Do you need to register to vote? We can help with that.
At the Dover Public Library, you can register to vote, update your address, or fill out an application for an absentee ballot. Turn in your forms at the library, and we’ll get them to the Board of Elections, no postage necessary.
The deadline to vote in the November election is OCTOBER 5.
Your vote counts! However you decide to vote, just VOTE.
Did you know the Dover Public Library has its own walking program for the fall?
If you were a fan of the Summer Walking Program, this program is a great next step. For each 15 minutes that you walk, you check off a box on the tracker. You can count all of your exercise: jogging, raking leaves, Zumba. Anything that gets you moving counts towards your goal!
I am a big fan of Fit for Fall. As the weather gets a little cooler, it’s a great reminder to get out and enjoy those wonderful fall colors. Being part of a community fitness program also helps keep me motivated. Plus, setting an achievable goal is important.
Thirty hours of walking (or other activity, remember!) is a lot of fitness, but is absolutely achievable in just over three months. If you do finish 30 hours of walking, you are eligible for a free T-shirt, and if you’re an overachiever, there is a grand prize drawing just for those who completely fill in the chart.
Deadline to turn in trackers is December 9, so we all have plenty of time to get fit this fall!
There have been a lot of changes at the library since we’ve reopened. Some everyone can see: free masks, more hand sanitizer, less computers open so users can spread out. Some are more behind the scenes. One such change is the elimination of the phone tree when you call in so you get to talk to a real person, real quick.
When staffing allows, we have a librarian dedicated to answering the phone in one of our staff work spaces, now affectionately nicknamed “the Switchboard.”
We get a lot of work done in the Switchboard, and we also get a lot of questions. Here are some of the most common:
What are your hours?
Our new hours are Monday through Friday 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Saturday 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. We are still closed on Sundays.
How do I return materials?
Due to health and safety guidelines, all materials returned to the Dover Public Library must be placed in our outdoor bookdrops. There is one in the back parking lot as you pull in from 6th Street, and one to the left of the front entrance.
I returned _____ . Why is it still on my card?
Books in Quarantine
All returned items are placed in Quarantine for three days before they are checked in. If you’re getting emails that items are being renewed, are overdue, or notice that items are still on your account, and you know the items were returned, please don’t worry! The items are probably here, just waiting in quarantine.
What are my overdue fines?
You don’t have any! We all have enough to worry about during this crazy time, so the Dover Public Library is fine-free until further notice.
We get some uncommon questions at the Switchboard as well. Here are some of my favorites:
Did you know that there are around 500 known species of sharks? That’s a lot of teeth!
Join us in the Children’s Department to learn even more about sharks this month as we celebrate these fascinating creatures with craft kits and books. Help us fill the ocean with many colored sharks on our Shark Wall and check out our other displays. Special freebies are also on hand in the Teen Room for older shark fans.
Check out our Shark Month kick-off story time on Facebook as Ms. Jen reads Misunderstood Shark.
With everything going on in the world, the library’s copies of the latest Hunger Games novel by Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, arrived about two months late. Was it worth the wait?
The short answer, from a Hunger Games fan, is YES! The long answer is… maybe?
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes takes place about sixty years before the original trilogy. The first two parts of the book follow the tenth Hunger Games, the annual competition slash punishment that takes twenty four children from the twelve districts of Panem and puts them in a fight to the death. This year the Capitol is trying something new: mentors. The first class of mentors includes students from the Capitol in their final year of school. Eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is one of those students, and he is assigned the female tribute from District 12.
Weighing in at 528 pages, this book, full of surprises and insights, is not what I would call light reading. It raises a lot of questions about Panem and about future villain Snow. The book tackles war, reformation, poverty, hatred, ambition… It makes you think.
Personally, I like this book. It was a good read. As a Hunger Games fan, I would recommend this to other fans. But fair warning: if you haven’t read The Hunger Games, you’ll need to after reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Then, you’ll probably want to read all four of them again.
