Two Tired Librarians

You are looking at a picture of two exhausted librarians.  Lisa and Julie spent all day today unloading shelves of books upstairs.  Today was the first step to the fulfillment of the grant we received to replace all of the shelving upstairs as well as some of the other furniture.  When we got to work this morning, the main room upstairs looked like this:

By the end of the day, the main room upstairs looks like this:

And the end room is now FULL of books:

Now, on to step two - having the old shelving removed and the carpet cleaned in preparation for the new shelving's arrival.  Be sure to make note of our adjusted hours for the next couple of weeks as we work to complete this project.  Hours are posted on Facebook and on our front door.  

Chance's Corner: Stranger Things

You better prepare yourself because things are about to get really, really strange at the Franklin County Library! Yes, that's right, THE hottest television/streaming show of 2016, Stranger Things, has finally made its way to DVD.

Set in late 1983, Stranger Things takes place in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana, where a young boy, Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), goes missing. His mother, Joyce (Winona Ryder), is desperate to find him, but she isn't taken very seriously by Sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour) or anyone in town because she has "a past". Her running around with an ax and claiming her son is trying to communicate with her through Christmas lights doesn't really help her case. While her boy is missing, another child is found roaming in the nearby woods, a girl known only as Eleven (Millie Boddy Brown). Eleven can do things - things with her mind - and for some reason, the people at the nearby U.S. Department of Energy laboratory are itching to get their hands on her. Oh yeah, the "Department of Energy" also might of let a creature from another dimension (The Upside Down) loose. It's just another normal day in Hawkins!

Stranger Things is a blast from the past - a perfect mixture of nostalgia, Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment films, e.g. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Goonies, Poltergeist, and a combination of numerous other horror/science fiction flicks of the '80s. The score is a synthy dreamscape of whimsy and danger, and is unlike anything you've heard since the '70s and '80s. Well, unless you've seen recent horror films Starry Eyes and It Follows, but for a television show, it's still phenomenal and original. While Stranger Things certainly has moments that might make you consider leaving the lights on while you sleep, it's not too overbearing in its scares, so don't be too afraid to give it a try.

Be prepared to enter The Upside Down, because Stranger Things: Season 1 is now available for check out!

Tom's Two Cents : A Farewell to Hemingway

In the past five years or so, I've re-read most of Ernest Hemingway's major work, and I'm very sorry to say (especially in print!) that I don't think it's standing the test of time very well.  Of course I'm aware that artists, musicians, and writers, great ones, go in and out of fashion: a hundred years ago some museums had their Rembrandts stored in the basement. In his own children's time, or shortly thereafter, Bach all but disappeared from the classical repertory; and now certain so-called "great" writers are being re-evaluated.  Fitzgerald, for example, did not receive great recognition in his own time. Now "Gatsby" at any rate is up there with the best of them.

I'm one of those who, in the 50's, grew up under the spell of Hemingway's style and tried for much of my limited writing career to emulate him.  Of course I was never a Hemingway man: I didn't hunt or fish or run with the bulls in Pamplona or go on African safari, but I suppose I bought into the Hem legend of being (or wanting to be) a "Hemingway Man."  The Hem Man lived fast and loose, attracted both women and men, wrote with disciplinary precision, and, perhaps most important, faced danger and death heroically and stoically.  Hemingway did all or most of these things, except tragically he did not die young.  It seems the one thing he could NOT face was old-age disability and psychic and physical impotence.  If he had died in war or been gored by a bull or torn apart by an African lion, his death would have doubtless been considered heroic.  Instead, he put a shotgun in his mouth and killed himself.

Nonetheless, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in the 50's, principally for his then-considered powerful style and his late novella, "The Old Man and the Sea."  Neither of these is greatly admired today.  Hemingway's machismo persona comes across as rather comical, and his lean, journalistic style has been so often imitated and parodied that today it seems clichéd. 

What is left?  Maybe "A Moveable Feast," Hemingway's recollections of Paris in the 20's, which I do remember reading fairly recently with great respect.  As to the three great novels, "The Sun Also Rises," "A Farewell to Arms," and "For Whom the Bell Tolls," I leave it for future generations to decide.  Hard to believe that his earliest work is now approaching its 100th anniversary!

Federal Trade Commission Pamphlets

Protect Yourself

The Christmas season is fast approaching -

I can already hear the ding of the cash registers and the obnoxious honk-honk of the card readers. Protecting yourself should be in the back of everyone’s mind all year long.  Identity theft, compromised credit and bank cards, fraud, scams and data breaches have unfortunately become a way of life in the digital age. 

The library has free information on how to protect yourself and what to do if you fall victim to these crimes.  We recently received materials from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on the following topics:

Identity Theft – A Recovery Plan

Living Life Online – A Teen’s Guide to Life Online

Child ID Theft – What to Know, What to Do

Data Breaches – What to Know, What to Do

Charity Fraud

“You’ve Won” Scams

Grandkid Scams

Tech Support Scams

IRS Imposter Scams

Online Dating Scams

The best defense is a good offense!

Protect yourself and have a plan.