If you’re familiar with the Kansas Library eCard and use it to borrow ebooks or eAudiobooks, you might have gotten an email from the State Library of Kansas letting you know that changes are coming to the state library’s audiobook collection.
Due to a change in ownership at the company where most of the state’s audiobooks come from, RBdigital, and due to changes in that company’s policies, the state library is moving its collection of eAudiobooks to cloudLibrary as of December 2nd.
cloudLibrary is currently the place where you can check out ebooks, including bestsellers and books from large publishers and well-known authors. Soon you will also be able to check out new and bestselling eAudiobooks there as well.
To use cloudLibrary, download the app on your smartphone or tablet, choose “State Library of Kansas” as your library, and login using your Kansas Library eCard number.
Don’t have aKansas Library eCard?
Kansas residents can visit their local public or school library to get a free Kansas Library eCard, which is different from the regular library card. We would be happy to set you up with a Kansas Library eCard and get you started borrowing ebooks and eAudiobooks to read or listen to on your phone or other devices.
Online Library and Lunch
On Tuesday, December 8th at Noon, our book club will meet online to discuss “Skipping Christmas” by John Grisham.
Kansas Notable Books display
Every year the Kansas State Library chooses books that are either written by Kansas authors or about Kansas related topics to be among their selection of Kansas Notable Books. These are a few of this year’s new notable books.
You can find a complete list of Kansas Notable Books available for checkout from our library catalog, http://catalog.lmlibrary.org. Search for “Kansas Notable Book 2020” for this year’s books or just type “Kansas Notable Book” for a listing including previous year’s books.
Headwinds: a memoir
by Edna Bell-Pearson
When World War II makes its way to southwest Kansas, Edna Bell-Pearson’s life is forever changed. After meeting the man who is to become her husband—a pilot stationed in her hometown of Liberal—Edna moves to the opposite corner of the state. She is instrumental in starting what will become the Marysville Municipal Airport. Edna’s story, taking place over the course of five short years, tells of Ungerer Flying Service, a family-built and operated business. As the business is born, Edna learns to appreciate the importance of the little things—hunting and fishing trips, a good housekeeper, and crisp, autumnal days without wind.
The Reckless Oath We Made
by Bryn Greenwood
A provocative love story between a tough Kansas woman on a crooked path to redemption and her unlikeliest of champions.
Zee is nobody’s fairy-tale princess. Almost six foot, with a redhead’s temper and a shattered hip, she has a long list of worries: never-ending bills, her beautiful, gullible sister, her five-year-old nephew, her housebound mother, and her drug- dealing boss.
Two years ago Gentry, a knight in shining armor who carries an invisible sword, is called by the voices he hears to be Zee’s champion. Both shy and autistic, he’s barely spoken to her since, but he has kept watch, ready to come to her aid.
When an abduction tears Zee’s family apart she turns to the last person she ever imagined—Gentry—and sets in motion a chain of events that will not only change both of their lives, but bind them to each other forever.
Birds, Bones, and Beetles: The Improbable Career and Remarkable Legacy of University of Kansas Naturalist Charles D. Bunker
by Charles H. Warner
Birds, Bones, and Beetles tells the story of a man whose passion for learning led to remarkable discoveries, extraordinary exhibits, and the prestigious careers of many students he mentored in the natural sciences.
Steel Tide by Natalie C. Parker
The second book in a heart-stopping trilogy that follows the captain of an all-female ship hellbent on taking down a vicious warlord’s powerful fleet.
Caledonia may have lost her crew, but she’s not done fighting yet. After nearly dying at the hand of a powerful foe, Caledonia is pulled from the sea and nursed back to health by a crew of former Bullets who call themselves Blades.
Now Caledonia wants to find the Mors Navis and her beloved sisters. She wants to continue fighting Aric’s fleet and to take back the Bullet Seas. She’ll need to do everything in her power to convince the Blades that fighting is their only option, that there has to be a life better than the one under Aric Athair’s reign, and that finding the women of the Mors Navis is the first step to revolution.
Closed for Thanksgiving Holiday
The library will close at 1 pm on Wednesday the 25th and will be closed on Thursday the 26th and Friday the 27th for the Thanksgiving Holiday.
Tuesday at 11 am Storytime – Stories, songs, crafts, and more! Plus, every child gets a free book to take home at every storytime. Story times are open to children of all ages.
Tuesday at 6:30 pm Recipe Swap – Bring something you’ve made (along with the recipe) to share and enjoy everyone else’s creations! Every month is a different theme! This month’s theme is “Sandwiches”.
Thursday at 5:30 pm Storytime – If you can’t make it to the morning storytime on Tuesday, you can come to the evening Thursday one instead.
More Events
Saturday, Sept. 8th at 2 p.m. Movie Night – Come see the latest installment of the adventures of your friendly neighborhood web-slinger.
Wednesday, the 12th, at 6 p.m. Movie Night – visit Mr. Roger’s neighborhood in this documentary by filmmaker Morgan Neville. It’s been 50 years since beloved children’s TV host Fred Rogers started entertaining and educating with his half-hour show. This documentary explores his life and philosophy and has quickly become the highest-grossing biographical documentary of all-time.
Saturday, September 15th at 1:30 p.m. Mexican Independence Day Party – Celebrate Mexican Independence Day at the library. There will be crafts, games and snacks. Registration is limited, so signup online today at http://lmlibrary.org
Saturday, September 22nd at Noon Hobbit Day – Celebrate Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday with us by watching the first movie of the trilogy and enjoy other fun activities and snacks.
Kansas Notable Books
Every year the Kansas State Library chooses a new list of Kansas Notable Books that are either written by Kansas authors or about a Kansas related topics. Below are a few of this year’s new notable books.
You can find the complete list of books on the Kansas State Library website https://kslib.info. You can also find them on our library catalog http://featured.lmlibrary.org or by using the new library catalog app “Library Mobile”.
From the Book Description
The true story of how two gunfighters brought law and order to Dodge City, the most depraved and criminal town in the nation.
Dodge City, Kansas, is a place of legend. The town that started as a small military site exploded with the coming of the railroad, cattle drives, eager miners, settlers, and various entrepreneurs passing through to populate the expanding West. Before long, Dodge City’s streets were lined with saloons and brothels and its populace was thick with gunmen, horse thieves, and desperadoes of every sort. By the 1870s, Dodge City was known as the most violent and turbulent town in the West.
Enter Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. Young and largely self-trained men, the lawmen led the effort that established frontier justice and the rule of law in the American West, and did it in the wickedest place in the United States.
After the small town of Prairie Hill, Kansas is destroyed by a tornado, three women – Angelina, Traci, and Gayle are determined to create a library and arts center as the first act of rebuilding the neighboring town. They are inspired by an old journal where they read about the frontier women who worked to raise money for books to fill the fifty-nine newly build Carnegie libraries.
From the Book Description
In January 1954 Senator Joseph McCarthy was one of the most powerful members of the U.S. Senate. By the end of that year he had been censured by his colleagues, and his power was shattered. Ike and McCarthy is the dramatic story of how President Dwight Eisenhower worked behind the scenes to make this happen.
When Eisenhower took office in January 1953, anticommunist fervor was at a fever pitch. The loudest voice was McCarthy’s, charging that the government was riddled with communist spies. Ike thought that McCarthy’s accusations were dangerously irresponsible… David A Nichols tells the riveting and little-known story of how Eisenhower and his advisers carefully plotted their successful effort to diminish McCarthy’s influence.
We’ve been making all kinds of interesting things on the library’s brand new 3D printer, paid for courtesy of the State Library of Kansas and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
If you haven’t heard of 3D printers, they are used to create three dimensional objects with a kind of plastic that is heated and laid down layer after layer until a new object takes shape. The plastic filament our printer uses is made from natural corn starch, making it biodegradable and environmentally friendly.
Come in and ask about using the library’s 3D printer. We will be offering beginning classes on 3D printing this week Monday through Thursday. Seating is limited so sign up at the Circulation Desk at the library.
Pokémon Go
One of the things we have created on our 3D printer is a Liberal Memorial Library Pokémon Go badge. Our library is a PokéStop and Gym. Anyone who battles and becomes the library’s new Gym Leader can earn a library badge. Just come in to the library and show us that you’re the new Gym Leader to get your badge.
Summer Reading is over, at least for the kids, but we still have a lot going on at the library this summer.
Tuesday, July 26th Recipe Swap at 6:30 pm – This month’s theme will be vegetable based recipes.
Wednesday, July 27th Summer Reading Logs due – Kids, turn in your reading logs to qualify for a Summer Reading prize and to register for the High Readers event.
Thursday, July 28th Storytime at 11:15 am – Regular storytimes will resume this Thursday.
Thursday, July 28th Bunco at noon – Join us for the popular dice game! Registration is required.
Friday, July 29th Movie Day at 2 pm – Popcorn and refreshments available! All movies are rated G.
Kansas Notable Books
Every year the Kansas State Library chooses a new list of Kansas Notable Books that are either written by Kansas authors or about a Kansas related topics.
Here are a few of the Kansas Notable books on display at the library:
From the book description
A reference and a guidebook for a new generation of plant enthusiasts, this volume includes up-to-date nomenclature, keys, and descriptions, as well as habitat, distribution, and ecological information.
