Library News – March 10, 2022

Welcome to the library. We look forward to seeing you as you browse our collections, enjoy our new (and familiar) spaces and perhaps attend a program. Please take note of the registration instructions for each program when you sign up.

As we start to reopen our doors and restart our program schedule, the staff and board of the Charlotte Library would like to remind the community of the circulation rules here. These rules ensure that all in our community have equal access to books and other materials in a timely and fair manner:

  1. All materials except for a few special items circulate for two weeks.
  2. Patrons are requested to return or renew materials by the due date.
  3. Patron accounts are restricted when materials are overdue by eight weeks. This restriction applies to circulation here and at all Homecard libraries.
  4. Restricted patrons may not check out any materials until the account is cleared. However, we are happy to keep books on two-day “layaway” until overdue items are returned or paid for.
  5. If you need help identifying overdue materials, we can provide a receipt listing all items checked on your account.

We appreciate your support and assistance as we strive to provide the best service at the library and best stewardship of this community resource. Please call or email us with any questions.

2022 Seed Catalog
Have a look at our new 2022 Seed Catalog, now available on the website and at the front desk.

We’re offering many past favorites, plus some which may be new to you. All are tried and true heritage varieties of vegetables, herbs and edible flowers which are easy to grow and easy to save seeds from. We invite you to add some of these to your garden this year.

You do not need to be an expert gardener to do this. We provide guidelines for eco-friendly gardening and successful seed saving so you can enjoy the fruits of your labors this year and have seeds ready for 2023 for yourself and to share with others. To request small packets of seeds from the 2022 catalog (no charge), email us. We will let you know when your seeds are ready for pick up in the foyer later in March. Seed Library coordinators Karen Tuininga and Linda Hamilton wish you happy garden planning!

Happening at the library

Teens & adults
Take and make

Make a cheery daffodil bouquet or decoupage a mini Altoid tin with colorful stamps. Available at the circulation desk while supplies last.

Kids
Cloud mobile
Make a mobile of four kinds of clouds: cumulonimbus, cirrus, cumulus and nimbostratus. These clouds are different shapes, and they can mean very different things for upcoming weather. This mobile of feathery clouds will twist and turn in a gentle breeze, plus a March rain cloud with sparkling showers!

Drop-in craft projects
We’ll begin offering drop-in craft projects that are fun and simple enough for all ages. Families are welcomed and encouraged to share this creative time together. A few craft stations will be set up in the children’s room with all the materials necessary for the project. To start off the program, there are two stations of coloring sheets—one with a castle theme and one with an African Plains theme.

Book chat
Fridays at 9:30 a.m. via Zoom
Join Margaret on Friday mornings at 9:30 to discuss new books, old books and books we might have missed. Each week, Margaret selects a theme and highlights related titles from the library collection.

Hack Club
Tuesdays at 3:30 p.m., March 1 – April 5
Join coders to build websites, games and art using many popular coding languages such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python and more.

Learn your way around the hardware with help from coding pros. Beginners are welcome. Advanced coders should definitely join, as we can work in Ruby, Rails, JavaScript and React, plus Unity and C# (for game dev). For queries and registration, contact Christina Asquith at [email protected].

Knitting drop-in at the Library
Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m.
Swing by for knitting night at the library. Dust off those old projects you’ve been wanting to finish, start a new project, or even pick up a new skill.

Jessica Card, a Shelburne Craft School knitting teacher, will be hosting and is excited about growing the in-person community of town knitters. She will be around to get people started, help with existing projects and working on a knitting project.

Garden Chat: Seed Saving
Friday, March 11, at 11:30 a.m.
Join seed library coordinators Karen Tuininga and Linda Hamilton to share questions and tips for successfully saving seeds from your vegetable garden this year. Register here.

Recycling right … in the blue bin and beyond
Saturday, March 12 at 10:30 a.m. Register here.
Join Chittenden Solid Waste District staff for a behind-the-scenes look at what happens to your household recycling after it leaves your house and find out why it’s so important to recycle right.

Workshop will cover what really in the blue bin and why other items can create big problems for the recycling system. Then it will go beyond the blue bin and explore the “special recycling” options for lots of things that can’t go in there. (Spoiler alert: You can bring some of them to this library.) There will be time to answer questions and settle family arguments (only about recycling), so bring your trickiest items and try to stump the recycling staff.

Short story selections
Thursday, March 17, at 1 p.m.
Join library director Margaret Woodruff to discuss short stories old and new. The reading list will include a variety of authors. One or two stories will be featured each session. Stories will be emailed to participants one week ahead of discussion session. Register here.

Rescheduled: Media Literacy Take Two
Thursday, March 30, at 7 p.m.
A conversation from last fall will be revived. There continue to be more opportunities for disinformation, declining trust in established news organizations and increasing popularity of conspiracy theorists.

Join us for a conversation on media literacy with Adam Davidson, Chea Waters-Evans and Jesse Wegman. Davidson co-founded Planet Money and has been a staff reporter for the New York Times and The New Yorker. Waters-Evans has been reporting in and about Charlotte for over a decade with The Citizen, the Shelburne News, The Charlotte News and The Charlotte Bridge. Wegman is an editorial board member of The New York Times. Register in advance.

COVIDHelp 05445
Charlotte Community Partners has been hard at work this winter launching COVIDhelp 05445 as a resource for our community.

There’s a lot of information out there about masking, testing and vaccinations and you may have questions, if not confusion. Charlotte Community Partners seeks to provide information and resources to assist your research and decision-making:

Info: Click for information sheet with general information and links to more detailed and reliable masking/testing/vaxxing information.

Masks: Charlotte Community Partners has gathered a supply of KN95 and KF94 masks. If you or your organization needs quality masks, please contact us or 802-425-3864.

Vax: You may also contact us if you need assistance making a vaccination appointment or a ride.

Tests: We do not currently have a supply of rapid antigen tests to distribute, but we can assist you with scheduling a testing appointment.

For the latest information about programs, books and activity kits, sign up for the monthly newsletter on the library website. (Use link for web post: Charlotte Library Newsletter.)

Library contact information
Margaret Woodruff, director
Cheryl Sloan, youth services librarian
Susanna Kahn, tech librarian
Phone: 802-425-3864
Email