One of Catherine Lemmer’s fondest memories of growing up in central Wisconsin is piling into her mom’s station wagon with her five siblings every three weeks or so and being driven to the county library. After they returned, young Lemmer would sit on the sofa with her brothers and sister and listen to her mom read to them.

The Lake Forest Library Board of Trustees announced the appointment of Catherine A. Lemmer as the new Lake Forest Library director, effective May 14.

The 19th century Irish playwright, novelist and poet Oscar Wilde was once quoted saying, "I spent all morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out."

Mary Driver-Thiel, the founder and facilitator of the Lake Forest Writers Group, repeated this quote and laughed. The author of two novels, "Twelve Thousand Mornings" and "The World Undone," as well as many short stories, knows firsthand just how true this saying rings for her, how difficult the process of writing is.

"I had been looking around for a writers' group and there were a couple in the area, but they weren't quite what I was looking for at the time," she said. "I talked to my friend who worked for the Lake Forest Library at the time, and she said maybe they were interested in doing something at the library.

"Kaye Grabbe and I were put in touch with each other, and she said, 'We'd love to do this.'"

The small group of six writers had their first meeting on Jan. 26, 2007, in the library's board room. 

Since then, the writers have met once a month during the school year on Saturday mornings, always at the Lake Forest Library, and recently extended those meeting times to the summertime.

The City of Lake Forest invites high school students who are residents of Lake Forest to experience a unique opportunity serving on a City board. Civic-minded students who will be high school juniors or seniors seniors during 2016-2017 will be appointed by the mayor in May and will work alongside other community adult volunteers. This year, this unique opportunity is open to both juniors and seniors.

Students will be interviewed for the seats on the Library Board and the Parks and Recreation Board. Students on the library board will be responsible for determining operating policies, which are implemented and administered by the librarian. The library board meets the second Tuesday of the month at 7:30 p.m., at the Lake Forest Library.

Since the Media Lab opened its doors in July of 2014, use has continued to grow, and the library has increased the lab’s hours of operation. Some of its most popular services are digitizing VHS tapes and slides to DVD, restoring old photographs, and recording music using Garageband. Lake Forest residents increasingly are scheduling appointments through the library’s website and receiving help from the media lab assistants.