April 2, 2025

From the Director 
 
We ease into April with our line up of regular programs. The end of the month brings some special activities with April school vacation, the Seed Library official annual opening on the 19th, a new Medicare seminar, and our first course on AI. On April 21st walking club returns and expands. Join Michelle on the Chase Field track Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 8am.
 
We are still working with our insurance company and contractors to repair our meeting room. Most activities are continuing in the half meeting room space, with the exception of exercise activities.
 
We are now diligently planning for May and we want to hear from you. The  children's room staff is planning for a quiet story time in the afternoon. We will start with one to see how it goes. This is for children who can and want to sit and listen to several books in a row. Let us know if you think this program would suit your children.
 
We are also developing programs in 2025 for an audience we often miss. If you are seeking evening or weekend activities for young working couples, let us know what would interest you. We had a suggestion for a workshop on how to support your aging parents and another one for a quiet social couples gathering. What kinds of activities are not easily accessible to you that you think the library can help set up?
 
Finally, I want to keep you up-to-date and what is happening in the general library world. See below to links for more information about IMLS funding.
 
Have a wonderful week,
Melissa
 
Coming to KCL...
 
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April 6-12 is National Library Week
National Library Week is an annual celebration highlighting the valuable role libraries, librarians, and library workers play in transforming lives and strengthening our communities.
 
In the mid-1950s, research showed that Americans were spending less on books and more on radios, televisions and musical instruments. Concerned that Americans were reading less, the ALA and the American Book Publishers formed a nonprofit citizens organization called the National Book Committee in 1954. The committee's goals were ambitious. They ranged from "encouraging people to read in their increasing leisure time" to "improving incomes and health" and "developing strong and happy family life."
 
In 1957, the committee developed a plan for National Library Week based on the idea that once people were motivated to read, they would support and use libraries. With the cooperation of ALA and with help from the Advertising Council, the first National Library Week was observed in 1958 with the theme "Wake Up and Read!"


CHILDREN'S NEWS & PROGRAMS
Drop off your winter reading challenge forms and pick up the new spring reading challenge packet.
 
ADULT NEWS & PROGRAMS

Upcoming Matinee Movies
 
                
April 2 - Funny Girl (1968) 2h 31m - Classic Musical
The life of Fanny Brice, famed comedienne and entertainer of the early 1900s: her rise to fame as a Ziegfeld Girl, her subsequent career, and her personal life, particularly her relationship with Nick Arnstein.
April 9 - Anger Management (2003) 1h 46m - Comedy
Dave Buznik is a businessman who is wrongly sentenced to an anger management program, where he meets an aggressive instructor.
April 16 - Arthur (1981) 1h 37m - Romantic Comedy
Alcoholic billionaire playboy Arthur Bach must marry a woman he does not love, or he will be cut off from his $750,000,000 fortune. But when Arthur falls in love with a poor waitress, he must decide if he wants to choose love or money.
 
Update on Library Services and Funding in 2025
IMLS Employees Put on Administrative Leave
 
NH House Budget Committee Votes to Keep Funding for NH State Library

I know that many of you wrote to your representatives to tell them how your library supports you and to decry potential funding cuts to the New Hampshire State Library. According to the NH House Budget Committee, no cuts are being recommended on our state level for the NH Public Library in 2025. This means that Libby, ILL services, Talking Books, and other State Library supports continue to local libraries, for now. Thank you for your advocacy on behalf of libraries and particularly of your Kingston Community Library.
 
On March 31, IMLS staff were put on official administrative leave. Here is some information about what is happening on the federal level that will trickle down to our library. - Melissa
 
What is IMLS?
“IMLS is an independent agency created by Congress that supports libraries and museums of all kinds in every U.S. state and territory. Its funding is authorized by Congress and receives annual appropriations. For Fiscal Year 2024, IMLS provided $266.7 million  to America’s libraries and museums through grants, policymaking, and research.” 
 
