Star Tribune
Meet the women who launched the St. Paul library’s Laser Loons
When Eye On St. Paul thinks about memes and videos that go viral, what springs to mind are cat antics, trending dance steps and outrageous sports feats. Not library cards.
But viral is exactly what happened to the St. Paul Public Library late last year when staff members launched the Laser Loon library card, inspired by a beloved design suggested for the new state flag. An effort to coax a few more folks to use the city’s libraries quickly became a sensation and brought in thousands of new users. Eye On St. Paul recently chatted with Stacy Opitz and Claire Huber of the library system’s marketing department to delve into the origins of perhaps the coolest library card ever and ask about what might be coming next.
This interview was edited for length.
Q: Who came up with the laser-eyed loon card?
Stacy: It was Claire’s idea. We, the marketing team, had been thinking for a while about ways to bring more people into our libraries. And I think the L.A. library had done limited edition cards based upon the anniversary of hip hop. And so we had been keeping our eye open for what’s St. Paul’s thing or what’s Minnesota’s thing and Claire raised up the Laser Loon.
Claire: I kind of proposed the ideas, almost thinking not anybody would take me up on it, right? I was like, “Oh, wouldn’t it be funny if we just did a limited edition card with this Laser Loon on it?” And sure enough, we have a culture here at the library of saying yes to things, trying things, you know, experimenting and learning from projects. And so this was one of them that we said, “Yeah, let’s, let’s give it a try.”
Q: What was the goal here?
Stacy: Claire and I are on the marketing and communications team. Our big job is to tell the library story and make sure residents are aware of and using their library. Some folks in our community might still be thinking that libraries are just warehouses for books, right? We offer so much more. Of course, library cards are an important piece of using our spaces. If you want to access materials and some of our other services, you do need a card. To get more people in St. Paul signed up for cards, that was our big goal.
Q: Did that happen?
Stacy: Absolutely.
Claire: Our original goal when we first started this was to get a total of 1,000 residents a new card — or to come in and grab one of those stickers [that covers the old card]. Our total at the end of the campaign was 5,620 residents coming in to get a card or a sticker. Just in the first day of launching this campaign, we saw a 295% increase in library card signups compared to 2022.
Q: Why Laser Loon?
Claire: I think the loon itself is such an emblem of the north, of Minnesota. It’s such a cool animal and one that’s so unique to our state. And then I thought: A laser shooting out of its eye just adds this level of quirkiness, a silliness, a kind of “We’re here and we’re strong and we’re cool too.” You know, I went to school out west, and people often talked about Minnesota being flyover country and things like that. So it’s kind of like an illustration of our strength and being a cool state and worthy of attention.
The way that we came about making this design was I just looked up how to draw a loon online and ended up drawing it on my computer and using this step-by-step tutorial. And I just added a line to have it be the laser shooting out of the loon’s eye. A lot of the other community submissions that came had loons, even shooting lasers out of their eyes. So, that’s where the original inspiration came from. We wanted to tie it back to the library, so we added “read” at the bottom of the card.
Stacy: Libraries are constantly evolving with what the community needs. And community engagement processes are a big part of the work that we do. That’s how Minnesota developed its new state flag. And so we value that. We understand that and we wanted to celebrate and lift up the creativity that we were seeing.
Q: What’s next?
Stacy: We’ve been asking that ourselves and we’ve had staff and community members sharing ideas with us since the loon. There will be something, but it’s not clear to us yet. Part of the magic here is looking to community for what the thing is that is bringing joy and bringing us together.
Q: Where can people go to make suggestions?
Stacy: They can email me or Claire at Stacy.Opitz@ci.stpaul.mn.us and Claire.Huber@ci.stpaul.mn.us.
Claire: They can also contact us on social media too, at https://x.com/stpaullibrary?lang=en or https://www.linkedin.com/in/ckhuber/. We check our our DMs often.
