New Year, New things going on at Library

New Year, New things going on at Library

With the New Year comes many new things going on in the library.  Starting Tuesday, January 20th the library will start afterschool programming for kids from 4pm-5pm, Monday through Thursday.  Activities will include computer programming, video production, audio recording, creating comics and a variety of other crafts and hands-on learning opportunities. These activities will take place in what we are now calling The Learning Center and is accessible via a walkway from the main part of the library. The Learning Center will also be developing computer classes for adults during the day and providing meeting space when not being used for classes or afterschool programming.

The library has a long history of community participation through the Friends of the Library group which was fairly active up until about ten years ago. Back in September of 2014 we started making plans to get that group going again and thanks to the help of a couple of local volunteers we will be hosting our first Friends Meeting on Thursday, January 22nd at 6:30pm in the library. This first meeting will be a formative meeting to talk about what the Friends group hopes to achieve, election of officers, and other topics of interest. Consider putting this on your calendar if you would like to become more involved in volunteer activities at the library.

Thanks to a grant from the Cooper-Clark Foundation, the library is excited to announce that we are in the beginning stages of installing a digital microfilm station in our genealogy section located in the lower level of the library. The beauty of this machine will be allowing genealogists to search our historical newspapers stored on microfilm with greater efficiency and accuracy. The digital microfilm station will allow users to email documents and to store information on a personal data stick or portable storage. Software included in the microfilm station will also assist users in searching for information without having to read each page in its entirety. We have a librarian on staff who is an expert on these genealogy resources so please stop in and talk to us about getting started with your family tree or family history.

The last thing I want to talk about today is not a new service or new device, but the library itself and our service to the community. As we all know, things got pretty cold in town the past few weeks. The library is a great place for those people who want a nice warm place to warm up. We offer some comfy furniture and we also check out laptops and have plenty of Wi-Fi to help you pass the time. We even have a book or two that you can check out.

If you have any questions about library services or programs, please stop by the library, check us out online at lmlibrary.org, or give us a call at 620-626-0180.