public libraries

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North Haven Memorial Library Presents…NoodleMan: Engaging Children During COVID-19

This video was recorded by Emily Jenkins and posted onto Vimeo on January 25, 2021. It was shared on the same day to North Haven Memorial Library’s Facebook page at 4:27 p.m. Titled “NHML Winter Reading Unboxing!,” this video features Miss Emily and NoodleMan as they promote North Haven Memorial Library’s Winter Reading Program for 2021.

Authored by Carlye Mazzucco

When the COVID-19 outbreak forced everything to shut down in 2020, libraries converted programs to online venues, such as Zoom. In an effort to improve their Zoom programs, Head Children’s Librarian of the North Haven Memorial Library Emily Jenkins and her assistant Joe DeFrancesco participated in Connecticut Library Association’s “Magic Square Workshop.”

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Remembering Catherine Latimer: The First Black Librarian of NYPL

Authored by Hunter Albini

View of researchers using the Schomburg Collection, when it was the 135th Street Branch Library Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints, as it looked in 1938, with Catherine A. Latimer, reference librarian of the collection, in left background.

In the heart of Harlem, on Malcolm X Boulevard between 135th and 136th Street, stands the Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture. As one of the research branches within the New York Public Library system, it is “one of the world’s leading cultural institutions devoted to the research, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diaspora, and African experiences” (NYPL 2021, para. 1). New York Public Library purchased the materials from the personal collection of self-described “bibliophile” Arturo Alfonso Schomburg in 1926, who was later appointed curator of the collection (NYPL 2021). One of the lesser-known people involved in the birth of the Schomburg Collection was Catherine Latimer, the reference librarian for the collection and NYPL’s very first Black librarian.  

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Of Poetry and Plutonium: The Cold War in Bergen County

Authored by Jessica Santulli

This is a poem typed on a faded typewriter during the 1980s. The title is "A Prayer in Time of Need" by Marjorie Medary.
This poem, which reads like a prayer, was penned by Marjorie Medary, a patron of the Oakland Public library in Oakland, New Jersey. It is part of a collection of poetry that was on display at the library during the 1980s, reflecting the effects of the Cold War on New Jersey and the United States.

The Cold War is defined as a period of hostility and political tension between the Soviet Union and the United States of America from after World War II in 1945 through 1990, when the Berlin Wall fell (Halperin and Woods 1990). This era was certainly a trying time for world leaders, diplomats, politicians, and the military. But how did ordinary people in Bergen County, New Jersey handle the looming threat of Nuclear War?

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