by Catherine Stanton | Jun 7, 2016 | Adult Arena, Blog |
This year, adult summer reading is all about stretching your brain, so we thought it might be good to let our patrons have the opportunity to try out some new skills and experiences to aid in their mental growth. For the next se
ven Thursday evenings, we’ll have something for you to sample. Come on by for the weekly fun!
June 9 – REMEDIAL UKE
7:00 in the Community Room
It’s all the rage! The ukulele is the cool instrument to carry, strum, pluck, and sing along with. If you’ve got one that you wish you knew what to do with, bring it tonight and let Brian Stanton get you started on a life time of musical glee.
June 16 – BOOK CLUB
6:30 in the Foyer Lounge
Ever wanted to be in a book club? Here’s your chance! Check out a copy of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows from the circulation desk and join the discussion.
June 23 – BIRDING
7:00 in the Community Room
Like to get to know your feathered friends? Expert ornithologist, Ririe Godfrey, will help you get started, giving clues about what to look for and where to find the avian wonders.
June 30 – SEW SOMETHING FUN
7:00 in the Community Room
Here’s your chance to make something fun and easy that you’ll actually use! Make either a fun flippy summer skirt or a wild tie while someone coaches you through it. You’ll need to bring your own fabric for this one, but we’ll have the rest. For a flippy skirt, bring poly/cotton fabric in a fun print. How much? If your hips measure 40 inches or less, you’ll need about 7/8 of a yard. If they’re bigger, a yard and a half will be better. If you’re wanting to make a tie, bring 1 1/4 yards for a regular tie (It takes a lot due to the way they’re cut, but you can probably get 2 ties out.) or 1/4 for a quick fakie.” Please let us know that you’re coming so that we can try to get an appropriate number of machines and notions.
July 7 – BOOKMAKING
7:00 in the Community Room
If you haven’t tried your hand at creating a handmade book, you’re in for a treat. Master crafter, Leslie Twitchell, will help you create a one of a kind volume to amaze your relations and friends. All materials will be provided.
July 14 – GROUP ART ACTIVITIES
7:00 in the Community Room
Try out your latent artistic skills and bond with others in two group art activities, post-it portrait and sketch crawl. Prepare to create, bond with other budding artists, and maybe get a little bit crazy.
July 21 – BOOK CLUB
6:30 in the Foyer Lounge
Here’s another chance to try on the book club experience. We’ll be reading and discussing Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam. We don’t have a book club kit for this title, but have quite a few copies in our biography section. Read them quickly and return them so that others can participate in this discussion.
by Catherine Stanton | May 25, 2016 | Blog |
COGNITION IGNITION
This kit has everything you need to understa
nd how your control center works and tools to kick into high gear. There are books, documentaries, and lots of fun brain games to make sure your gray matter is well wrinkled.
A DAY AT THE BEACH
This is the kit to help you dial things down a notch. This kit’s contents incl
ude books on all kinds on things you’d see while lying on your beach mat by the ocean. It also has a book for quiet reflection, a DVD of ocean waves, and yes, a beach mat to lie on.
by Catherine Stanton | May 24, 2016 | Blog |
Librarians walked into a surreal atmosphere in the General Coll
ection on Saturday morning: a lake of standing water, fed by a cascade between the adult fiction shelves and the public computers, surrounded the reference desk and computer islands. Computers were quickly covered in trash bags and shelves of books were moved out of the area of greatest danger.
A huge thanks goes to the Madison Fire Department and Trent Munns, our first responder, who helped get out the water-logged ceiling tiles and helped prevent further damage.
Our next r
esponder was a roofing expert who looked around and found absolutely nothing wrong.
Then, Advanced Cleaning and Restoration came, located the source of problem, and quickly
fixed it. It appears that the drain pipe designed to carry water from the roof had come dislodged, and all of the water funneling towards it simply fell through to create our lake.
Since the
n, there’s been a lot of drying going on with towels, shop vacs, and blowers. New ceiling tiles are up and things look fairly normal. Only 43 books were lost at an estimated cost of $900. 
What else needs to be done? We still need to replace the damaged books, insulate around the pipe, and fix some damaged drywall. And of course, our poor director has a mountain of paperwork.
All said, i
t could have been much, much worse. If the center of the cascade had been a foot off in either direction, either our computers or hundreds and hundreds of books would have been lost. We have been very fortunate because of the placement of the leak, the great people that have helped throughout this difficulty, and the patience and understanding of our patrons. Thank you.
by Catherine Stanton | May 19, 2016 | Adult Arena, Blog |
M
IDDLE AGES – No, not the years between 30 and 60. Explore the crusades, King Arthur, monasteries, etc, with lively histories, folklore, an gripping mystery, and a rib tickling documentary.
