Downloadable Audiobooks!

How would you like to use your library as a way to download free audiobooks for your computer or your portable device? On November 1, CDPL is rolling out this new service for you, and we hope you give it a try. After you set up your account through NetLibrary -- which you must do in the library -- you can download and "check out" audiobooks anywhere you want at any time, just like any other book. The neat thing about these audiobooks is that you don't need to return them once they "expire."

Read the details!

Coupon Seminar

Coupon Seminar
October 23
9am to 12pm

Tricia Schwabe will show you how to: 

• Get free groceries almost every week
• Spend less than $100 dollars on food and no-food items per week...and eat well (for a family of 5)
• Use web sites to track deals
• use web sites to print coupons
• Stack manufacturer coupon, store coupon, and stor sales to get free goceries

All this information and 100 coupons to get you started on your savings for $20.00 per person

Sign up at the Circualtion Desk 

Genealogy Club of Montgomery County: After Hours

Have you ever wanted to stay in the library after it closed . . . to do genealogy research? Then consider attending the next Genealogy Club After Hours program! All are welcome, for details see: http://www.cdpl.lib.in.us/lh/geneclub/geneclub.html

Can you beat genealogy AND pizza?

Happy Birthday, e.e. cummings!

Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 -- September 3, 1962), commonly known as e. e. Cummings was an American poet. According to his biography on Poets.org, Cummings "experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling and syntax, abandoning traditional techniques and structures to create a new, highly idiosyncratic means of poetic expression." 

Read e. e. Cummings at CDPL!

Enjoy a sample poem from Cummings:

i carry your heart with me
 
      i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) 

Happy (belated) Birthday, James Whitcomb Riley!

When the "frost is on the pumpkin and the fodder is the shock you know it is October." This is also when we remember  the birth of James Whitcomb Riley.  The renown Hoosier poet was born  October 7, 1849 in Greenfield, IN. Some of Riley's best poems chronicle his childhood and youth in his home town. 

Riley's parents feared that he was not going to amount to much.  He attempted to study law and become a lawyer like his father; however he found it difficult to apply himself to the demands of study.  Entertainment proved to be his best bet.  He became very adept at presenting his poems on the stage.  He traveled around the country reciting his increasingly popular poems.

He was referred to as a "dialect singer" and compared to Mark Twain in his ability to capture the frontier dialect.  When you read his poems you will see how he captured the rough-hewn dialect of one with little schooling. His "Little Orphant Annie" draws the children close with her tales of witches and ominous warning "the Gobble-uns 'at gits you Ef you Don't Watch Out!"

When Riley died in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson sent a note of condolence to the Riley family.  He wrote," With his departure a notable figure passes out of the nation's life; a man who imparted joyful pleasure and a thoughtful view of many things that other men would have missed."

Discover James Whitcomb Riley at CDPL!

Happy Birthday, Carole Lombard!

Indiana native Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne on October 6, 1908.  After her parents divorced, Lombard moved to Los Angeles, California.  Regarded as one of the best comediennes in film, Lombard starred in screwball comedies My Man Godfrey (1936) and Nothing Sacred (1937), but was also respected for her dramatic work in Made for Each Other (1939) and Vigil in the Night (1940).  Off the set, Lombard was known for her high-profile marriage to the "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable.

In 1942, Lombard traveled to Indiana to support the war effort by selling bonds. Returning back to California, Lombard's plane crashed and all passengers aboard perished. Lombard was only 33 years old at the time of her death.

For more information on Lombard's life, check out Carole Lombard: The Hoosier Tornado or Gable and Lombard.

Want to watch a Carole Lombard film? CDPL has DVDs  and videotapes.

Did you know that Carole Lombard has a Crawfordsville connection?
In 1932, Lombard starred in No Man of Her Own with future husband Clark Gable.  The screenwriter of that particular film was Crawfordsville's own Maurine Dallas Watkins!

Genealogy Club of Montgomery County: Annual Dinner & Meeting

The Genealogy Club of Montgomery County will have its Annual Dinner & Meeting on Oct 12! Dinner will be at 6:00 pm followed by meeting at 7:00 pm in the Donnelley Room of the Crawfordsville District Public Library

The program will be: "The Orphan Train" by Barbara Taylor, Genealogist

Reservations REQUIRED for the dinner in order to know how many meals to prepare. RSVP Before Friday, October 8, 2010. Payment of $10.00 for the meal must be made by Monday, October 11, 2010 at the Library's Reference Department. Visitors always welcome. For more information contact: Dian Moore or Dellie Craig (765) 362-2242, Ext 118 or 117; weekdays 9 AM to 5PM or email: gen@cdpl.lib.in.us or delliejean@yahoo.com

Banned Books Week . . .

The celebration of Banned Books Week ends today, and we hope you have enjoyed reading about the few books highlighted this week in the What's new @ CDPL? blog. But why not continue to celebrate the freedom to read? You may be interested in finding out more about banned books. The American Library Association is a good place to start, perhaps with its Issues & Advocacy page. Also check out its Frequently Challenged Books information. For example, did you know that 460 books were challenged in 2009? Here are the top 100 books challenged between 2000-2009.

Don't forget about CDPL's Words Worth Reading blog that can help you find what you want to read.  Or just come in and be sure to ask any library staff member for help!

Banned Book: Candide

Candide is a French satire written by Voltaire (1694–1778) in 1759. In this short novella, Candide is a young man who lives a pampered and sheltered life in a comfortable setting in Westphalia (Germany). His mentor, Pangloss, is tutoring him on Leibnizian optimism -- stating that "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds." But Candide's idyllic life come to an end when he is chased from his settings and begins a wandering life full of adventures that make him question everything that he has been taught up to that time, including conventional religion, morals, and politics. The once-naive Candide is eventually disillusioned from his earlier optimistic view on life and concludes, after a series of hardships and injustices, that we, as humans, must "cultivate our own garden." This book was banned in the 18th century by the Catholic Church because of its alleged criticism of religion. Candide poses many innocent questions about religion and politics, and as a parody has influenced many modern American writers including Joseph Heller, John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and Kurt Vonnegut. Voltaire's Candide is one of the most often taught French novels in English translation.

Read more on Voltaire at your library!

You can read the text of Candide online at Project Gutenberg or download it for the reader of your choice