Designed for the professional botanist and passionate amateur alike, Kansas Wildflowers and Weeds brings names and taxonomic information into line with recent revolutions in studies of DNA, macro- and micromorphology, cytology, ecology, and phenology.
From the book description
Bank robbers wreaked havoc in the Sunflower State. After robbing the Chautauqua State Bank in 1911, outlaw Elmer McCurdy was killed by lawmen but wasn’t buried for sixty-six years. His afterlife can be described only as bizarre. Belle Starr’s nephew Henry Starr claimed to have robbed twenty-one banks. The Dalton gang failed in their attempt to rob two banks simultaneously, but others accomplished this in Waterville in 1911. Nearly four thousand known vigilantes patrolled the Sunflower State during the 1920s and 1930s to combat the criminal menace. One group even had an airplane with a .50-caliber machine gun. Join author Rod Beemer for a wild ride into Kansas’s tumultuous bank heist history.
From the book description
Nearing 60, William D. Street (1851–1911) sat down to write his memoir of frontier life. Street’s early years on the plains of western Kansas were both ordinary and extraordinary; ordinary in what they reveal about the everyday life of so many who went out to the western frontier, extraordinary in their breadth and depth of historical event and impact.
His tales of life as a teamster, cavalryman, town developer, trapper, buffalo hunter, military scout, and cowboy put us squarely in the middle of such storied events as Sheridan’s 1868–1869 winter campaign. They take us trapping beaver and hunting buffalo for hides and meat, and driving cattle on the Great Western Cattle Trail.
Edited by Street’s great-grandson, with an introduction by Richard Etulain, a leading scholar of the West, this memoir is history as it was lived, recalled in sharp detail and recounted in engaging prose, for the ages.
Each year the State Library of Kansas releases a list of Kansas Notable Books. The list is comprised of books of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry written by Kansas Authors or books that feature Kansas as a location or theme. This year’s collection of Notable Books has something for everyone, whether you enjoy poetry, cooking, mysteries, or history. The 2014 Kansas Notable Books entries are a great collection and like most past years, history books are featured prominently. Being a history buff, I am naturally attracted to those titles that talk about Kansas’s placement in the history of our country or those that focus on the history of this great state.
The main event in our state’s history thus far has centered on how our state was founded and how it entered into the union of the states. Would it be a free state or a slave state? This question has set the tone for our history.
Most of us are familiar with the border conflicts, skirmishes, and outright wars that precipitated the Civil War. In fact for those that live along the Kansas-Missouri border there still appears to be drawn an invisible line between the two states. Interestingly enough, this line not only manifests itself in sports such as the Border War when the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri play one another in sports, but this separation also exists in the academic study of the turbulent times prior to the Civil War.
One book that hopes to bring both academic sides of the border together to study this period in history is “Bleeding Kansas,Bleeding Missouri“. Full of well-researched and interesting information about the events leading up to the Civil war and the ramifications of those events after the Civil War, I find this book to be one that is well worth the read for those interested in digging a little deeper into the causes and personalities involved in the conflict. This book is maybe not where you want to start, but definitely a waypoint on gaining an understanding of those tumultuous times.
But now onto my favorite book from this year’s list. What would Kansas history and a study of Bleeding Kansas be without a book about John Brown? (Seriously. If you don’t know who John Brown is, please run to the library and find me. We need to talk.)
When I first read that there was a new John Brown book out, I was a bit hesitant. The history, and at times mythology, of the man has been exhaustively researched, written down, and memorized by everyone interested in the events leading up to the Civil War.
“The Tie that Bound Us” by Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz breaks the mold for the discussion of John Brown and instead focuses in on the women that were in the background during most of his life and their lives after his death. There was a reason John Brown could live such a wild life and stay alive long enough to make it to Harper’s Ferry on that fateful night in 1859. His wife, his children, and the dependents of his followers were responsible for not only caring for the men, but for also hiding and making sure that they could move around the country undetected. Telling elaborate backstories to elude suspicion and never knowing when or indeed if, they would ever see their husbands or fathers again. Much more than other books, we get a sense of John Brown the man. Harsh disciplinarian one moment, gentle and compassionate husband the next. Apart from the cause of abolition, his role as father and husband he took seriously and through the stories of the women in his life we take a fresh look at this important figure in Kansas History.
Stop by the library, either in person or online, to checkout some of the books that make up the 2014 Kansas Notable Books. They can be found on our website by going to: http://featured.lmlibrary.org.
For a more complete list of this year’s and previous year’s notable books visit the Notable Books page of the State Library of Kansas at: kslib.info/notablebooks.
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