Explore and Discover
Civic learning at the library
Posted on September 4, 2019 at 6:00 am
By Dana Mannino I hear a phrase uttered at the Thanksgiving dinner table at least once each year: “Kids these day, they have no idea how the government works!” But that’s not the only place I’ve heard it. Last spring, our librarians asked people what kind of a community they wanted to live in. One […]
Tags: art, civic, civics, county, elected representatives, federal, government, government officials, knowledge, learning, local, portraits, posters, presidential, presidents, state, vote, voter registration
On the road to financial literacy: Stop at the library for valuable no-cost resources
Posted on August 28, 2019 at 6:00 am
By Stacey Goddard In my last blog, I talked about my first real job (delivering newspapers with my brother). What I didn’t mention is the very different approaches my brother and I took with our hard-earned wages. He had a budget, including a formula for how much money would go into savings each month, how […]
Tags: adults, budgeting, consumer, consumer reports, credit, credit score, debt, dollars, education, finances, financial literacy, home buying, identity theft, investing, Medicare, organizing, planning, retirement, sense, SNAP, spending, STCU, teens
Finding a love of reading through fairy tales
Posted on August 22, 2019 at 6:00 am
By Caitlin Wheeler Some children are early readers. I have a friend who swears she already preferred burying her nose in a book (over any other activity) by the time she turned two, along with the photo to prove it. While this story smells faintly of exaggeration and posed photography to me, I’m sure my […]
Tags: fairy tales, folktales, illustrations, kids, parents, picture books, preschool, reading, toddlers
And Now for Something Completely Different: Monty Python’s entertainment legacy
Posted on August 21, 2019 at 6:00 am
By Melissa Rhoades If you’ve never experienced Monty Python, you’ve missed a big part of comedy history. The group played an integral role in the evolution of sketch humor. In fact, their influence is so massive that The Atlantic magazine called them “The Beatles of Comedy” in 2013. Like the Beatles, Monty Python’s influence extends […]
Tags: BBC, British, Cambridge, comedy, English, Eric Idle, Flying Circus, fourth wall, Graham Chapman, history, Holy Grail, John Cleese, Life of Brian, mash-ups, Meaning of Life, meta commentary, Michael Palin, Monty Python, Oxford, sketch comedy, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
Incredible reads to finish out your summer
Posted on July 31, 2019 at 6:00 am
By Rachel Underwood I am not a picky reader. I love recommendations from other readers, especially those that lead to finding an amazing and unexpected read. It’s one of my most favorite things! If you are on the lookout for a great read, here are just some of my all-time favorite novels, biographies, poetry/short story […]
Tags: adults, artists, authors, booklist, books, epistolary, escape, fiction, imagination, letters, nonfiction, novels, poetry, reading, recommendations, short stories
Things to do during a sedentary summer
Posted on July 24, 2019 at 6:00 am
By Dana Mannino The way I see it, there are two phases of summer: active summer and sedentary summer. For me, active summer occurs when temperatures reach 70–85 degrees. At those temps, I try to spend most of my time outside, preferably in the mountains or at a lake, in the garden will do as […]
Tags: active, activities, adults, bingeing, books, crafts, Discover Pass, events, hobbies, hoopla, indoors, kids, library programs, LinkedIn Learning, minecraft, Novelist, outdoors, parents, pronunciator, reading, recommendations, sedentary, SelectReads, streaming, summer, teens, tweens, watching
Saving seeds from the garden: Lovage, snap peas, and coriander
Posted on July 3, 2019 at 6:00 am
By Abra Cole Ah, summer. Here you are again, bringing all that sunshine and heat and gardening goodness with you. For most of us gardeners, our seasonal plants have not only been selected by now, but they’re planted and fairly well established in our gardens. Many perennials are blooming, or nearly so. The time has […]
Tags: adults, cilantro, coriander, do-it-yourself, gardening, gardens, herbs, how-to, kids, lovage, parsely, planting, plants, saving seeds, seed, seed library, seeds, snap peas, teens, vegetables
Creating a furever home: Adopting & fostering pets
Posted on June 26, 2019 at 6:00 am
By Susan Goertz Have you been thinking of adopting a furry friend now that summer has arrived? Someone to hike by your side in the sunshine or cuddle up by the fire pit on those long summer nights? House training and puppy fangs didn’t exactly meet my family’s needs as we already had a senior […]
Tags: adoption, bird, book list, books, cat, cuddles, dog, family, fostering, pets, reading, reptile, SCRAPS, training, walks
Teens in-between: Finding your first summer job
Posted on June 18, 2019 at 6:00 am
By Stacey Goddard I got my first paying job—that wasn’t babysitting or doing chores—pretty much by accident. The summer before my sophomore year of high school, my younger and much more industrious brother found his own job: delivering the afternoon edition of the local newspaper. The route he was taking on was big enough that […]
Tags: apply online, book a librarian, cover letter, employment, hoopla, interview, job, job hunt, jobnow, library card, printing, reserve computer, resume, summer, summer job, teens
Explore the arts for enormous rewards
Posted on June 12, 2019 at 6:00 am
by Melissa Rhoades Writer Kurt Vonnegut survived being a soldier and prisoner of war during WWII. He also suffered from depression. Knowing these facts adds extra weight to Vonnegut’s thoughts about the importance of art: “The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more […]
Tags: art, art appreciation, art books, art classes, art therapy, arts, baking, blacksmithing, book list, coffee table books, create, creativity muse, dancing, drawing, glassblowing, how-to, painting, poetry, reward, sewing, singing, textiles, videos, writing
