Stuck in a reading rut? Want to expand your reading horizons in 2026? You’re in luck! Every month this year, we will be delving deep into popular genres at the library. If you’re already a fan, find readalike suggestions for popular authors and ideas for similar genres to explore. If you’re brand new to the genre in question, you will find a helpful explanation of the hallmarks of the genre, a breakdown of its most common subgenres, and explanations of what readers find so appealing about the most popular authors writing those types of books. First up, suspense!
Continue reading “Exploring Genre: Suspense”Month: January 2026
Celebrate Berryville: Map
Last month, we closed for a day for staff training. And you may wonder what we do for staff trainings.
Part of our last training day was devoted to a session on providing reader’s advisory services, which I conducted, and most of the rest of the day was blocked off for us to attend the 2025 Rural Library Network eSummit.
I signed up for an eSummit session called “Plotting Possibilities: Visualizing Rural Library Partnerships.” It talked about how libraries can incorporate creating maps into their programming and services, and it was very interesting. I immediately started wondering about how to apply mapping to our Celebrate Berryville project.
It took me about 6 weeks of planning, researching, and mapping, but we are very pleased to now unveil our Celebrate Berryville map, which features locations highlighted throughout the program. Our hope is it will be an ongoing project and that we can add additional locations that come to our attention in the future.
Continue reading “Celebrate Berryville: Map”Celebrate Berryville: January 2026
The year 2025 was a historic one for the Berryville Public Library and, by extension, for the town of Berryville. We broke ground on the new library last April, so the library should be finished this summer. Preparation for the new building has made us at the Berryville Library nostalgic and reflective, not just about the library’s history but also about the town’s history. Other seminal moments in Berryville Library history occurred in 1938 and 1978, so we spent the year looking back on what Berryville was like then, as well as what it is like now, as we also look to the future. This is the final regular blog post of the Celebrate Berryville project, and we’ll be looking at where Berryville shops.
Continue reading “Celebrate Berryville: January 2026”Free to Be: January
This year marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It’s an important historical birthday for the United States, and we will be celebrating it all year-round with our new Free to Be series. With respect to Marlo Thomas, our Free to Be posts will be celebrating unique freedoms we enjoy as Americans. And first up, we’re looking at how we’re free to learn.
Continue reading “Free to Be: January”
Berryville Book Buzz 