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By Kat Gore, July 13, 2019 for the Sonoma County Gazette Not finding what you are looking for at your local library? Starting July 15, you will have access to a single, online searchable catalog of over 70 California and Nevada libraries; all you need is your Sonoma County Library card. With this new free service, called LINK+ , patrons can request books, DVDs, audiobooks, music CDs and more to be delivered to their local branch. LINK+ is known for its speedy service, with most items...

By Laura Hagar Rush, Sonoma West Times & News, June 12, 2019. This summer the Sebastopol library will offer a series of free mental health classes for teenagers, thanks to an innovative partnership between the Sonoma County Library system and Social Advocates for Youth (SAY), a nonprofit offering mental health and housing services for youth. The first group will be held on Tuesday, June 18, from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at Sebastopol Regional Library, 7140 Bodega Ave., Sebastopol. Sebastopol is...

With graduation season upon us, I have been thinking a lot about one of my favorite graduation speeches. It’s the speech that Shonda Rhimes, creator of Grey’s Anatomy, gave in 2014 at Dartmouth College. She references the typical expected advice from a graduation speech: “Follow your dreams. Listen to your spirit. Change the world. Make your mark. Find your inner voice and make it sing. Embrace failure. Dream. Dream and dream big..." And then she says, “I think that’s crap.”

Combining laundry time and storytime is not a new concept, but the Laundry and Literacy Coalition — a recent partnership between the LaundryCares Foundation, Libraries Without Borders and the Clinton Foundation’s Too Small to Fail initiative — is taking it a step further, piloting a project to install literacy spaces for kids under 6 years of age in 600 laundromats by 2020. It’s a joint effort to make early literacy programs available to underserved communities via laundromats nationwide.

Intent on finding a safe place to spend the day, the elderly woman trudged into the public library, burdened with several bags of precious possessions. She was immediately greeted by the sight of a library worker thrusting out a hand and snapping, “No, you can’t bring those things in here.” “She said she felt like she was being struck,” explains Caroline Sharkey. A licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) on the faculty of the University of Georgia’s School of Social Work in Athens, Sharkey...

We are excited to offer an exclusive virtual screening to all ACEs Connection members of the new, acclaimed film, CRACKED UP . This documentary film is about the long term effects of childhood trauma, told through Saturday Night Live veteran Darrell Hammond’s journey in discovering adverse childhood experiences at the root of his lifelong battle with self-harm, addiction, and misdiagnosis. The film’s director, Michelle Esrick, and other special guests will join us after the screening window...

Books on Indigenous communities often get looped into the history section. As a result, information on Native peoples literally gets left in the past. Xwi7xwa Library (pronounced whei-wha) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, is working to change that. The library aims to counter Western, colonial bias and better reflect the knowledge of Indigenous peoples. By offering an alternative to the widely used Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification systems, this...

Months before its release, friends and family began sending me links to the movie trailer for “The Public.” It made them think of me, they said. In the film, a passion project of actor-director Emilio Estevez, homeless patrons, unable to face another night in the subzero Cincinnati winter, refuse to leave, and “occupy” the public library. While critics and moviegoers may view aspects of “The Public” as dramatic license, for me it was the first time I ever saw my job reflected on the screen...

Community rallies around library with art after vandalism incident March 30, 2019 — The Siuslaw Public Library turned an act of vandalism into an opportunity for art and free speech this week, as community members of all ages helped create public art to place over the library’s recently broken windows. A total of eight pieces of “pop-up” art were hung over the library’s recently destroyed windows, with each panel representing differing questions such as “What do you love about the library?”...

The first five years of a child’s life are critical for language exposure, but studies suggest children in lower-income families often don’t experience the rich literary environment wealthier kids do. A New York City initiative trying to close that gap encourages reading in a spot families visit every week -- but don't usually consider educational. Special correspondent Lisa Stark reports. [For more on this story by Lisa Stark, go to...

Five-year-old Logan Brinson opened Logan’s Little Library right on his front lawn after his family found out their new hometown didn’t have a library. Ever since, the little library trend has taken off. To view the 4-minute video clip, please click here.

For many years, the Library of Congress categorized many of its books under a controversial subject heading: “Illegal aliens.” But then, on March 22, 2016, the library made a momentous decision, announcing that it was canceling the subject heading “Illegal aliens” in favor of “Noncitizens” and “Unauthorized immigration.” However, the decision was overturned a few months later, when the House of Representatives ordered the library to continue using the term “illegal alien.” They said they...