LANDSCAPING
– Whip that yard into shape this summer with books and tools to guide you. In addition to six great books on the subject, you’ll find templates, french curves, and a flexible ruler to help you plan your dream yard.
by Catherine Stanton | May 19, 2016 | Adult Arena, Blog |
In 1987, a young mother named Lorna Smith began her work as the Children’s Librarian at the Madison Library District. In the nearly three decades since, she has been the heart of the library as she served in many different capacities, assisting patrons of all ages and touching lives with her knowledge, wisdom, and kindness. As she retires, she will be sorely missed by visitors to the library and by her co-workers who have long looked to her as 
an example to strive towards. As Assistant Director Miranda Galbraith said, “Lorna has been such an inspiration and example. Her vast knowledge of all things book related will be greatly missed, but more than that we will miss seeing her every day. Her humor and wit has made working at the library that much sweeter.” The library will host a retirement reception for Lorna and invite any who would like to wish her well in her new adventures to drop by on Thursday, May 26th, between 4 and 6 P.M. The event will be held in the Madison Library District Community Room, located at 73 N. Center St. in Rexburg.
Lorna was born and raised in Rexburg, the youngest of four children. Her first job was working in Ashliman’s Shoe Store on Main Street which was owned by her father. You can still see the influence today in her fun footwear, both shoes and socks!
She met her husband Randy at Madison High School. They dated through their senior year and married when he returned from his LDS mission. In the meantime, she was attending Ricks College and then BYU in Provo majoring in English and Secondary Education.
Her husband’s law career eventually brought them back to the area. With four children ranging from four to fifteen at home, taking what was then a half time position as Children’s Librarian was the perfect fit for her. The library was such a good fit, that she left for three years, from 1991 to 1994, to add a media endorsement to her teaching certificate. She returned in 1994 as our Young Adult Librarian, a position she held for nine years. During that time, she developed a lasting love for YA literature.
In 2003, she began a five year position as the Madison’s Assistant Director and began to manage the Adult Fiction collection. She has managed Adult Fiction, including collection development decisions, acquiring books, behind the scenes work of cataloguing, etc., ever since. She has large metaphoric shoes to fill as she leaves us.
When not at work, Lorna has enjoyed naps, walking, scrapbooking, crocheting, and baking. All the librarians have been especially grateful for this last interest and rejoiced when she tried a new cake recipe. She loves classical music and enjoys playing the piano. Most of all, Lorna loves family time and playing games with her children and 17 grandkids! She also has a fondness for cats, which she describes as beautiful and affectionate creatures that are entertaining to no end. Oscar and Coraline (a literary tie-in to Neil Gaiman’s children’s novel) currently keep her amused. She is developing extensive plans to explore these interests more in the coming months.
Mostly, Lorna loves to read. She has always been, decidedly, the librarian with the widest literary tastes. She reads all genres in all age groups and loves to try new authors. She says that if she had to pick a favorite type of book it would be either psychological suspense or literary fiction. Unlike most of the librarians, coming up with a favorite book of all time was fairly easy – Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo. When asked why that particular book had such an appeal for her, she replied, “First and foremost, eve
ryone loves a good story. I really got caught up in this dramatic tale of mystery and intrigue. The last line in the book is one of my favorite quotes from literature ‘All human wisdom is contained in the words ‘Wait and hope!’’” We hope Lorna’s coming days are full of the joy that she has brought so many others through her years as a librarian.
by Catherine Stanton | May 11, 2016 | Adult Arena, Blog |
Young library patrons have had a great time with their Discovery Kits for years. Soon, very soon, adult patrons will be able to enjoy Exploration Kits!
Yes, I know you’ve been hearing rumors about this for a long, long time, but we’re serious about this now. How serious? So serious that Saturday, May 14th, we’re putting Birds, Birding and Birders out on the new shelf and will let someone take it home with field guides, true tales, a fun bird related novel, and a pair of binoculars to help you explore a new interest.
After that, we plan to get out two kits per week through June. We’ll keep you posted on which kits will be released next. Will the next one be practical? Silly? Keep checking in to find out!
by Catherine Stanton | Jan 27, 2016 | Staff Picks |
“The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook” by Jessamyn Rodriguez
I almost hate to draw attention to this book – because then someone else will want it, and I’ll have to bring it back.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been having a great time hovering around my oven and trying recipes from The Hot Bread Kitchen by Jessamyn Rodriguez and Julia Turshen. Rodriguez and Turshen operate a bakery in New York City where they hire immigrant women to share the secrets of their homelands. This book is loaded with amazing recipes from around the world. So far, I’ve made focaccia (much easier than I would have thought,) pita bread (very tasty but much messier than I would have imagined,) naan-e qandi (an Iranian sweet bread that is definitely going into the “keep” file in spite of the eight hour rise time,) and Guyanese coconut buns (which are so good and so easy that I’ll probably make them far too frequently for my waistline.) I think Moroccan m’smen may be next, or maybe sesame lavash. Just nobody request this book until I work my way entirely through! Ahhhh, OK, I’ll share. Do yourself a favor and try the coconut buns. Really, your waistline will curse you for it, but the rest of you will dance with joy.
by Catherine Stanton | Dec 14, 2015 | Adult Arena |
Wednesday, January 6th at 6:30
Community Room
Coloring isn’t for kids anymore. Grown-ups, leave the kids home and bring your coloring books, crayons, pencils, markers for an evening of grown up relaxation. Don’t have books and pencils? Just come; we’ll share!
by Catherine Stanton | Oct 28, 2015 | Adult Arena |
I’ll soon begin another round of NaNoWriMo, known to non-Wrimos as National Novel Writing Month. Each fall the challenge is thrown down and fool-hardy people accept it not knowing what they’re getting themselves into. The truly insane do it again, and again, and again.
