LIBRARY TALK – APRIL 7, 2021
It is always rewarding to find or be told about a new book that is by a local author or local topic, as well as a book that is about someone from this area that has made it big (and has a big and generous heart), and it will be here this week: Rebound: Soaring in the NBA, Battling Parkinson’s, and Finding What Really Matters by Brian Grant (with co-author Ric Bucher). Reviews look good, and the book covers growing up, playing in the NBA, and life after the spotlight with honesty and humility. Brian played on the Georgetown HS team, then Xavier University, finally NBA for 12 years. For fun, you can use our newspaper archives and read about the high school games.
Temple Grandin is a world renown advocate for humane animal care, especially in the food producing industry. (She is also very well known for her advocacy for understanding autism). Anyway, she writes not only general readership books but also textbook/scholarly level. We’ve just purchased her 3rd edition of Improving Animal Welfare: A Practical Approach. It is a very technical work, talking about studies and best practices in handling animals in a large-scale setting. Every once and a while, we’ll purchase some book that probably has a limited audience, but is considered one of the best on the topic.
If you see clouds of dust in front of the Ripley Library, fear not! We are having the lower stairs and landing replaced. One can only patch and chase cracks and pits for so long, so after the mess, we will have nice, smooth and stable area. We did the same thing a few years ago in front of the children’s entrance, and it was worth the dust and noise.
One of our bright young employees is leaving his position at Russellville branch to move on—we wish Nate Arn well, and are pleased that he is continuing his career in the library world. Over the years, we have had the pleasure of providing a ‘first’ career for many high school and college students, and it is always rewarding (and a little bittersweet) when they find their wings to fly the nest, but we hope we had some positive influence on their path.
