I won't be signing up! It was nice for letting me try and the people there are very friendly and welcoming. 

 

(It was a bad omion when they seem like they where trying to avoid talking to me about the price before I asked.)  

Value of the library

 

"An average family of 4 living in Halton Hills borrows $10,000 worth of library materials each year" - this got me thinking how much money have I saved by using the library. For me I am going to count anything that I used that don't own, even if I am not allowed to take it home or it's only for programs. Also most prices will be approxoment: 

3D Printer - $1,289.00 (I don't know offhand how much of a discount I am getting on filament) 

4 colour add on - ~ $400

Cicucite around $400 + lets say $50 for supplies and stuff.

Star Trek Voyager The Complete Series - $150

DVDs - $40 on average at lets say I borrowed 100 of them so $400 

Books - $40 on average at lets say I borrowed about 50 of them so $200 

Meta Quest 2 - $1,663.49

Games for Meta Quest 2- $40 and I have played about 6 so $240

Canon Vixia HF R800- $1,144.97

SP Hero Bolt - $179.00 

AAA Video games - $70 * ~25 = $1,750

Indy video games - $40 * 20 = $800

Boardgames - ~ $50 * ~30 = $1,500

Sylvania 15.6" Swivel Screen Portable DVD - $280 

Light Box - Amazon says they can be $35 to $200, the library gets higher end things so lets go with $100. 

Nature DX Binoculars - $169.95

Steam deck - $399 

Game laptop - ~$700.00 

Steam Deck games - ~$200

Steaming shows - $7.00/month * 12 months = $84 

PS5 - $580 + another $200 for games  

Escape Rooms - $20 

FanFest - $100(~ price of Fan Expo tickets) 

Kits - These are customly made by library staff so I don't know the prices but I am going to gues $30 and I used about 10 of them= $300

Study rooms - $10/hour + $100 for insincere. 

Other things I am forgetting - $200 

Laptops - ~ $1,000  

Headphones - $25.00

Museum Tickets are about $14 and I'll mark this down because of Space To Spoon.

------- TOTAL: 9665.46 --- 

So I use approximately the same amount of stuff as a family of 3-4 people.  

Qucik Post: FanFest Joke

 Ghost Busters, a Dalek and me are standing close to each other: 

Me to Ghost Busters: Do you think you can take him!? *points at Dalek* 

Ghost Buster: We are allies he drums up business! (since the Dalek is evil and would kill people)

2024 in reveiw

Fan Fest was Ultra Cool again!

Some better photos of the Cosplays can be found here, you also don't need Facebook for this 2nd link. 

Me as "Ford" from Gravity Falls against a blue screen.

??? 

-> We did an Escape Room and had a lot of fun! Shoutouts to staff member Railey(not sure of the spelling) for creating it!

-> I went to a Murder Mystery Party at HHPL, it was a lot of fun. I played the stag and talked in a voice that made me sound like I was up to something(even though I was inocent). 

-> Virtual Trivia at Gralph Public Library was a lot of fun. The staff that run it are "Hyper-Cool".

-> I bought a new laptop last year which I find very useful.

-> I saw the Solor Eclipse, thank to the library

-> I updated my website.(it has a new look and feel) Also I have this new 'libraryfan@jamiemarchant.ca' email address, it's ONLY for library business(only for staff). Since I get emails(a lot of which are automated) from the library on a daily basses and need a good way of sorting out. Don't tell any HHPL staff about the email address, it's on my record and I want it to be a surprise! Also someone joked that I should just work for the library so I don't have to email them! (I am not interested cut out for that kind of work).

I wrote a choose your own adventure story.

The archives where open to the public and they gave a tour.

I took a lot of photos last year, they have been added to my gallery. 

-> I checked out around 318 items form the library!

Think about what you read online!  

SP Hero Bolt! Review 

-> I made some videos about the library catalogue:

https://youtu.be/d9gjLBSCgp0 - Nearby items

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe2qhwUdn8g - Lists

https://youtu.be/R_irYQQfo-g - Community Tags

 

 

I made this: 

 

Things I am looking forward too this year: 

-> FanFest 

-> Going to new places 

-> Trying lawn boiling in June.