Programming Librarian

April 2009

Featured Library: Bettendorf Public Library
ALA Public Programs Office | April 28, 2009
In 2008, the Bettendorf Public Library in Bettendorf, Iowa was awarded a $2,500 Grant from the ALA Public Programs Office to host the “Let’s Talk About It: Love & Forgiveness” reading and discussion series. Funding for the project was provided by the Fetzer Institute’s Campaign for Love and Forgiveness.

Author Paul Volponi Talks to Great Stories CLUB Teens
Lainie Castle | April 23, 2009
When author Paul Volponi learned that his book Black and White (Penguin, 2005) was included in the ALA Great Stories CLUB (GSC) grant program, he headed online right away to see how he could get involved. After finding the list of participating libraries, he contacted a few personally, offering to conduct conference calls with teens.

Free Verse
Tree Swenson | April 17, 2009
Every year since the Academy of American Poets launched National Poetry Month in 1996 we have come up with a new angle to help draw people into the world of poetry. For 2009, we are playing off of Paul Sahre’s National Poetry Month Poster design, which features lines from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” scrawled on a fogged window: “Do I dare / Disturb the universe?” We invited people to send in photographs of bits of verse that they have presented in some ephemeral medium.

Jazz Appreciation Month
Angela Hanshaw | April 10, 2009
April is also Jazz Appreciation Month! The Smithsonian launched Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) in 2001 to pay tribute to jazz both as a historic and living American art form. This year’s celebration marks the centennial of Chicago jazz-musician Benny Goodman, “The King of Swing.”