Highland County Public Library E-Newsletter January 2008

The library annual public meeting is coming up on Tuesday, January 22 at 7:00 p.m. in the Mountain View Room in the library. We’ll dazzle you with a multimedia presentation on the 2007 Year in Review at the Library. We’ll also be electing new members to our board of directors. Anyone who has paid their membership dues this year is eligible to vote. We’re serving refreshments and everyone is invited.

I recently realized that our music CD collection was seriously lacking in bluegrass music. I immediately went shopping and stocked the library with classics from Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys, and the original Carter Family. I also added CD’s of bluegrass gospel and mountain music. For those interested in the origins of bluegrass music I purchased a DVD, “High Lonesome, The Story of Bluegrass Music.”

We recently launched a new blog for the library. For those of you unfamiliar with blogs (short for weblogs) it is an online diary of sorts. I use the library’s blog to post updates on what is happening at the library on a day-to-day basis. I also blog about topics related to libraries in general. The blog allows readers to comment on specific posts so you can provide feedback. We hope to use your feedback to improve services at the library. If you’re interested in an insider’s view of what’s going on at the Highland County Public Library then check out the blog at http://highlanderslovetoread.blogspot.com. You can also find it on the front page of the library web site at www.highlandlibrary.com.

Now that the snowy season is here I wanted to remind you all that even when the schools are closed the library is usually open. The only time we close for weather is when the county offices close or when I absolutely cannot get out of my driveway, which means we very rarely close.

Come by the library check out the newest titles, including Sara Paretsky’s “Bleeding Kansas,” Kay Hooper’s “Blood Dreams,” Leslie Meier’s “The Worst Hard Time,” Douglas Preston’s “Blasphemy,” Geraldine Brook’s “People of the Book,” Minette Walters’s “The Chameleon’s Shadow,” Sue Miller’s “The Senator’s Wife,” Janet Evanovich’s “Plum Lucky,” and Arturo Perez-Reverte’s “The Painter of Battles.” In non-fiction we have Stephen Colbert’s “I Am America (And So Can You)” and Joseph J. Ellis’s “An American Creation: Tragedies and Triumphs at the Founding of the Republic.”