Welcome 2012, Thank You 2011

While Baby New Year is getting ready to cry the Pollard is getting ready for an exciting 2012. We have the the annual Foundation Author Night to look forward to, featuring Denis Lehane on May 24th.

Plus the Pollard is excited to be a partner in the Dickens in Lowell celebration aimed to celebrate Charles Dickens transformative 1842 trip to Lowell, as part of a global celebration of his 200th birthday. Stay tuned for details on our programming which will include a community reading program called Lowell Reads! where we'll be looking to get as many Lowellians as possible reading and talking about Charles Dickens' Great Expectations from June thru August. If you've read Great Expectations before, it's time for a revisit, and if you haven't you won't believe what wonders are in store for you.

Perched, as we are, on the eve of a New Year, it seems fitting to look back on the year that is about to expire. 2011 was a great year for the Pollard, here are a few highlights:Library Snapshot Day helped us catch a glimpse of a day in the life of our library. We got some great photos, and received lots of interesting feedback.


Lowell Film Festival. The Pollard was proud to be a partner once again in the Lowell Film Festival especially since the theme of this year's fest centered around the 150th anniversary of the commencement of the American Civil War. As you may know, our building was originally constructed as a memorial hall dedicated to the Lowell men who lost their lives in that great conflict. We have some impressive mementos including the Phillipoteaux murals in our 2nd floor reference area of some of U.S. Grant's victories, a piece of the ironclad warship the Monitor, and of course the marble slabs engraved with the names of the fallen Lowellians.
Foundation Author's Night featuring Linda Greenlaw. The affable swordfishboat captain came to the Pollard and regaled us with stories from her life.

New Library Database Evergreen! The Pollard, along with the other libraries of the Merrimack Valley Library Consortium migrated over to a new open source cataloging system this past May and the transition was challenging but ultimately rewarding.

Summer Reading Program. Once again our Children's Summer Reading program was an outstanding success.
Fall Festival. Our first annual Fall Festival was a fun filled day featuring a Friends Bake Sale, a Food For Art Raffle, face painting, performances by Elaine Kessler and Dave Norton Trio. All at just the right autumnal crispness.

Poets, authors, lecturers, speakers, etc. In 2011, our library was graced with the writerly and oratory talents of Stephen O'Connor, Jay Atkinson, Kate Hanson Foster, Chaim Rosenberg, Paul Hudon, Steven Collins and RP Hale.

Holiday Celebration. To round out the year we hosted a special Holiday celebration featuring a special Santa visit for children with sensory issues, a holiday storytime and a showing of the Muppets Christmas Carol. A story written, by the way by one Charles Dickens, whom, we may have mentioned we are planning to celebrate in grand fashion in 2012. It all comes full circle.

Happy New Year Everyone!

April Nears...

April is the cruelest month, breeding  - T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

We know you're excited! April begins on Friday, and apart from the usual April foolery type shenanigans, April 1st means National Poetry Month has begun. It's time to celebrate and the Pollard is here to help. You can find some great resources and ways to celebrate at the Academy of American Poet's webpage including text and audio recordings of some of the best American poets ever to grace the page. And information about their fun programs such as Poem In Your Pocket Day - April 14, 2011.

The University of Massachusetts Lowell has an impressive line up of poets reading in the Month of April. Including former U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan, Tom Sexton, Marilyn Chin, Michael Casey, and Nicholas Samaras. Full calendar available on page seven of this attractive brochure.

On Thursday April 21st at 7PM the Pollard will be hosting a Common Threads poetry discussion group sponsored by the Massachusetts Poetry Festival May 13-14th in Salem. To sign up or get more information about this discussion you can contact Sean Thibodeau, Community Planning Librarian 978-970-4118 or sthibodeau@mvlc.org. And don't forget our area is rich in poetic resources. Support your local purveyors of things poetic including Bootstrap Productions, Loom Press, and the historic Grolier Poetry Bookshop. Read your local poets. 

April is also Autism Awareness Month and more can be info can be obtained at our The Pollard Library's Autism Guide and at the Autism Society website.

Also, in the month of April, the Pollard Memorial Foundation is bringing to our reference area (aka Memorial Hall) the great writer and captain Linda Greenlaw for their Annual Meet the Author Night, Thursday April 28th @ 6PM ($40 Donation to benefit the Foundation). We're also showing the movie that made Ms. Greenlaw a household name, The Perfect Storm on Saturday, April 23rd @ 1PM.

April will also bring the 4th Annual Lowell Film Festival! April 28-30th to be exact. The Pollard is proud to be hosting two movies on Saturday April 29th (John Brown's Holy War at 11AM, and World Peace and Other 4th Grade Achievements at 2PM). The festival's theme this year is "Lowell on the Churn: Civil War - Present" which ties in with this April being the 150th Anniversary of the commencement of the Civil War (or as the Memorial Hall commemorative plaque in the Pollard Library states, "The War of the Rebellion"). There will be tours of the Pollard and other downtown Civil War sites lead by Richard Howe, Jr. Full schedule available here.

And as if that weren't enough, The City of Lowell is kicking off celebrations for Lowell's 175th Anniversary with an event on Monday April 11th from 4:30-6:30 at City Hall.

Of course, all of this is not to mention the Friend's of the Library's Monthly book donation drop off at the Lowell Senior Center this Saturday April 2nd from 9am-12pm (all books to be sold at their Annual Booksale on May 21st at the Senior Center), or our monthly Non-Fiction Book club meeting next Thursday, April 7th @ 6:30 where we'll be discussing River of Doubt by Candice Millard, or our monthly Independent Film Night where on Thursday April 14th we'll be showing Bad Day to Go Fishing, or our great April School Vacation events, details of which can be found at our Children's Department Blog.

There is no doubt April is going to be a fun action packed month here at the Pollard and around the city. Don't miss it!