Capitol Reads

February's Capitol Read is Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani

It's 1978, and Ave Maria Mulligan is the thirty-five-year-old self-proclaimed spinster of Big Stone Gap, a sleepy hamlet in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She's also the local pharmacist, the co-captain of the Rescue Squad, and the director of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, the town's long-running Outdoor Drama. Ave Maria is content with her life of doing errands and negotiating small details-until she discovers a skeleton in her family's formerly tidy closet that completely unravels her quiet, conventional life. Suddenly, she finds herself juggling two marriage proposals, conducting a no-holds-barred family feud, planning a life-changing journey to the Old Country, and helping her best friend, the high-school band director, design a halftime show to dazzle Elizabeth Taylor, the violet-eyed Hollywood movie star who's coming through town on a campaign stump with her husband, senatorial candidate John Warner.

Filled with big-time eccentrics and small-town shenanigans, Big Stone Gap is a jewel box of original characters, including sexpot Bookmobile librarian Iva Lou Wade; Fleeta Mullins, the chain-smoking pharmacy cashier with a penchant for professional wrestling; the dashing visionary Theodore Tipton; Elmo Gaspar, the snake-handling preacher; Jack MacChesney, a coal-mining bachelor looking for true love; and Pearl Grimes, a shy mountain girl on the verge of a miraculous transformation.

Comic and compassionate, Big Stone Gap is the story of a woman who thinks life has passed her by, only to learn that the best is yet to come.

Visit the Capitol Reads page on the WVLC website for more information and future discussion titles.

Save the Date! Money Smart Week® @Your Library April 21-28, 2012

WV libraries can join the libraries in over 30 states that participated in Money Smart Week® @Your Library in 2011 and are working on their 2012 plans right now! The WV Money Smart Week planning committee sent a set of posters, flyers and entry forms to each library and middle school in the state. These forms can also be found at The WV Money Smart Facebook: www.facebook.com/wvmsw and www.jaadvantage.com where the Student Essay Contest materials can be found online.

Money Smart Week® @Your Library’s mission is to promote personal financial literacy. Libraries of all types have participated in Money Smart Week, partnering with community groups, financial institutions, government agencies, educational organizations and other financial experts to help consumers learn to better manage their personal finances, but remember no selling of services!.

Money Smart Week® @Your Library April 21-28, 2012 is the perfect time to promote your library as a necessity for the economic well-being of your community by holding programs and activities for all ages. Public libraries are encouraged to offer free educational seminars during this week. Suggested topics for programs:

*Document Destruction and a “Shred Fest”
*Retirement Planning
*Smart Investments, see http://smartinvesting.ala.org/
*Financial Record keeping
*Money Saving Travel Tips – presented by a travel agent or an AAA representative
*Coupon Tips for Moms while story time uses a book such as Just Saving My Money by Mercer Meyer
*Teen programs can be fun: manicures using green nail polish; make duct tape wallets
*Home Energy Evaluations
*How to Save Money with Simple Car Repairs
*How to Find a Job & Write a Resume with Job & Career Accelerator found on www.wvinfodepot.org
*Study for teaching, nursing, plumbing, CDL certification with LearningExpressLibrary found on www.wvinfodepot.org

More information for Money Smart Week® @Your Library
http://www.chicagofed.org/webpages/education/msw/ala/resources.cfm

Money Smart Week® @ Your Library
Resources & Programs 9 pages of resource and program ideas: http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/others/education/msw/ala/msw_ala_resources.pdf

Staff Pick of the Week

Megan's Pick

This week's selection is Ghost Story: A Novel of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher

I have loved this series since Storm Front, the very first novel. Usually I lose interest in a series after the 4th or 5th book, but not so when Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is involved.

Harry's 13th adventure is a little different from any other case he's investigated during his days as Chicago's only Wizard Private Investigator. He's on the trail of a murderer-- his. MT

In his life, Harry's been shot, stabbed, sliced, beaten, burned, crushed, and tortured. And after someone puts a bullet through his chest and leaves him to die in the waters of Lake Michigan, things really start going downhill. But even trapped in the realm between life and death, Harry can't catch a break. He learns that three of his friends are destined to experience unbearable torment and agony. Only by bringing his murderer to justice can he save his friends and move on to what comes next--a feat that would be a lot easier if he had a body and access to his powers. Instead, Harry must work as a ghost, unable to interact with the physical world, invisible and inaudible to almost everyone. Unfortunately he's not the only specter roaming Chicago. There are malevolent shadows who haven't forgotten Harry's predilection for putting evil in its place while he was alive. And now that Harry's on their turf, they are looking for some serious payback. So the late Harry Dresden will have to pull off the ultimate trick without using any magic--or face an eternity as just another lost soul.

This title, and others like it, can be found in the West Virginia Library Commission Reference Library.

The description for this title was provided by NoveList Plus. For more on Harry Dresden, or similar books, check out NoveList Plus on WVInfoDepot.

Legislative Update for February 3, 2012

The following update does not attempt to identify all bills that may impact libraries. The focus is legislation that immediately references libraries. Inclusion on the list is not an indication of support by the West Virginia Library Commission or libraries at large. Some bills may have a negative effect on libraries and/or the agency. The reader should evaluate the impact of the legislation on their individual library.


Please notice that some of the Bills are “rollover” legislation from the previous General Session.

Looking ahead: April is National Poetry Month

The Academy of American Poets offers creative and inexpensive suggestions for making poetry a visible part of life during National Poetry Month and throughout the year. Visit their website www.poets.org/npm for information on National Poetry Month, celebration tips, and more.