Getting to Know Your Library: Youth Specialists

A week in the programming life of a Youth Specialist at the Forsyth County Public Library can entail some surprising things and offer a great deal of variety. One morning may be spent leading songs and rhymes to foster early literacy and language development to a bevy of bouncing babies while cranking up the bubble machine. In the afternoon you may be testing conductors to create a "banana piano" on a laptop during an elementary aged STEAM based book club.

Staff Picks - Interview with the Vampire: Claudia's Story by Ashley Marie Witter (Adult Graphic Novel)

Interview with the Vampire: Claudia's Story, art and adaptation by Ashley Marie Witter

In 19th century Louisiana, three vampires, Louis, Lestat, and Claudia, are living in a Spanish townhouse on the Rue Royale. It's an ideal place for vampires to live because between disease, poverty, and the danger of night life, nobody notices one more person disappearing here and there. The two older vampires have with them Claudia, a little girl who looks as beautiful as a porcelain doll, but is the most dangerous of all of them.

Kids' Book Spotlight - Teen Collection - Hilarious Hijinks!

April Fools' Day is right around the corner! Get hyped up with these titles full of hilarious hijinks!

Staff Picks: The Killing Floor by Lee Child

The Killing Floor by Lee Child

In 1997, Lee Child’s novel The Killing Floor introduced readers to an oversized, blues-loving, ex-military drifter named Jack Reacher. For more than two decades Reacher’s adventures have captivated readers in Forsyth County and around the world. FCPL patrons constantly tell me how much they love the Jack Reacher series. Reacher, a 2022 Amazon Prime Video adaptation, updates the original story for modern viewers and is drawing even more readers to the Jack Reacher fan club.

Kids' Book Spotlight - Juvenile Collection - Ridiculous Reads!

April Fools' Day is right around the corner! Get ready for rip roaring laughter with these ridiculously funny titles!

Kids' Book Spotlight - Easy Collection - Silly Stories!

April Fools' Day is right around the corner! Start getting silly with these stories from our Easy Collection for young readers!

Getting to Know Your Library: Collection Support Aides

Have you ever seen a library employee, arms laden with books, scurrying about the bookshelves or peering long and hard at a row of books like a nearsighted mole before finally placing a book on the shelf? Those are the Collection Support Aides.

A Collection Support Aide (CSA) is tasked with replacing returned books back on the shelves and ensuring that they are in the correct order. In addition, they remove damaged books, such as ones with pages falling out or ones with coffee spilled on them. No one wants a coffee-soaked book, and heaven forbid a lost page!

CSAs do a lot of work behind the scenes in addition to shelving. If the library branch has an Automated Materials Handler, we empty its bins of books, check-in some books by hand, process magazines, sort books for shelving, search for lost books, find the books placed on hold, and sometimes help out with the library's programs.

The job of CSA is fun for those like myself who enjoy being organized and everything to do with books. Making sure the collection is healthy and organized is, in a way, an expression of one's love for the written word.

Katherine Eitel
Collection Support Aide
Cumming Library
#WeKnowBooks

Staff Picks: The Anomaly by Herve Le Tellier

The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier

The lives of an American lawyer, a Nigerian pop star, a literary writer, a contract killer, military family members, and others take unprecedented trajectories the moment their international flight hits extreme turbulence over the Atlantic Ocean. 

Hervé Le Tellier’s award-winning French novel tracks the lives of passengers whose complex lives become exponentially more complicated when they are sequestered by FBI agents months after the harrowing flight as something called Protocol 42 is implemented for the first time.

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist
#WeKnowBooks

FCPL Reads 2022 - March Goal

Are you working towards your goals for FCPL Reads 2022? Here's the next reading goal to inspire you to Read Something New (to You!) in 2022!

The reading goal for March is to read a book in a genre or format you don't normally read.

Page Turners to Read The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson, brings to light a little-known footnote in history.

The hardy folks of Troublesome Creek have to struggle for everything to survive―except for books. Thanks to Roosevelt’s Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome Creek has its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy’s not only a book woman, however, she’s also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike anyone else’s. Not everyone is accepting of Cussy’s family or of the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any kind of trouble. If Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, she’s going to have to confront prejudice as old as the Appalachians and suspicion as deep as the holler.

Inspired by the true blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the brave and dedicated Kentucky Pack Horse library service of the 1930s, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a story of raw courage, fierce strength, deep hope, and one woman’s belief that books can carry us anywhere―even back home.

Join the Page Turners book group for a discussion of this title on Tuesday, March 22, at 10:00 a.m. at the Sharon Forks Library. Page Turners meets at 10:00 a.m. every third Tuesday of the month.

You may also enjoy The Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes, which also features the Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project. The novel focuses on a group of Kentucky Pack Horse Librarians and their friendships, struggles, trials, and triumphs as they deliver books to the most remote areas of the Kentucky Mountains.

I hope you will read and enjoy both of these books featuring this little-known piece of history. The library carries both of these books in print, Large Print, and CD Audio book, as well as downloadable eBook and eAudio formats.

At FCPL, #WeKnowBooks!

Jeanne McMahan
Information Specialist MLIS
Sharon Forks Branch

Jeff Shaara's Visit to Forsyth County: "Ignore history at your own peril."

Forsyth Reads Together: An Evening with Jeff Shaara at the Forsyth Conference Center Monday night was a smashing success! Thankfully the rain did not scare away the 243 attendees who turned out to hear author Jeff Shaara speak about his serendipitous writing career, his numerous bestselling books, or his passion for researching primary sources.

It was a full house on Monday night at the Forsyth Conference Center!

Here are some of the highlights from the event... 

Library Limelight: Steve Davis, Facilities Technician

Library Limelight is intended to be a quick read to help FCPL patrons get to know our librarians, staff, and volunteers. We hope you enjoy learning about the people who make our libraries great!

Name: Steve Davis
Position: Facilities Technician
Location: All FCPL Locations

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