Northern State 35, Concordia (St. Paul) 34: Wyatt Block’s 2-yard TD run and the PAT with 10 seconds remaining lifted the Wolves past the host Golden Bears. Block’s touchdown capped an 11-play, 72-yard drive by the Wolves, who trailed 24-7 in the second quarter. Jeff Isotalo-McGuire’s 34-yard field goal with three minutes, 32 seconds remaining gave the Golden Bears a 34-28 lead.
Winona State 31, Bemidji State 28: Cade Stenstrom rushed for two TDs and passed for 150 yards and a TD to help the host Warriors outlast the Beavers. Stenstrom’s 1-yard TD run and the PAT with two minutes, 10 seconds remaining gave the Warriors a 31-21 lead. The Beavers responded with an 11-play, 93-yard drive to pull within 31-28 with 18 seconds remaining but the Warriors recovered the ensuing kickoff.
Div. I-AA
North Dakota State 59, Murray State 6: The top-ranked Bison built a 42-3 lead in the first half and went on to defeat the host Racers in Murray, Ken. CharMar Brown ran for 97 yards and three TDs for the Bison.
South Dakota State 20, South Dakota 17 (OT): Amar Johnson’s 3-yard TD run in overtime lifted the host Jackrabbits to the victory. The Coyotes opened the OT with a 40-yard field goal.
Youngstown State 41, North Dakota 40 (OT): The host Penguins went first in OT and scored and then stopped North Dakota’s two-point conversion to hold on for the victory. The Penguins sent the game into OT on a 35-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining.
Div. III
Augsburg 35, St. Olaf 34 (OT): The host Auggies stopped a two-point conversion in overtime to outlast the Oles. The Auggies went first in the overtime and scored on a 25-yard pass from Ryan Harvey to Tyrone Wilson. It was Harvey’s fifth TD pass — the fourth to Wilson. After the Auggies’ PAT, the Oles scored on a 25-yard TD pass from Theo Doran to Braden Menz. But the Oles’ pass attempt for the conversion failed.
After splitting their two-game West Coast trip to begin the season, the Wolves improved to 2-1 with a 112-101 win over Toronto in their home opener. It was a wire-to-wire win that featured some strong bursts of play from the Wolves and other times when their decision-making was suspect. But those moments when they were on, specifically the start of the game and most of the third quarter, were enough to carry them against a shorthanded Raptors team that was without RJ Barrett, Bruce Brown and Immanuel Quickley.
Julius Randle had 24 points while Anthony Edwards had 24 on 21 shot attempts. Donte DiVincenzo had 16 off the bench. Nickeil Alexander-Walker left the game in the fourth quarter and did not return, though he was in the bench area for the final minutes after going to the locker room briefly.
The Wolves’ starting lineup had its best stretch of basketball on the season after that unit started off sluggish in the first two games. Mike Conley, who was 3-for-16 to open the year, hit two early threes to set the tone, though Conley would finish 2-for-8.
Donte DiVincenzo replaced him at point guard halfway through the quarter and continued the hot shooting from the point guard slot with three threes of his own. The Wolves forced five Toronto turnovers and had a 32-18 lead after one.
Coach Chris Finch toyed with some different lineup combinations in the first half as he had Conley and DiVincenzo begin the quarter together while having Joe Ingles run the point later in the quarter. It led to an uneven second, and the Wolves led 56-44 at halftime.
But the Wolves played inspired coming out of the break. Jaden McDaniels, who didn’t take a shot in the first half, had nine points in the opening minutes of the third. Edwards hit a pair of threes as they pushed their lead to 22. The Wolves weren’t sharp closing the night, and the Raptors had the game within right inside of two minutes, but the Wolves had built enough of a cushion.
Rudy Gobert. Gobert had 15 points and 13 rebounds and was the beneficiary of some lobs from his teammates like Edwards, Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Joe Ingles. Gobert also finished with four blocks.
Gobert had two blocks on one possession in the fourth quarter that got the crowd off its feet and Gobert pounding his chest. Gobert blocked D.J. Carton and Jamison Battle.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
