Between the Stacks: 6/26/2024

This week, I attended the Belfer National Conference for Educators, presented by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., via the Internet. Technology is amazing, and this conference is an amazing national event that educates students and others about the Holocaust. Our Holocaust Book Discussion group will meet this month on June 27th at 6 PM. Anyone is welcome to come and join this discussion on Holocaust literature and history.

Next week's schedule will be lighter as the library will be closed on Thursday for the Fourth of July. Lunches will be served Monday through Wednesday of that week, and regular lunch delivery will return on July 8th for Monday through Thursday. We are serving hot lunches from now until the end of the program on August 1st. The lunches are in brown bag form and available to anyone 18 and younger.

There will be no storytime or Makerspace on Friday, July 5th. The rest of the week will remain as usual with programming. The Summer Reading program will host the VISA staff from the Lewis & Clark Caverns on Wednesday, July 3, as they present an exciting look at birds of prey. This program is open to everyone and will be great fun for those who love nature.

The amazing book order we placed in May is pouring in, and the children's sections are bursting with new graphic novels, easy readers, juvenile fiction, non-fiction, and new series. These new books were made possible by a grant from the Dorothy Louise Kyler fund through the John Eldred Jr. Foundation. They granted the library $3,000 this year, which we added to our book budget. Then Barnes & Noble's Classwork program accepted us, and the library could order almost $8,000 in books for a little over $1,000 out of the county library budget. These two partnerships have enabled us to order more materials for different library sections, which would have gone to children's books. Come check out all of the new books!

Summer reading sign-up is still going on, so feel free to join us for a great summer of prizes and programs. The program is based on the number of minutes read to graduate through three levels of prizes. Reading time counts whether a patron is reading to themselves, reading to others, listening to an audio book, or enjoying a graphic novel.

During this heat spell, the library wants everyone without air conditioning to know they are more than welcome to come into the library and stay cool. Our building stays at a consistent 68 degrees, and the basement is always open to sit, read, or do other projects. This weather can be hazardous to older seniors, and we don't want them or anyone else to become overheated.