Hope all of our patrons and blog readers have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
The library is closed today and tomorrow for Christmas. We’re also closing early next Tuesday, December 31, at 4:30 pm, and closing all of Wednesday, January 1 to welcome in 2025.
However, just because the library is closed doesn’t mean you can’t still use our resources!
Continue reading “Happy Holidays from the Berryville Public Library!”
This week is National Friends of Libraries Week, which means it is the perfect time to celebrate and tout our very own Friends of the Berryville Library group!
Continue reading “Friend the Library!”
In early November, our Berryville Library Building Project launched a fundraising challenge: raise $300,000 before the end of the year. If we reach this goal, we have an anonymous donor who will donate $100,000 to the building fund. The combined $400,000 from this challenge would get us to $3.2 million already raised since April 2021 and allow us to set a date to break ground in 2024. The plan is to then raise the remaining $300,000 needed during the building process.
In November, we raised an amazing $150,000, 50% of our goal, through a mailing, radio spots on our local KTHS and KUAF stations, and a telethon on KTHS.
We cannot thank the people who donated and helped us with the telethon and mailing and other fundraising efforts enough. However, we still need to raise that other 50% to reach our goal!
Continue reading “$150K Down, $150K to Go Before December 31st!”
It’s October, which means it’s time to start renewing your Friends of the Berryville Library memberships! Or joining for the first time. 🙂
We’ve had a really eventful year for the Friends, so keep reading to learn more about how the building project and other Friends work is progressing.
Continue reading “Nothing’s Sweeter Than Being a Friend of the Library”When left to my own devices, I tend to binge-read about subjects or to binge-read authors and/or series. That works well for me, but it’s something I try to avoid inflicting on the readers of this blog because I seriously doubt anyone else is as interested in some of these literary rabbit trails as I am. (You’re welcome.)
Lately, however, I’ve been exploring some mystery and espionage thriller series I’ve been meaning to read for a while, and I did want to share those.
Continue reading “What Have You Been Reading? Detective, Detective, Spy Edition”
If you’ve been following our blog for any length of time or are a resident of Carroll County, you likely know about our quest to raise money for a new library building. Whenever people ask us what they can do to help, donating to our Berryville Library Building Project fund probably comes to mind first. And, of course, that’s a fantastic way to help. But if you really want to help, we ask that you also join the Friends of the Berryville Library.
This week is National Friends of Libraries Week. Friends groups are indispensable allies for libraries everywhere, but our Friends group is particularly important to us because it has been one of the driving forces in helping us reach our goal of building a new library.
Continue reading “We Get By With a Little Help From Our Friends (Of the Berryville Library)”
I’ve written on here before about my propensity for being years late to iconic TV shows. It’s almost always things that have been strongly recommended to me before, and it’s usually something I know is right up my alley, and I always eventually end up watching whatever it is and wondering why I didn’t watch it sooner. But I still keep doing it!
I love Westerns, but it took me 13 years to get around to watching Deadwood. I love modern Westerns and crime shows, but it took me about 5 years to get around to watching Justified. (It should feel quite flattered compared to Deadwood.)
I also love espionage thrillers and crime dramas but until recently had never gotten around to watching either The Americans or The Wire. You see where this is going. . . .
Continue reading “Television: When You’re Late to the Party. . . .”
I’ve often written on here about the importance of Friends of the Library groups, in particularly our own hard-working Friends of the Berryville Library, Inc. And that importance can’t be overstated now, especially since we launched our fundraising campaign for a new library facility six months ago.
We’ve raised an amazing amount of money in that time (nearly $985,000–39% of our goal), and we have continued to grow our Friends membership to a record 175 people.
Continue reading “Everyone Needs a Little Help from Their Friends!”
I’ve written on here before about the importance of Friends of the Library groups. Libraries provide their communities with a better future through access to information, books, and technology (and more), but Friends of the Library groups provide libraries themselves with a better future. That’s because Friends groups provide funding and volunteers for operations and services that the library may not be able to provide the community with their existing budget and staffing. They also function as advocates for the library.
Continue reading “Be a Friend . . . to Our Library!”
I’d like to think of myself as a rational person, one who makes measured, well-thought out decisions. Sometimes, I make impulsive decisions, however. These are almost always bad decisions. My latest impulsive decision was to watch last year’s critically panned adaptation of the musical Cats. I have no idea what I expected, but all the internet chatter about how bad this movie is still didn’t prepare me for what I was to witness. I thought about giving it a conventional review, but this is not a conventional movie. So, instead I wrote this, a guide to watching Cats. I sacrificed my sanity, so you don’t have to sacrifice yours. You’re welcome.
Beware, there be spoilers . . . and incredibly creepy cats.
Continue reading “How to Lose Your Mind Watching Cats, a Step-By-Step Guide”
Berryville Book Buzz 