GCL Wishes You a Hard Boiled New Year

The Garland County Library will be closed Saturday, January 1st. Hopefully, you will have recovered from New Year's festivities in three weeks' time, so make a resolution to attend our Dashiell Hammett Extravaganza at noon on Saturday, January 22nd as a part of the Murder of the Month Club series. The event will feature a book discussion, film screenings, snacks, drinks, and prize give-aways.

Dashiell Hammett (1894 – 1961) was an American author of hard boiled detective novels and short stories, best known as the creator of characters such as Sam Spade from “The Maltese Falcon” (1929) and Nick and Nora Charles from “The Thin Man”(1934).

Dr. Clinton Atchley will lead a discussion. Atchley is an Associate Professor of English at Henderson State University, where he also serves as Director of the Masters of Liberal Arts program. Although he specializes in Medieval literature, hard boiled detective fiction is a passion.

“I’m happy to speak on Hammett any chance I get,” Atchley said. “I’ve loved his writing since I was a kid, and although he only wrote five novels, he has to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. He single handedly created the hard boiled detective genre.”

“We’re really excited about this event,” Karen Covey of the Garland County Library said. “Even though most people are probably familiar with Hammett’s work through the movies, I hope that our extravaganza will encourage people to read or re-read his books as well. Both ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and ‘The Thin Man’ are great examples of hard boiled fiction, or just fiction in general, and we hope to revive that spirit of moxie for one day at least.”

“We’ll pretend that our auditorium is an old time speakeasy and that we’re all fast talking dicks and dames,” Covey continued. “We will have drinks, but they will be non-alcoholic. We’re still under Prohibition at the library. I hope lots of people will come. It would be a crime to miss it.”

For more information or to register for the event, call the Garland County Library at 623-4161 or 922-4483. Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays from the Garland County Library

image courtesy of AbhijeetRane- Flickr CC

Season's greetings, everyone! During this time of holiday merriment, the library will be closed starting Thursday, December 23rd at 5:30 pm and we will re-open on Monday, December 27th at 9 am.

Charting New Territory

Image from Library of Congress

When it comes to technology and exploration, the week of December 12-18 has been an exciting one in history. In just over one hundred years the world’s views on the boundaries of human exploration and achievement were shattered. Ingenious risk takers have pushed the borders of what is achievable in science.

On December 17, 1903 the Wright brothers achieved the first successful heavier-than-air powered flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Wilbur and Orville Wright had been working since the late 1890s to achieve flight on both gliders and engine-powered airplanes. Although neither of them obtained high school diplomas, the bicycle manufacturers by trade were finally able to reach their goal aboard the Flyer early in the twentieth century. The library has a few books about both the lives of these extraordinary men; there are many more on the early days of flight as well as more recent flight history.

Just eleven years later, on December 14, 1911, a Norwegian team of explorers led by Roald Amundsen was the first to successfully reach the South Pole. The group was able to survive the expedition through Amundsen's Arctic and Antarctic experience; they beat a rival British expedition by over a month. While the Norwegian team returned safely—Amundsen was later among the first group that was arguably the first to reach the North Pole—the British team's attempt ended in disaster. We have a few items here at the library on the South Pole explorations as well as polar exploration in general.

The most recent moonwalk occurred this week in 1972. Between December 11 and 15, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt trekked across the moon's surface in the Lunar Rover, collected over one hundred pounds of lunar samples, and safely returned to Earth. Although the library has limited resources on NASA and the space race, Google does offer Google Moon so that anybody can see where the Apollo moon landings occurred.

Science is not a static area of study, the stuff of rote memorization of elements, taxa, and planets. It is an active and flourishing area of study. Even now scientists are breaking barriers of what is known. Researchers at CERN in Switzerland have recently captured antimatter atoms for the first time. A bacteria was discovered this year that may have successfully used normally toxic arsenic to build its most basic parts. Exploration is hardly dead just because humans have found the ends of the earth and counted the stars. Our view of the world may be changed yet again through new technology and a pioneering spirit.

Christmas Closing Hours/Santa's Little Shelvers

photo courtesy commons.wikimedia.com

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc.

The GCL will be closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas day, and the day after Christmas. We will also be closing early (at 5:30) on Thursday, December 23rd.

We wish you a safe and memorable holiday and hope that all good things come your way.

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Speaking of good things, Santa's Little Shelvers, comprised of GCL employees, performed at the Hot Springs Christmas Parade and wowed the crowd with their cart-spinning routine. They were easily one of the more entertaining and interesting parts of the parade. They practiced very hard on their moves and the crowd was very impressed.

Here are a few snapshots of SLS in action: