Between the Stacks: 3/15/2023

Mike Dennison will be here on Wednesday, March 15th at 1 PM to discuss the Holocaust and its Effects on Modern Media. Mike retired from a successful journalism career here in Montana and now is on the Humanities Montana Speakers bureau list. We are very pleased to be able to present this program, which is open to the public.

I attended the Broad Valley’s Federation meeting this week for the libraries in our area. It is always great to see other librarians and swap ideas. One of the really fun things I discussed with the librarian in Dillon is the idea of bringing their mystery dinner theater to Whitehall as a fundraiser for the Friends. Laurie writes all of her own scripts and in exchange, I may end up performing in their production. Librarians are often very creative people, coming up with all sorts of amazing programming ideas. It was really fun to hear all of the different things going on around southwest Montana.

One of the other programs I attended at the meeting was a new wellness program called the Community Resiliency Model. It was created by the Trauma Resource Institute and presented by two nurses from the Healthy Granite County Network. With the world being such a stressful place for many people, this system lets people use simple techniques such as grounding to get themselves out of highly stressful zones and back to the resiliency zone, where the human body is better able to cope with the physical aspects of stress. My favorite step was “Grounding.” That is where a person touches a solid object and uses that object to direct thoughts to a calm and happy memory. People can do it by walking, biking, standing, sitting, or any other number of touch-related activity. This is a very simple explanation of the model and I hope to have the nurses come to the Library and do a presentation for the public.

The book clubs will meet on Tuesday, March 14th, with the Mystery Book Club at 5 PM and Lit to Flic at 6 PM. You can join either book club at any time. The Mystery Book Club is a free read of any mystery or mysteries to share with others. Lit to Flic is reading Little Women this month by Louisa May Alcott.

Plans are moving forward with Summer Reading. You may start to see clues appearing around the Library so keep watch for our detective as he plants information around the building!