Blogs

Happy New Year! This is the time of year where we reflect on our goals and aspirations and resolve to make changes. A great place to start is the library! Whether you want to pick up a new skill, brush up on your finances, or read up on health and meditation, your local branch has something for you. Welcome to Self-Improvement Month at the Huntsville Madison County Public Library!

Improve Yourself at Bailey Cove

Fridays in January at 11:00 am

Bailey Cove Branch Library

Join us this December to celebrate the holidays at the library! Whether it is a story time, a craft night, or live music, we have many programs that will delight the old and young alike. And the best part is that all of them (with the exception of a small supply fee for some), are FREE. 

Tween Time: Gingerbread Houses

December 2  2:00 p.m.

Madison Public Library

In case you’ve not figured it out yet, we don’t just do books at the Library.

It was about this time of year in 2010, late fall eight years ago when I started working at the Library. At that time, the LibraryNet was all copper — analog T1 lines (think: old-style phone-grade) from our branches, a MetroEthernet for our Internet connection, and all the cabling within our Downtown Branch’s Computer Room were typically 100 megabit per second (Mbps) Ethernet links. Improving this infrastructure was quickly identified as one of my primary goals to improve service in the Library.

Here’s that story.

“It’s out of paper!” You scream in terror as your printer (leisurely printing your homework), grinds to a stop. You look around, but there is no extra paper to be found. These days, a simple run to the office supply store can solve your paper needs. However, paper has not always been as accessible.

In the 19th Century, letter-writing was a surprisingly expensive task. Producing paper was not cheap, and buying quality paper came at a cost. Early in the century, postmasters began charging for distance traveled and the weight of paper. Combine the price of paper with the budding idea of paying for postage – writing to loved-ones suddenly became a line item in the family budget. This added expense led many to find ways to save on paper.

Libraries across the country are celebrating National Friends of the Libraries Week, October 21-27, 2018. Our Friends of the Library groups are vital in expanding our resources to better serve the community through fundraising, volunteer and program support and through advocacy. All 12 branches of the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library have a Friends group you can join. Here are five reasons why you should join today:

As summer winds to a close and a chill slowly begins to creep into the air we approach my favorite time of year, Fall and the Halloween season! From a young age I’ve always loved Halloween and all things spooky and working in a library gives me the perfect opportunity to share my passion with our patrons of all ages...you’re never too young or old to get into a fiendishly festive mood whether it’s October or not! I’ve put together a libguide (a sort of library research guide) specifically for Halloween and horror books broken down by age range and type that you can browse at guides.hmcpl.org/horror [1]. Some of my favorite reads are on the quirky side of horror with a dash of humor and 80’s nostalgia. Here are some of my all time favorites…

Bestselling author David Grann comes to Huntsville for library fundraiser

Author hailed as master of spinning true crime tales

The Huntsville Library Foundation (HLF) proudly presents bestselling author David Grann as the guest of honor and keynote speaker at HLF’s 32nd annual Vive le Livre gala on Thursday, September 27 at 6:00 p.m. at the Jackson Center, 6001 Moquin Drive. The event will begin with a cocktail reception at 6 p.m., followed by a gourmet dinner and keynote address by Grann.

The Huntsville-Madison County Public Library welcomed the permanent installation of a community mosaic at the Downtown Huntsville Library on Tuesday, August 28.

"This is one of those wonderful opportunities where we can showcase the talent in our community," said Connie Chow, Downtown's branch manager. "We are honored to be able to display this for all to enjoy."

“Beauty From Brokenness” is a triptych artwork created from glass tiles from the original “Cosmic Christ” mosaic commissioned by Huntsville’s First Baptist Church in the early 1970s. Local artist Stephen Ware was one of three Huntsvillians to assist Texas-based artist Gordon William Smith with the original mosaic installation in the 1970s.

A female dystopia mutated to its logical extreme Margaret Atwood wrote ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ in 1984, a very important year in the history of dystopian fiction. Perhaps the number of the year inspired her; most definitely, the leanings toward theocratic authoritarianism expressed by organizations at that time such as the Moral Majority. The dystopian framework was the best suited for a novel about events that had happened multiple times throughout human history, projected into a possible recurrence in the U.S. Atwood has repeatedly insisted that she invented none of the developments in the novel; everything that happens in the novel has occurred at some point in the past.