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October 24 Newsletter

October 24 Newsletter

HPL Newsletter Oct 24

October 01, 2024

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What’s new at the library?

Cooking with Caleigh

Upcoming Programs

Calendar of Events

Art Exhibit

Friends of the Library

The Friends are raffling off three brand new designer hand bags! Stop by the library to get your tickets! And while you’re here you can sign up for a 25 minute massage. All proceeds go to the Friends of the Library.

Thriller reads for October

Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Mister Magic by Kiersten White
The Fury by Alex Michaelides
Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
Bad Graces by Kyrie McCauley

Recommend a Book

Read a really good book recently that you think other people should read as well? Let us know and we’ll share it in a future newsletter!

Request a Recommendation

Want a personalized recommendation? Fill out the form to let us know what kind of book you’re looking for!

Suggest an Item for purchase

Want to read, watch, or listen to something the library doesn’t own? Let us know and we will consider purchasing it for our collection.

New Books

From the Director

Last week, we joined libraries across the country for Banned Books Week, a celebration of the “rights to read and find freedom in the pages of a book.” (ALA.org)

You may have seen our book display or social media posts where staff members shared their favorite banned books (from the American Library Association’s {ALA} Top 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books: 2010-2019). If you haven’t seen the posts, please take a look at our selections on Facebook and Instagram. Let us know in the comments what your favorite banned books are, or just tell us in person the next time you visit!

A challenged book is a title that someone has publicly denounced in an attempt to restrict its access or remove it from the shelves completely. The collection can be in a school or public library. We don’t have time to go into the multitude of reasons why books are challenged and banned, suffice it to say that challenges persist, and are on the rise.

To reiterate, Banned Books Week is NOT a week to celebrate book challenges, but to recognize that challenges exist and that these titles are still on our shelves. Each year, libraries, librarians, and book lovers highlight books that have been targeted to bring a wider awareness to these objections and why. According to the ALA, there were 4,240 book titles targeted in 2023, which is a 65% increase from 2022. Banned Book Week is a celebration of freedom, and what it means to be an American. It’s a way to defend our First Amendment rights, that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.”

We will definitely have a book in our collection that you find offensive, no matter who you are. But every book on our shelves and on our servers has been selected specifically for its merit as art, literature, or as an historical document, and is accessible to anyone who cares to find it. Our collection is something we hold with high regard, and it’s a privilege to be in a position to build it and defend its contents.

Please read more about Banned Books, the nature of challenges that exist, why they are on the rise, and if you hear about a title that’s challenged, I advise you to read it yourself!

Thank you for reading banned books!