From the Accents, Inc. 2009 Bookmark Challenge collection.

The Monday “What have you done lately?” accountability post, where I announce my Needle and Thread: Stitching for Literacy program promotion goal for the week and fess up on last week’s goal.

Last week, my goal was to start matching libraries that want to receive bookmarks with participating shops and guilds. The key word there is “start” because it’s going to take more than a week. At this moment, I’m behind on updating my list of libraries, so that makes me way behind in finding partners for them!

All in good time. I did, however, start.

I’m thinking I need to list recipient libraries with their partner shop/guild/group on the Participants page. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what libraries are being served and where your bookmarks are going? Of course, that’s more info to collect, which complicates things, but I’m willing to give it a shot. Plus, there’s something about writing it down and putting it out there that seems to make it–whatever “it” is–happen. The whole Monday Update post is based on that theory; I’m convinced it works.

Now I have a question for you. I’m going to ask Challenge Participants (those that collect numerous bookmarks) to adopt not only a local library/school, but a distant one as well, so that we can reach out to and serve areas where needlework shops and guilds don’t exist. You see, I’ve got A LOT of NYC libraries interested in receiving bookmarks. While there are active guilds in the NY area, there is a dearth of shops.

So here’s my question: How many bookmarks does it take to make a good program and/or presentation at a library?

Six? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? Two hundred eighty-five?

A smallish number may make them more valuable; i.e., if everyone gets one, then winning one is not necessarily special. If there are only ten given away, then earning or winning one is an accomplishment, and the bookmark might be appreciated more. Fine handwork should be greatly appreciated.

At the same time, our goal is to encourage and reward as many young readers as we can.

So what’s a good number of bookmarks to present to a library? (Yeah, yeah, size of library, number of kids served, blah, blah, blah. We’re not carving this in stone.) I have a number in my head. What do you say?

I have some other news to report, but it’s big enough to warrant its own post.

My goal for this week, as I continue to update my list of recipient libraries and get more guilds and shops on board, is to look into getting a three-column blog layout. I don’t really want to change themes because I like this one, but I do really want three columns. So I’m going to see if I can reach the designer of this theme.

One more thing…last week I upgraded this blog from 2.8.3 to 2.8.4. Tink, of Yarn and Thread Retailers, urged me to do so, so I sucked it up and did it. It was totally easy. I don’t think I’ll be afraid of future upgrades.