February is the month for lovers, specifically library lovers. Various websites offer different suggestions on how to best celebrate Library Lovers Month, however, most of these suggestions aren't necessarily pandemic-friendly. Therefore it's time for some socially distanced loving. For example, you can share the love by donating funds to help those in rural areas pay for a library card, you can follow us on https://www.facebook.com/LibraryDixonIL and https://www.facebook.com/dplkids, and despite not being able to meet in person, you can still read along with our book club picks for Orbital Book Group
"Many of us have vivid recollections of childhood visits to the public library: the unmistakable, slightly musty scent, the excitement of checking out a stack of newly discovered books. Today's libraries also function as de facto community centers and offer free access to the Internet, job-hunting assistance, or a warm place to take shelter along with the endless possibilities that spark your imagination the moment you open the cover of a book. There are more than 17,000 public libraries in America. Over the last eighteen years, photographer Robert Dawson has traveled the nation, documenting hundreds of these institutions--from Alaska to Florida, New England to the West Coast. The Public Library presents a wide selection of Dawson's photographs, revealing a vibrant, essential, yet seriously threatened system. Essays, letters, and poetry by a collection of America's most celebrated writers--including E. B. White, Isaac Asimov, Anne Lamott, Amy Tan, Charles Simic, Dr. Seuss, and Philip Levine, as well as the voices of dedicated librarians working today--are woven with photographs of the majestic reading room at the New York Public Library; the one-room Tulare County Free Library built by former slaves, in Allensworth, California; the architectural wonder of Seattle's glass and steel Central Library; and the Berkeley, California tool lending library; among many others. A foreword by Bill Moyers and an afterword by Ann Patchett bookend this important survey of a treasured American institution"-- Provided by publisher.
"Susan Orlean reopens the unsolved mystery of the most catastrophic library fire in American history and delivers a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution--our libraries"-- Provided by publisher.
Straight from the library--the strange and bizarre, ready to be checked out
From a patron's missing wetsuit to the scent of crab cakes wafting through the stacks, I Work at a Public Library showcases the oddities that have come across Gina Sheridan's circulation desk. Throughout these pages, she catalogs her encounters with local eccentrics as well as the questions that plague her, such as, "What is the standard length of eyebrow hairs?" Whether she's helping someone scan his face onto an online dating site or explaining why the library doesn't have any dragon autobiographies, Sheridan's bizarre tales prove that she's truly seen it all.
Stacked high with hundreds of strange-but-true stories, I Work at a Public Library celebrates librarians and the unforgettable patrons that roam the stacks every day.
A New York Times Bestseller -- Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World was a blockbuster bestseller. It spawned three children's books and is the basis for an upcoming movie. Now Dewey is back, with even more heartwarming moments and life lessons to share. Dewey's Nine Lives offers nine funny, inspiring, and heartwarming stories about amazing felines -- including Dewey -- all told from the perspective of "Dewey's Mom," librarian Vicki Myron.
"The New York Public Library staff answers questions remarkable and preposterous, with illustrations by Barry Blitt. Have you've ever wondered if you can keep an octopus in a private home? Do you spend your time thinking about how much Napoleon's brain weighed? If so, Peculiar Questions and Practical Answers is the book for you. The New York Public Library has been fielding questions like these ever since it was founded in 1895. Of course, some of the questions have left the librarians scratching their heads... "In what occupations may one be barefooted?" "What time does a bluebird sing?" "What does it mean when you're being chased by an elephant?" "What kind of apple did Eve eat?" "How many neurotic people are there in the U.S.?" In Peculiar Questions and Practical Answers, the staff of the NYPL has dug through the archives to find thoughtful and often witty answers to over one hundred of the oddest, funniest, and most whimsical questions the library has received since it began record-keeping over seventy-five years ago. One of The New Yorker's best-known and beloved illustrators, Barry Blitt, has created watercolors that bring many of the questions hilariously to life in a book that answers, among others, the question "Does anyone have a copyright on the Bible?""-- Provided by publisher.
An inspiring tribute in text and photos to librarians and libraries in all fifty American states and Canada describes the diverse backgrounds and motivations of today's librarians and includes original essays by such contributors as Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin, and Paula Poundstone.
"An extraordinary account of a band of young men in a besieged Damascan suburb who find books in the rubble and create a secret library"-- Provided by publisher.
Long a site of peaceful resistance to the Assad regimes, Daraya fell under siege in 2012. For four years no one entered or left, and aid was blocked. Bombs fell on this place of homes and families. A group searching for survivors stumbled upon a cache of books; in a week they had six thousand volumes; in a month fifteen thousand. A sanctuary was born: a library to escape the blockade, offering Arabic poetry, American self-help, Shakespearean plays, and more. Over text messages, Minoui came to know the young men who gathered in the library, exchanged ideas, learned English, and imagined how to shape the future, even as bombs kept falling from above. -- adapted from jacket
Growing up under Fascist censorship in Nazi Germany, Ruth Rappaport absorbed a forbidden community of ideas in banned books. After fleeing her home in Leipzig at fifteen and losing both parents to the Holocaust, Ruth drifted between vocations, relationships, and countries, searching for belonging and purpose. When she found her calling in librarianship, Ruth became not only a witness to history but an agent for change as well.
Culled from decades of diaries, letters, and photographs, this epic true story reveals a driven woman who survived persecution, political unrest, and personal trauma through a love of books. It traces her activism from the Zionist movement to the Red Scare to bibliotherapy in Vietnam and finally to the Library of Congress, where Ruth made an indelible mark and found a home. Connecting it all, one constant thread: Ruth's passion for the printed word, and the haven it provides -- a haven that, as this singularly compelling biography proves, Ruth would spend her life making accessible to others. This wasn't just a career for Ruth Rappaport. It was her purpose.
If you love to read, and presumably you do since you've picked up this book, you know that some books affect you so profoundly they forever change the way you think about the world. Some books, on the other hand, disappoint you so much you want to throw them against the wall. Either way, it's clear that a book can be your new soul mate or the bad relationship you need to end. Librarian Annie Spence has crafted love letters and breakup notes to the iconic and eclectic books she has encountered over the years. From breaking up with The Giving Tree (a dysfunctional relationship book if ever there was one), to her love letter to The Time Traveler's Wife (a novel less about time travel and more about the life of a marriage, with all of its ups and downs), Spence will make you think of old favorites in a new way.
"Vivid photographs and easy-to-read text introduce readers to the purpose, people, and layout of libraries. Early readers will learn the correct way to interact with librarians and how to use the library's resources. Features include a table of contents, an infographic, fun facts, Making Connections questions, a glossary, and an index. QR Codes in the book give readers access to book-specific resources to further their learning. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards." -- Amazon.com.
A picture book biography of American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie
In Bogotá, Columbia, young José eagerly anticipates Saturday, when he can visit the library started by José Alberto Gutiérrez, a garbage collector, and take a book home to enjoy all week. Includes a note about Gutiérrez's life and Bogotá.
Do you get books from a public library in your town or even in your school library? In many remote areas of the world, there are no library buildings. In many countries, books are delivered in an unusual way: by bus, boat, elephant, donkey, train, even by wheelbarrow. Why would librarians go to the trouble of packing books on the backs of elephants or driving miles to deliver books by bus? Because, as one librarian in Azerbaijan says, "Books are as important to us as air or water!" This is an intriguing photo essay, a celebration of books, readers, and libraries.
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