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Update on the New Library Building
After competitive bidding from, and a multi-step interview process of, several architectural firms during the summer months, two have been retained to work together to design the new public library building - Friar Architects of Farmington along with HBM Architects of Columbus, Ohio. HBM has previously designed several hundred public libraries throughout the country.
Public input sessions have been scheduled for October 18 at 6:30 p.m. and October 19 at 10:00 a.m., to be conducted in the Howroyd Room downstairs at the current Mary Cheney library building. This will be a good opportunity for interested Manchester residents to let the architects know the types of appearances, services, furniture, and equipment you'd like to have or not to have in the new library.
Oversight for the planning and construction of the public library is being performed by a volunteer 12-person Library Building Committee appointed by the Town Board of Directors earlier this year. Ongoing information about this project is posted regularly at YourVoiceMattersManchesterCT.com.
Summer Reading Wrap-Up
It was a record breaking year this summer for our Adult Summer Reading Program! We had 1,074 registrants, with 6,344 total books read. Congratulations to our three grand prize winners who have been selected and notified. Thank you to everyone who participated in Adult Summer Reading this year either by logging books or attending some of our great programs.
As to our Teen Summer Reading Program, we had 309 participants who read a total of 748 books. Four lucky teens won our big prizes!
Our Children's Summer Reading program also had a great summer, with 996 participants and 7,608 books read. Great job, everyone, and we hope you had fun!
New Book Clubs at the Library
MPL has two new book clubs this fall - Happily Ever After Book Club for adults and Graphic Novel Book Club for teens. Details on both are below.
Happily Ever After Book Club
Romance books are taking the reading world by storm! Authors like Colleen Hoover, Emily Henry, and Ali Hazelwood have become immensely popular due to social media platforms like TikTok. If you've been swept up in this trend, or would like to know what all the hype is about, come to our new Happily Ever After Book Club. We'll be reading and discussing some of the most talked about romance books of today, as well as some perennial favorites and sleeper hits. Meetings will be once a month on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. Our first two books were "Regretting You" by Colleen Hoover and "The Hating Game" by Sally Thorne. The next two selections are:
November 6 - "The Love Con" by Seressia Glass
December 20 - "The Bodyguard" by Katherine Center
Graphic Novel Book Club
If you're a teen and a fan of graphic novels, manga, or comic books, this book club is for you! The Graphic Novel Book Club meets once a month to talk about new, popular, and classic graphic novels. September's pick was "Swim Team" by Johnnie Christmas and in October we will read "Pumpkinheads" by Rainbow Rowell. That will be followed by "Danger and Other Unknown Risks" by Ryan North & Erica Henderson in November and "Lost in Taiwan" by Mark Crilley in December. Meetings will be once a month on Tuesdays at 3:30 p.m. Come meet others who share your love of graphic novels and discover more great titles to enjoy!
Library Resource Spotlight: AtoZdatabases
Did you know that your Manchester library card gives you access to AtoZdatabases, a website with a multitude of resources? AtoZdatabases is a Job Search, Reference & Mailing List Database that includes 30 million business & executive profiles & 240 million residents. It's ideal for sales leads, mailing lists, market research, employment opportunities, finding friends and relatives, and much more! Go to https://www.manchesterct.gov/Government/Departments/Library/Reference-and-Adult-Services#section-2 for a complete list of all the databases available with your MPL card and scroll down to AtoZdatabases to get started.
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