It all started when a group of friends in San Francisco dared one another to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in one month. Most of them bombed out early on in the ordeal, but a handful actually did it. Granted, they were horrible novels, but then, that’s what first drafts are for. The next year, friends of the friends wanted to try it as well, and from there . . . Well, last November there were 325,000 lunatics worldwide typing and/or scribbling away.
The staggering majority of these novelists will never be published. The authors will never make a dime from their hard work. They will have spent thirty days staying up late, getting up early, neglecting family and friends, letting the dishes and newspapers stack up, going without exercise, neglecting their hygiene, and living on food not fit for a warthog. They’ll also tear their hair, spurt expletives, and wonder why on earth they signed up for this. It’s crazy.
When I finished 26 Ways to Die in a Cave, everyone asked if I had a publisher, an agent, etc. I didn’t. When I’d I typed “The End” on The Baker Ladies Terrorist Society, people remembered the previous year and asked what ever happened to the first novel. – A few revisions and not much else. I sense the general attitude is, if you’re not going to make a buck from this, why put yourself through it?
The answer hit me during a recital I was giving with some friends. No one came up after the performance and asked if I’d signed a recording contract. Now, that isn’t to say that I wouldn’t happily accept a deal from Sony; but if that never happens, I don’t consider the hours of practice a waste. My musical pursuits have helped me express myself. They’ve allowed me to grow in areas that would be basically dead without them. They’ve broadened my understanding. They’ve heightened my senses. They’ve enriched my life.
My first experience with NaNoWriMo set off little sparklers inside my brain. There were connections being made that were entirely new and exciting. I felt more enthused about life than at any time in recent memory. In spite of the lack of sleep, the bad food, and a long list of other deplorable elements, I felt wholly alive. It was amazing. It broadened my understanding. It heightened my senses. It enriched my life.
Now I’m not about to say that everyone should be writing 50,000 every November, (although, you might want to give it a shot) but I do think that trying something insane periodically is almost required for optimal brain health. If we don’t push our limits, our limits shrink. We become capable of less and less. It’s the use it or lose it philosophy. It works with muscles. It works with talents. It works with brain capacity.
Find an area where your brain isn’t being used. Maybe it’s writing. Maybe it’s belly-dancing. Maybe it’s building a canoe. Whatever the new unknown area is, don’t dabble. Immerse yourself and ignite some fireworks in your brain. Make some connections. Heighten some senses. Enrich your life.
If you do decide that writing a novel will light your torch, the Madison Library District has tools that might help. Consider titles such as: On Writing; If You Can Talk, You Can Write; No Plot, No Problem; Dancing on the Head of a Pin; Blood on the Floor, The Courage to Write; or Book in a Month. In addition to advice in printed form, we’ll be holding write-ins in our community room on Tuesday, November 3, and Tuesday, November 10, from 6 -8 P.M. where you can focus on your writing without home distractions and rub shoulders with other WriMos. Many other NaNoWriMo events will be take place around town conducted by Rexburg’s official Municipal Liaisons. Find out more about them and sign up to become an official WriMo at www.nanowrimo.org.
Another way we’ll help with your writing is a presentation on Thursday, November 5, at 7 P.M. in our community room. Scientist and author Lee Falin. Mr. Falin was also a presenter at our recent teen writer’s symposium where his program on genetics in fantasy and science fiction was enthusiastically received. This time his topic will be:
How to Carry Out your Own Research: Do you have a science idea for a story but are unsure how sciency it really is? In this presentation you’ll learn how to go beyond Wikipedia and other questionable websites in order to see what real scientists are saying about a given topic. Learn how to cut through the scientific gobbledygook scientists use to write their papers so that you can understand just what they are saying, and (often more importantly) what they aren’t saying.
Whatever your writing project, there’s something at the library to help. If belly-dancing or canoe building are more what you had in mind, the library is a great place to get started with those as well. Visit us at 73 North Center Street in downtown Rexburg. Our regular hours are Monday-Thursday 9-8; Friday 10-6; and Saturday 10-4. You can also reach us at 356-3461, or visit our website at www.madisonlib.org.
Catherine Stanton is Madison Library District’s Adult Services Librarian.
ven Thursday evenings, we’ll have something for you to sample. Come on by for the weekly fun!
6:30 in the Foyer Lounge
