Library Happenings – Staff offers personal picks for your list (Feb. 24, 2016 issue)
As you might expect, most of us who work at the library love books. It is not a prerequisite to employment here, but it certainly helps. One of the benefits of having a book-loving staff is the advice I get from them when it comes time to order materials. Our preferences in fiction cover the range from science fiction and fantasy to mysteries, romance, literary fiction and even classics. A few of us read as much non-fiction as fiction, and I think we all like good movies.
Most of our patrons come in knowing what they want to read or watch, but a few are looking for something different. A steady diet of anything can be tiring. The Pilgrims are said to have grown tired of lobster, which they dismissed as a poor mans food, during the early years of the Plymouth colony. And they werent people who were prone to complain about Gods bounty! If youve grown tired of lobster, then our new staff picks display may give you something else to chew on.
Kristy proposed the idea and prepared the space, and the rest of us agreed to participate. Everyone who works at the library has a designated spot on the shelves to the left of the doorway that leads to the teen room and adult stacks. We will choose books, audiobooks or DVDs that we have enjoyed and display them next to our name. Some of them may be recent additions to our collection while others will be old favorites. In either case, we hope you will check them out and enjoy them as much as we did.
There will still be seasonal displays, but they will move to the top of the bookcase where our Spanish-language books are currently housed. With Valentines Day past, you can start looking for books about St. Patricks Day and Ireland.
Genealogy Workshop
Ireland is a place that intrigues many of us because we know, or at least suspect, some of our ancestors lived there. My sixth great grandfather Archibald Stuart fled Northern Ireland around 1727 after he was involved in a failed religious uprising. He settled in colonial Pennsylvania and kept a low profile until it was safe to send for his wife and two children. From there Archibald moved to Augusta County, Virginia where he and Janet, his wife, lived near a number of my other Scots-Irish forbears. And if you have Scots-Irish ancestors, it is likely that you can trace them back to Augusta County, too.
If you want to learn more about your family history, come to the library on Thursday, March 3. We will help you get started and let you try some of the librarys free resources. The program will begin at 6 p.m. and last for about 90 minutes. For more information or to register, please call us at 743-6533.