Category: Programs

For over a year, the Reading Public Library has been forging a relationship with the Massachusett Tribe to understand the history of this land and its peoples.

If any patrons call or come in and ask if we are giving out eclipse glasses, the answer is YES! The eclipse this Saturday is likely to garner less interest than the one in April, so we don’t anticipate a lot of interest just yet.

We hosted a huge Summer Sizzler party Friday night! We had 125 very happy people. We could not have pulled this off without every department helping out. Lynda was brilliant with set up and break down. She is the best of the best. Book reviewing speed talkers Alissa, Andrea H., Dawn, Desiree, Susanne, and guest star Liz Whitelam were the stars of the show along with M.C. Elizabeth! Michelle helped us get the sound system up and running. The Friends got to shine; showcasing their support of our programs and selling a lot of mocktails.
Kath made fabulous flyers, Overdrive, and catalog booklists. The entire tech services department helped process all the extra Sizzlers I purchased with help from Susan.
The communications queens Desiree and Michelle marketing got patrons to beat the doors down in anticipation. Valerie and the entire B.S. department unpacked bins like the bosses they are. Meaghan C and Jocelyn helped me find and deploy pencils, and finally Jocelyn and Meghan M. helped me get the million books I ordered out for display and safely returned to their home shelves. THANK YOU, thank you, thank you, for all your support and for making this popular event possible.

The Fall Brochure (September/October/November) will be available in hard copy, look for it to arrive at the end of this week. In the meantime, if you want to see the amazing programs that are coming to the RPL this Fall, check them out here. Community Read details are here.

RPL has installed a Braille-enhanced StoryWalk for increased accessibility and in order to broaden the pleasures of this experience to people with low vision and limited mobility.
The Reading Lions Club sponsored this initiative. Thanks to the Lions, the Braille-enhanced StoryWalk will showcase a new book quarterly.
Library visitors start at the front door of the library, go down the steps to the lawn, and follow the Braille-enhanced StoryWalk signs around the lawn perimeter to experience the adorable picture book, A Good Day by Kevin Henkes. StoryWalk will be on display from August 2—31.

In Susan’s new role as community health librarian, she’s organized outstanding programs. Here is an email that came from an attendee of last night’s Age Well, Be Well: Eating For Your Health presentation:
“Thank you for coordinating the excellent program on aging last night… RPL has done an outstanding job throughout the pandemic to provide services despite many obstacles. Thanks to everyone.”
Be proud of how we’ve kept offering ourselves and our services despite painful times.

The Justice League met on Wednesday morning to come up with a plan to address the Hate Graffiti found at the high school. We decided to focus on the library as a space, that brings people together and is a gathering place of peace.

Our first steps were to change the sliders on the website, social media and the Brightsign monitors to have human rights quotes and Libraries are for Everyone images on them. If anyone asks about these images and quotes, please let them know they are in direct response to the hate graffiti found at the high school.

We will also be creating social media posts with thoughtful, inspirational quotes and if possible, include Evergreen links to books or the book by the author of the quotes. Feel free to post ideas on this google sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_s1D-c7lGw9dzLmmt8nKXhwqq4MPYKXFRPxkyBd_OyQ/edit?ts=5bd9ebcf

We will also brainstorm and post random acts of kindness stories and other inspirational stories as we see them. This will begin sometime in the near future.

There is a display of books near the magazines about the holocaust, we will be adding titles to this display over the next few days.

The Teen room has 2 book displays–“Books to Inspire Social Change” and “Libraries are For Everyone.” Plus our bulletin board Question of the Month will be updated with a question for teens to respond to along the lines of Are You a Change Maker? drawing inspiration from the ISFR recent conference. We are also working to bring in author Sara Farizan who’s new book release Here to Stay focuses on bullying, hate, and phobia.

The Children’s Room is going to have some more displays and will possibly run another Kindness Rocks program.

Unfortunately, as you know, the library has not been immune to this type of hate speech/graffiti. Be alert and aware and let Amy or the librarian in charge know of any suspicious activity.

Peace.