Our Movers and Shakers, Authors, and Innovators

THURSDAY, MAY 9, 4 p.m.

Join us as we celebrate the achievements of our staff.  Bilingual Reference Librarian Rose Luna and Youth Services Librarian Margaux DelGuidice, who are also full-time Teacher/Librarians, have each earned a Library Journal 2013 Movers and Shakers Award for their advocacy efforts, which have gained national attention. Together, they authored the book, Make a BigImpact @ Your School Board Meeting (ABC-CLIO, 2012). Reference Librarian Tanisha Mitchell has earned a Library Journal 2013 Innovator Award for her work at the Metropolitan Opera Library, where she has been organizing and cataloging its extensive collection. Safety Monitor Robert Sizemore Jr. has written a book of poetry, Poems of Encouragement (Xlibris, 2012).  Mr. Sizemore is also a minister at a local church.

 

 

Book Recommendation

Keeping Watch: A History of American Time
By Michael O'Malley (1990)

Focusing on the period from 1820 to 1920, Keeping Watch details the far-reaching changes in American society brought about by the transition from natural to mechanical sources of time - from farmers' almanacs and religious formulations of time to regional time zones, synchronized watches, and factory punch clocks. Michael O'Malley shows how the pressures of industrialization, the emergence of the telegraph, and the spread of railroads led to a demand for uniform, consistent schedules.

For more information about the history of time, including an interview with author Michael O'Malley, listen to this podcast from BackStory with the American History Guys: On the Clock: A (Brief) History of Time

VITA Tax Help

Tax Day Is Around the Corner!

VITA Volunteers will be at the Library until April 15.

Monday, 10 a.m to 1 p.m.
Tuesday, 6 to 8 p.m.
Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m.

Book Recommendation

This Republic of Suffering
By Drew Gilpin Faust (2008)

An illuminating study of the American struggle to comprehend the meaning and practicalities of death in the face of the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War.

During the war, approximately 620,000 soldiers lost their lives. An equivalent proportion of today’s population would be six million. This Republic of Suffering explores the impact of this enormous death toll from every angle: material, political, intellectual, and spiritual. The eminent historian Drew Gilpin Faust delineates the ways death changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation and its understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. She describes how survivors mourned and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the slaughter with its belief in a benevolent God, pondered who should die and under what circumstances, and reconceived its understanding of life after death.

NPR interview with Drew Gilpin Faust