Dear Residents,
The warm, relaxing days of August are a distraction from the stark realities of a new school year and all the necessary planning and preparing.
Once the school year begins, the weight of homework on students and parents is undeniable. We have many resources available at the library and through our website to lessen the burden. The best place to start is Homework Help at www.cshlibrary.org, where you can find the free online tutoring service, Brainfuse. For students of foreign languages, Mango Languages is a self-paced audio-visual program with more than 40 languages to choose from.
Your professional library staff has put together an impressive series of programs for all ages. There will be librarian-led book discussions for grades 1-6, as well as for adults, in the morning and evening. In November, I will lead a discussion of Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. This powerful story about a WWII airman provides lots of material for a lively discussion about many life-changing moments.
This summer marked our second year of free eBook downloads from our website. To date, hundreds of readers have captured thousands of titles. Some use a smartphone, some a PC, and others a Kindle, tablet, or iPad. Whatever your device of choice, the librarians are eager to assist you with the download process.
Due to demand, we added a second download service for audiobooks, OneClickdigital from Recorded Books. So, if listening is your pleasure, you now have access to over 3,000 titles that are always available, with no waitlists.
Here in Cold Spring Harbor and throughout the Town of Huntington, there are many civic, cultural, recreational, and educational opportunities. Some families have lived here for generations, while others came here for all the reasons why we stay. In this period of economic uncertainty, the library is a community gathering place where neighbors become friends, and real issues about your life, family, and future can be discussed and debated. On October 2, we will introduce the first in a series of Community Conversations. The goal of this multi-agency project is to raise awareness with facts and figures to influence local/regional decision makers, and thus enable informed community engagement. I am proud to be a key player on the planning committee, along with leaders from other libraries and the Leadership Huntington Foundation.
Over the last four years, we have offered a free Museum Pass program to our members. We need $2,500 each fiscal year to fully fund this service. I am thrilled to announce we have collected $1,500 to date from two families. Our gratitude goes to Suzanne and Richard Kleinknecht and Madeline and Richard Schuster. If you enjoy museums and want to help fund this program, please contact me at (631) 692-6820 or via email at hcrosson@cshlibrary.org.