Southeast Kansas Community Action Grant

We have received a grant from the Southeast Kansas Community Action Program for $5,969.95 to start our computer lab! We will purchase 5 laptop computers that we will use for free, public computer classes.

The classes will begin in January. They will range from the very beginning computer use such as 'Taming Your Mouse" to more advanced Internet topics such as "How to Ebay". If you would like to have a class on a particular subject, just let me know in the comments section below this blog.

Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving just a couple of weeks away, we thought we would share a bit of Thanksgiving history.

Thanksgiving has been an American tradition for many years. In 1621 the pilgrims with the Wampanoags held a three day celebration. Only half of the people who came to America on the Mayflower had survived. These survivors, including 4 women and several children, gave thanks for the harvest that would help them live through the next winter.

George Washington proclaimed a Thanksgiving in December 1777 as a victory celebration honoring the defeat of the British at Saratoga. In October 1789, President Washington created the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the United States of America. Several Thanksgiving Days were proclaimed in the following years, not all of them in the autumn.

New York State adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom in 1817. By the middle of the 19th century, 25 states and two territories celebrated a Thanksgiving Day.

President Lincoln, in 1863, was the first president to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday at the behest of Sarah Josepha Hale, who had spent 40 years writing to congressmen, lobbying five presidents, and writing countless editorials in her campaign to create an official day of thanks.

Every president since Lincoln has declared a Thanksgiving Day. For most years it has been the fourth Thursday in November. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939, 1940 and 1941 declared it to be the third Thursday in November so that the Christmas shopping season would be longer. This aroused such uproar that he changed it back to the fourth Thursday.

To find out more about Thanksgiving the library has many books about the holiday. You can check out books about Thanksgiving crafts, traditions, and stories of the pilgrims. We also have a great selection of cookbooks if you want to add something special to your feast. Many popular authors for adults and children, including Janet Evanovich, Eve Bunting, Jennifer Chiaverini and Dav Pilkey, have written books that include the Thanksgiving holiday.

International Magic Week

October 25-31 is International Magic Week. It is the week leading up to Harry Houdini's birthday Oct. 31. It is a time to celebrate magicians and the world of magic.

Coffeyville magician, Pete Walterscheid, the World's 41,532nd Greatest Magician, has a display of items he uses in his performance on display at the library. You can visit Pete's webpage to find out more about him. http://www.magicbypete.com/

Come by a see the display and check out a book or two about magic.

Community Bulletin Board

We have completed the new bulletin board for the lobby of the library. There are three sections to it. One is for the Genealogy Society, one is for Library events and the middle section is for Community Events.

If you have a poster or flyer for a community event that people in Coffeyville and the surrounding area might be interested in, bring it to the library and we will post it. All items must be taken to the circulation desk before they can be posted.

Drop by to see what is happening in the Library and in Coffeyville.

New At the Library

A new evening book club is forming. The first meeting will be after our author visit on Monday Sept. 14th at 6:30. Anyone interested in sharing their ideas about books is welcome to come.

Sept. 14 at 6:30, Christian-fiction author, Terrye Robins, will be our guest speaker at the first evening book club meeting. This teacher-turned-author will be sharing information about her writing career and giving reviews of her fun mystery novels.

If you are looking for inspirational fiction, you can find it easily, thanks to our new labels. Clear lavender labels are now on most of the inspirational fiction books and DVD’s. Thanks to Debbie Fesler for implementing this project.

Our new Community Bulletin Board is located in the lobby of the library. We will display items of community interest in the center section of the board. Genealogical information will be on the left side and information about library programs will be on the right side. Please check at the desk if you want to have your community information on our board. Thanks to Elaine Wylie for making this project possible.

Welcome Bags are now available to people who are new to the community. When a newcomer gets a library card he or she will also receive a bag that contains information about Coffeyville and Kansas. Linda McFall and Cindy Powell created and produced the Welcome Bags. We would like to thank Country Mart for their donation of ‘green bags’ to hold the information.

Grants from the Gates Foundation and the Southeast Kansas Library System have allowed us to have two new computer workstations for people to use. These computers have Microsoft Word and Excel as well access to the Internet. We were also able to replace one of the computers in the Children’s area with a new one.

Yoga and Pilate classes are continuing. However the Pilates time has moved to Fridays from 9:00-10:00. Yoga classes are Tuesdays from 5:30-6:30. The instructor, April Foreman, provides very good workouts. No registration is required.

We are still giving Library Foundation book bags to anyone who writes a book review. It is easy. Just tell us what you liked or didn’t like about a book. You can find reviews from patrons on our website, cvillepublib.org. Thanks to Joy Duvall for spearheading this project.

Once a month we will have movie night at the library. The dates are Sept 17, Oct 29 and Nov 19. The shows start at 6:30. We provide the popcorn. The DVD’s will be current popular movies. Adrian Keith is the staff member who is making the movies possible.

A children’s movie will be shown on some of the days when school is not in session. The first one of this series will be on Sept 16th at 2:00. It will be a popular movie for grade school children. Again we will provide the popcorn.

Wii for Teens is a program for young people who come to the library to play Wii games on our new 46” TV. Wii for teens is on Wednesdays at 3:30. We also have Wii for Kids on Tuesday evenings at 6:30.

Starting Oct 1, we will be having a very special storytime for 2 year olds and their special adults. This will be a 20 minute program of songs, rhymes and stories. Tot Time for Twos will begin at 9:15 each Thursday. Registration is required for this program.

We are beginning a monthly newsletter. New issues will be available about the 15th of each month. If you want to know what is happening at the library, read reviews written by other patrons, see what classes and activities are available, be sure to pick one up.

Library's Facebook

The Coffeyville Library now has a Facebook Fan page. Facebook is a social network that connects people with friends, family and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends and family through pictures and quick postings. Facebook is becoming the fastest growing networking site in the country. Currently the average Facebook user is female and 35 to 40 years of age, with the over 55 age group a close second. This allows grandparents to stay current with their grandchildren and children. So if you haven’t already, now is the time to join facebook and become a FAN of the Coffeyville Library.

Homework Kansas

The new school year will be starting soon and homework will become a part of life for many students. Have you ever wanted to get some help with your or your favorite student's homework? If so Homework Kansas is for you!

This online service will connect students with live tutors to help them understand their homework assignments. The tutors will help with the questions but will not give the answers.

Subjects for assistance include math, science, English and social studies. Assistance in Spanish is offered in the subject areas of math, science and social studies. An interactive screen is available for students to see how math problems work. You can upload a file so that you and the tutor can work on it together.

Help is offered through a K-12 Center, College Prep Center, and Adult Career Center.

People at any of the centers can work with a live tutor or use the Skills Center: Resource Library that has thousands of worksheets, tutorials and study guides.

New to the service is college entrance practice tests like ACT and SAT, graduate school exams like GRE and LSAT, Advanced Placement, ASVAB and TOEFL, and GED prep tests. HomeworkKansas will also offer assistance with sample resumes and cover letters, financial literacy and assistance with proofreading of papers.

You can get to Homework Kansas by going to our library website http://www.cvillepublib.org/ then clicking on the Young Adult link, then clicking on the words "Homework Kansas"