FALL 2019
HISTORICAL LECTURE SERIES: Date/Time: SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 @ 6:30 PM Lecture Topic: “NANCY DREW: IOWA’S HEROINE TO THE WHOLE WORLD” Presenter: BARBARA LOUNSBERRY Nancy Drew is the most popular female detective in fiction. Today she even outsells Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s venerable heroine. More than 200 million copies of Nancy Drew mysteries have been sold, and she has been translated into 17 different languages. Few know, however, that Nancy is an Iowa heroine and that her creator was Mildred Augustine of Ladora, Iowa. Augustine wrote The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase—in fact 23 of the first 30 Nancy Drew mysteries. “Like a true daughter of the Middle West, “Augustine wrote in the first Nancy Drew volume, The Secret of the Old Clock, published in 1930, “Nancy Drew took pride in the fertility of her state and saw beauty in a crop of waving green corn as well as in the rolling hills and the expanse of prairie land.” Augustine was 25 when she wrote those words at her parents’ home in Ladora. Her authorship of the first Nancy Drew mysteries—and single-handed creation of Nancy’s admirable character—were kept secret for more than 50 years. Equally distressing is the fact that as Nancy grew in popularity, her Iowa roots were disguised. This presentation is designed to fortify Iowans young and old! Date/Time: SEPTEMBER 24, 2019 @ 6:30 PM Lecture Topic: “IOWA VETERANS: IN THEIR OWN WORDS” Presenter: SARA ROBINSON Surviving a Prisoner of War (POW) Camp, describing the sight, sounds and smells of Vietnam, feeling the bitter cold of a Korean winter. Sara has heard them all and wants to share these amazing first-hand accounts with you. No one speaks better about the experiences of war than the veterans themselves. Sara preserves these stories through video to help educate the public about life in the military. You will hear accounts of the day Pearl Harbor was bombed and the morning the Twin Towers were attacked, what it was like to be a woman in the military in WWII and what it feels like to be in and IED explosion driving across Iraq. COMING SOON are more free public HISTORICAL LECTURES are scheduled for OCTOBER & NOVEMBER! READ OUR NEXT ISSUE FOR DETAILS! ---- CHILDREN’S PLAY THERAPY HOUR With CAROLINE OBERMILLER, LMCH, RPT REGISTERED PLAY THERAPIST Starting this September, join us on every 3rd Wednesday of the month at Malvern Public Library for our brand-new and FREE program, the Children’s Play Therapy Hour! This hour-long program is intended for young children ages 1-5 and their parents. Registered play therapist Caroline Obermiller will incorporate reading a story, playing a game & engaging in a fun activity into each session. Each month will have its own designated “topic of the month”. Details for September are as follows: Topic of the Month: Self Books: “Mixed Up Chameleon”, “I Like Myself”, “It’s Okay to be Different” Activity: Painting a Self Portrait with Parents COMING SOON… IOWA PUBLIC TELEVISION (IPTV) STORY HOUR in OCTOBER OCTOBER & NOVEMBER HISTORICAL LECTURE SERIES DATES/TIMES …READ OUR NEXT ISSUE FOR DETAILS! REMEMBERING A FRIEND OF THE LIBRARY J.W. ABERCROMBIE, JR. We all lovingly referred to him as “Jay”, our Malvern Senior Center’s commander-in-chief and one of Malvern’s very best good Samaritans. The news of his passing came as a shock to me, as I know it did to the rest of us. I can still remember the first time I met him. He was so very dutiful and chivalrous about his charge as facilitator of the Malvern Senior Center -- and he was funny! You could always count on Jay to have a good story up his sleeve to get you laughing or shaking your head in disbelief. His disarming sense of humor and gentle disposition left a mark on all who knew him. I will always be grateful for Jay’s devotion to serving the hungry seniors of our community and for his vested interest in all things Malvern Public Library. Oftentimes, Jay was front and center at my programming events here in the library, cheering me on and going out of his way to get to know the people in attendance around him. Jay was always looking after the people around him, too. Authentic and kind. That was just the kind of person that he was. You could always count on Jay to speak his mind, and you may not have always agreed with everything he had to say, but you could always count on him to be your friend. We miss you, J.W., but we know we’ll “catch you later”!
