National Library Week 2019

This week (April 7-13) is National Library Week in the U.S. I noted the occasion in a blog post last year as well. If you’re interested you can read that here.

This year’s theme is “Libraries=Strong Communities”. Melinda Gates is the honorary chair. According to a USA Today article I read “In the last 20 years, Gates’ Global Libraries initiative has invested more than $1 billion in enhancing libraries and empowering communities.” A billion! Whew! That’s a lot of money.

Here are a couple other tidbits I got from the article:

- There are more public libraries in the U.S. than Starbucks. That’s quite a feat since it feels like there’s a Starbucks or two around every corner.

- The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world with more than 167 million items. And it’s a beautiful place. We visited it on one of our trips to Malice Domestic.

You can read the full article here.

I’m celebrating the week by catching up on my duties as We Love Libraries Coordinator for Sisters in Crime. This week I got to notify the Cudahy Family Library in Cudahy, WI that they were the winner of the March 2019 Doris Ann Norris We Love Libraries grant of $1000 to be used to buy content for the library. It’s always fun to give money away, particularly to libraries. Libraries can apply for the grant by going to https://www.sistersincrime.org/page/WeLoveLibraries and following the instructions

Cudahy Family Library Submission Photo

I’ll leave you with a video to watch from 2013 where the Seattle Public Library set a record with a book domino chain. Apparently, this record was broken in 2016 at the Frankfurt Book Fair. I still like this video better.

National Library Week

I’m at the tail end of my first round of edits for Designed For Haunting, the next book in my Aurora Anderson Mystery Series, but I’ve come out of my writing cave long enough to discover this week is National Library Week.

This is the 60th year of the celebration sponsored by the American Library Association. This year’s theme is “Libraries Lead” and its Honorary Chair is Misty Copeland, principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre. She is also the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Life in Motion.

I’m lucky to have many, many libraries within a reasonable distance of my home. That’s the good thing that comes out of living in a densely populated county. I’m a 15 minute walk from my hometown library in Manhattan Beach, a branch of the Los Angeles County Library system and named one of the most beautiful libraries in Los Angeles, and a short drive from several others. Right now I have four library cards. And, yes, I use them, some more than others.

I’m aware that libraries offer more than just books, e-books and movies these days, but I didn’t realize how much more until I read this article. Drones, vegetable seeds!, violins are all available from some libraries somewhere. I think that’s pretty amazing.

As We Love Libraries Coordinator for Sisters in Crime, it’s my pleasure every month to notify a library somewhere in the United States that they’ve won a $1000 grant to purchase books and audio books for their library. Any library in the U.S. is eligible as long as they haven’t won before. Please encourage your local library to apply for the grant. Simply have them go to http://www.sistersincrime.org/?page=WeLoveLibraries, fill out the form and include a photo of a library staff member with at least 3 books in the library’s collection written by Sisters in Crime members.

Well, I need to get back to my changes. If you’re attending Malice Domestic this year, I’ll be there too! I’m participating in the Malice Go-Round this year. I’m also on a panel Saturday morning 9-9:50 a.m. called The Art of Murder. Also on Saturday, I’ll be doing a Facebook Live interview with A Cozy Experience around 3pm Eastern Time. The interview will go live through their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/cozyexperience/