Teens

The Dover Public Library hosted their first “Living Library” in November of 2019.   Approximately 60 people were able to hold conversations with one of the 14 “living books” available that day.  According to Sherrel Rieger, Adult Program Specialist, “It was so successful that we planned to make it an annual event, but the pandemic changed that for the year 2020.  We are  happy to announce that the “Living Library” will return this year on November 13.”  

The Living Library program has been enjoyed for nearly two decades in 84 countries around the world.  It is designed to bring the community together through dialogue with people who are different from ourselves. The goal is to challenge prejudices and to help people understand racial and cultural issues, to be inspired by everyday heroes, and to learn more about ourselves through our connection with other people.  

How does the “Living Library” work?  The “books” (who are real people) will be seated around the library.  You come to the library and see which “books” are available.  After you “check out” one of “books,” you sit with that person and engage in an honest conversation with him/her for approximately 15 minutes.  Then, you can check out another book. You can check out as many books as time and availability allow.  

This year’s card catalog includes:  

Greta Baker, retired teacher/librarian and fashionista, Just Me!

Gamaliel Bautista, “Dreamer”, Our Dream

Victoria Buss, CEO of Clear Communications, Living the American Dream 

Pat Crolley, artist, The Memory Painter

Fred Delphia, retired band director and principal, It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got that Swing)

Perci Garner, Executive Director of The Rainbow Connection, Dreams and Wishes are Not the Same

Larry Glasgow, Desert Storm veteran, Soldier Survives SCUD Missile Attack

Glen Groh, retired principal and naturalist, It’s Me – GGG!

Linda Kate, former judge, From Juvenile Court to the Deserts of Iraq

Kathy Neal, director of a local women’s shelter, Beneath the Shade

Kathy Neal and Company, Temptation.

You can register ahead of time by calling the library at 330-343-6123.  Walk-ins are welcome on the day of the event, which is Saturday, November 13 from 10 AM till noon in the Community Room at the library located at 525 N. Walnut Street.  

On behalf of the library, I wanted to say thank you to the community for their overwhelming support of our plastic bench project. 

If you are not aware, the library began a partnership and a journey with an organization called the ABC Promise Partnership in the fall of 2020 with the aim of collecting plastic caps and lids which ultimately will be melted down and extruded into benches made of the recycled material.  If you did not know, the plastic that makes up caps and lids cannot be recycled with your average recyclable plastic. These plastic caps and lids would simply be discarded in the landfill. The ABC Promise Partnership strives to repurpose this plastic into something positive and useful in the community. 

For months and months we have been blessed with donations from the community. The donated caps and lids were sorted and weighed by volunteers (thank you Interact Club at Dover High School, library staff, and community volunteers!) and transported to a plastics factory in Indiana. 

At this time we have three benches made up of the donated caps and lids.  I wanted to say thank you to the sponsors who made the financial commitment to make this project a reality.

Starting with Dover Rotary and the Dover Exchange Club and expanding into donations from private individuals who care about leaving the world a better place, we were able to secure funding for five benches which will be placed on library grounds and throughout the community.

This project was a perfect example of how a group of people with a shared vision and a shared passion can transform something negative into something beautiful and sustaining. 

Thank you T-Valley!

-Jim Gill, Director

When you think of Historical Women in History, who comes to mind?

• Marie Curie: a two time Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry and Psychics.
• Elenanor Rossevelt: America’s First Lady for 12 years. Later, she served as U.S. delegate to the United Nations where she was instrumental in securing passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.   
• Malala Yousafzai: As a young girl, she defied the Taliban in Pakistan and demanded that girls be allowed to receive an education. She was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012 but survived. In 2014, she became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

These women and endless others have helped pave a path for generations of women to come. Congress declared March of 1987 to become the first official Women’s History Month. Since then we have welcomed and celebrated women and all of their fine achievements that make us stand out above and beyond. 

Here’s a short quiz!

1. The first African American to win an Academy Award was a woman.   True or False?     

2. The world’s first novel was written by a woman.     True Or False?     

3. What woman served as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, freeing hundreds of southern slaves and leading them to safety in the North? A $40,000 reward was offered for her capture. 

Scroll down for the answers. No cheating!

1. True! Hattie McDaniel won a best supporting actress award for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939)
2. True! Most scholars consider  The Tale of Genji to be the world’s first novel. It was written c. 1010 CE by Murasaki Shikibu.
3. Harriett Tumbman

Now go on to find a woman and thank her for her strength in this world that is still an uphill battle for women’s rights.

-Ellen Lint, Library Assistant