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FALL 2019 HISTORICAL LECTURE SERIES IOWA PUBLIC TELEVISION (IPTV) DANIEL TIGER STORY HOUR in SEPTEMBER …READ OUR NEXT ISSUE FOR DETAILS! INTERNET SAFETY CLASS WITH MIKE FORMHALS Join us at the Malvern Public Library for our first installment of our Internet Safety Class series with presenter Mike Formhals! Learn everything there is to know about staying safe on the World Wide Web. Topics of discussion range from Social Media, Email, Viruses, Hackers, to Password Protection & more. This class will be taking place on Saturday, August 24th from 1:00 - 2:00 PM in the Carnegie Conference Center at Malvern Publilc Library. Registration is free and available at the front desk of the library. Add your name to our sign up sheet today! COMICS & COSPLAY CLUB: A RETROSPECT The following is a retrospect I wrote after being asked by the State Library of Iowa to share about our young adult programming to feature in their Iowa Blog Series for Summer 2019: June of 2016 proved to be one of the busiest months of the year for the Malvern Public Library. I, Rebecca Bassich, had just begun my job as Library Director at the library in late September of 2015. I decided to kick off my first summer at the library with the launch of my brainchild, the Comics & Cosplay Club, in the first week of June, which quickly became our most popular program with just under 12 attendees for each of the first few meetings. While the club was and is certainly open to all ages, it has been especially popular among young adults who are passionate about sharing their love of all things comic book and manga related. The following is an outline of my itinerary that I formulated for the Comics & Cosplay Club nights. Each meeting started with a brief Japanese lesson during which participants were able to work together as an informal classroom in an effort to learn to speak and write in Japanese. The activity following these lessons does vary from meeting to meeting, however it typically consists of a Show & Tell session that gives members an opportunity to showcase a favorite manga or comic book related item they own, fanfiction, fan art or a cosplay costume. The occasional contest encourages friendly competition amongst members in selecting a favorite Show & Tell entry for a prize. Each 2-hour meeting then concludes with viewing a favorite manga/anime or comic book related movie and/or series. Members are encouraged to attend the meetings dressed as their favorite fictional character and to bring a snack to share during the movie that they feel their chosen personality would enjoy. Today, our Comics & Cosplayers remain as busy as ever with their involvement at our library and in the realm of social media. If you are a fan of the library on Facebook or frequent our website at all, you will notice a new logo and promotional ad have been published for our library’s Comics & Cosplay Club. This is but one shining example of the talent our youth have to share with the community. Between the awesome 3-dimensional cherry blossom sculptures, perler bead creations and even their very own Comics & Cosplay Club Manifesto, we continue to see a great deal of talent come from our youth. We have so much fun learning about Japanese culture and exploring new worlds at our Comics & Cosplay Club through various workshops in writing, art, music and even YouTube language lessons. This summer, we have been kicking back and watching plenty of movies! 107.7 FM RADIO BROADCAST
INTERVIEW WITH LIBRARY DIRECTOR REBECCA BASSICH When Becky Hansen from KLOVE and Air1 Radio came all the way from Alaska to visit our library and sit down for an interview with yours truly for a story on the Malvern Public Library, I was feeling pretty tickled that she thought to ask me, of all people and, quite honestly, a bit nervous! I had never heard the sound of my own voice come streaming out of any radioset before, and the prospect of that happening over locally broadcast airwaves was indeed a weighty one. Still, my curiosity got the best of me, and I agreed to the interview with just a trace of hesitation. Yes, there really is a first time for everything! As it turned out, I really enjoyed the process of interviewing for 107.7 FM. Becky is not just a casual passersby in the area, either, by any means. We had a wonderful conversation leading up to our interview during which she hit upon her love of Malvern and the Midwest as a whole. This was not her first time in Malvern, but it was to be her last for the foreseeable future. I learned that our library was her final stop along the way on her trip back home to Alaska. Wow - Alaska?! Could we trade places?, I thought. At least for just a couple of days! All in all, we