More information:
  • Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, March 14, 2025.
  • IMLS. News Release.
  • Statement by the New Hampshire Library Trustees Association
  • Publisher's Weekly. Deputy Director of Labor Installed as Acting Director of IMLS
  • New York Times. Library Advocates Rally as Trump Targets Federal Funding
  • Foster's Daily Democrat. Seacoast-area public libraries sound alarm over federal funding cuts
  • Bloomberg. Libraries warn they could be "cut off at the knees" by DOGE
  • Publisher’s Weekly Board Advising IMLS Tells Acting Director Mandates ‘Cannot’ Be Hindered
  • New Hampshire Congressional Delegation Calls on President Trump to Fully Fund the Institute of Museum and Library Services 
  • NHPR. Federal agency responsible for library and museum funding gets a visit from DOGE
  • NHPR. How New Hampshire libraries are bracing for potential funding cuts
  • NHPR. Entire staff at federal agency that funds libraries and museums put on leave
 


KCL Teens- New Books!
Sunrise on the reaping
by Suzanne Collins

It's the 50th annual Hunger Games and as the games begin, District 12 tribute Haymitch Abernathy realizes he's been set up to fail, but something in him wants to fight, in the fifth book in the Hunger Games series. Simultaneous eBook.
Friends News
Book Sale News
 
We have so many puzzles for sale that their section has expanded to both sides of the bookshelf! Most of them are new to our sale, so check out the big variety available for only $2. The bag sale ($5 per bag, provided) continues on all gardening and landscaping books. We also have one shelf of free items that are looking for homes (reference books, books on cassette tapes, and puzzles missing pieces).
 
Our "Author of the Week" beginning Saturday, April 5th is J.R. Ward, writer of the NY Times and USA Today #1 best-selling series The Black Dagger Brotherhood. These books are romance paranormal/romance - she has written over 60 novels since 2002, including some stand-alone stories. Hardcovers are only 50¢ and paperbacks 25¢. 
 
 
 
BOOK CLUBS
Director's Monday Book Club (Monday 4/7 at 3:00pm)
Midnight's children
by Salman Rushdie

The life of a man born at the moment of India's independence becomes inextricably linked to that of his nation and is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirror modern India's course
Nonfiction Book Club (Wednesday 4/16 at 6:00pm)
Cue the sun : the invention of reality TV
by Emily Nussbaum

"From beloved New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum comes a groundbreaking narrative detailing the fights, egos, drama, and future presidents of reality television. Cue the Sun is a rollicking, deeply reported story about how the early reality TV business metastasized into an industry that now dominates entertainment in the United States. Starting in 1948, Nussbaum pulls back the curtain on the cultural meat grinder that created a generation-defining form of entertainment, examining shows from The Real World to Survivor to The Apprentice. Through extensive interviews, Nussbaum follows the reality TV industry from its inception with shows like Candid Camera to its 90s heyday and 00s aftermath. The book dives into some of the industry's most remarkable stories--for instance, the one where a serial killer on the run once appeared on The Dating Game"
Romance Required Book Club (Friday 4/25 at 1:00pm) 
Slightly dangerous
by Mary Balogh

In a first hardcover installment of the popular Regency-era series, romance enters the life of Wulfric Bedwyn, Duke of Bewcastle, the eldest brother and head of the Bedwyn family. By the author of Slightly Scandalous and Slightly Sinful.
Cook Book Club (Monday 4/28 at 12:30pm)
One
by Jamie Oliver

This go-to kitchen companion serves up 120 simple, delicious one-pan recipes with eight ingredients or less that take minimal prep and have maximum convenience. Illustrations.
Mystery Book Club (Tuesday 4/22 at 6pm)
The ice beneath her : a novel
by Camilla Grebe

Investigating a grisly murder in a business tycoon's Stockholm residence, detective Peter Lindgren and psychological profiler Hanne Lagerlind-Sch÷n navigate complications in their own relationship while tracking down the businessman, who may have been having an affair with the victim.
Thursday Night Book Club (Thursdays 4/10 & 4/24 at 6:00pm)
Cannery row
by John Steinbeck

Vividly depicts the colorful, sometimes disreputable, inhabitants of a run-down area in Monterey, California
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