ended up really enjoying our time spent getting to know one another. I was so happy to be able to share about all of the latest events in the library and to expound upon the many services we provide for the general public over the air. I especially appreciated Becky’s interest in our library, its patrons (she even stopped in to make friendly conversation with one of our genealogy researchers) and the enthusiasm she had for the wide range of services being offered here to our community. I am so grateful for the people who make this library the wonderful place that it is. SUMMER READING PROGRAM 2019: UNFOLDING “A UNIVERSE OF STORIES” The whole process of preparing for LIFTOFF on that first night of the summer reading program, for me, went off with a bit of a BANG -- I thought about taking an astronomy class to prepare myself for it all, but I knew I would just be taking up SPACE! So, how does one organize a space party that is both educational and fun for all ages? You PLANET! And, well, how can I say this? This year, everyone had a BLAST! I know, I know, knock it off with the bad puns already. Seriously, though? Between the awesome families who came out to be part of it all, the true-to-life recreation of the moon surface and everyone’s love of space and storytelling, there was simply no shortage of fun and excitement to be had. The week kicked off with time spent around a campfire on the moon, telling stories and sharing some of our favorite space memories, learning facts about our universe and even exploring those “what if” questions about life on other planets. Could humanity colonize the moon and other worlds? What could space exploration mean for future generations on earth? These are just a few of the questions our youth tackled along with several of the older space cadets. As we got to know each other throughout our discussions, we learned that several of us plan to be astrophysicists and astronauts when we grow up. How awesome is that? Participants also learned of the significance of the Apollo 11’s mission and its place in world history while also undergoing some intensive astronaut training to get a feel for what it must have been like to be the first man on the moon. Trainees spent time leaping across moon rings, decoding the eerie sounds of our galaxy, performing scientific analyses of the moon’s surface and even worked together to write their own messages to leave on the moon for visiting lifeforms. (Thankfully, they did come in peace!). After completing astronaut camp, graduates each received a unique badge commemorating their hard work and dedication to all things space related, posing for their group photo pictured here while holding up their new badges and gleefully exclaiming, “To infinity and beyond!”. Tina Bakehouse, our bank’s Chief Creative Officer, knocked it out of the park as she kicked off the second half of this week’s programming with her contagious enthusiasm and passion for the art of storytelling on our Space Stories night. There was so much laughter and imagination! What a true gift it was to be able to witness and share in the unbridled optimism and joy that these witty kids have to share with us. Barb Vorthmann, local chef and beloved school librarian, also lent her passion for learning throughout the week. She helped to make our last night at Space Camp a memorable one when she assembled astronaut food packs for everyone to enjoy (along with some of that wonderful liquid stuff known as “Tang”!). We all got a taste for life in space while snacking on these astronaut food packs and finished the week off with a screening of the newly released documentary, “Apollo 11”, a film made in commemoration of the moon landing’s 50th anniversary: July 15, 2019. Several of us even chose to dress up for that final night by donning our 1960’s best - all for fun, of course! History is alive and well in these kids, folks. After spending a week with our future astronomers, I couldn’t help but to be touched not just by their love of learning but also by their genuine desire to make the world a better place for all of humanity in their “one day” careers. As we approach the anniversary of this crucial event in our history, I have no doubt that these kids will steer us all in the right direction over the course of these next 50 years. In fact, if I were to summarize my experience of working with these kids at this year’s Summer Reading program in just one sentence for you, this would be the one: “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." |
Rebecca BassichAs Library Director here at our Malvern Public Library, you can count on me for all the latest on books, events, programs & more! Archives
May 2023
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