No Story Hour this Friday

Lego Club -- May 17

Bring your friends and build with the Library's Lego collection on Thursday, May 17, from 3:30 - 4:30 pm.   Lego Club is for PreK - 6th grade kids.  We do ask that children age 5 and under be accompanied by a parent or caregiver.   This will be the last Lego Club meeting for the school year.

No Story Hour May 18 - June 8

Preschool Story Hour will be taking a break so Bronna can prepare for our Summer Library program.  We will kick off summer Story Hour with a performance by David Landau on Friday, June 15, at 10 am in Library Park. 

Summertime Story Hour will be on Fridays at 10am at the Library from June 22 - July 20th.

Green County Reads

Don't miss the final events of the 2nd annual Green County Reads.  A film screening of A Map of the World will be held at the Monroe Public Library on May 10 at 6:30 p.m.  On May 17 at 7 p.m. author Jane Hamilton will do a presentation about her book at the Monroe Arts Center.  All events are free and open to the public.  If you haven't yet read A Map of the World, we have copies available for checkout.

Culver's Coloring Contest Winners

Congratulations to the two winners of the Culver's Coloring Contest.  Thirty-five kids entered a picture from their favorite book and received a coupon for free custard.  Zechariah Bair's picture from Tyrone the Horrible and Alonso Vega's picture from Mission to the Arctic were chosen as the winners.  Both will receive a coupon for a Culver's Kids Meal.  All of the kids' entries are displayed in the library's children's area.

Fun at our Open House

Thanks to the many people who stopped by the Belleville Public Library during our Open House last Thursday evening.  Over one hundred people toured the library, learned about ebooks and other online services, did a craft with their children, and had some great cake from Sweet Street Bakery.

The children from Belleville Preschool and Childcare presented Bronna with a thank you banner that they made for the library.  If you missed the Open House, just visit us anytime to look around and pick up informational material about library services.

Jan Pauli won our National Library Week drawing for the Hunger Games book trilogy set.  The winners of the Open House door prizes are Ester Huntoon, Heidi Clark,  Cheryl Jensen, Adrianna Gomez, and Skyler Beyer.

Ebook Update

Circulation of ebooks through the statewide OverDrive system is growing rapidly.  First quarter 2012 ebook check outs in Wisconsin reached 165,614 or more than five times what it was first quarter last year.  Over 26,000 new patrons registered to use OverDrive during the first quarter raising total OverDrive users to 137,371.

To meet this growing demand, Wisconsin libraries contributed to a million dollar buying pool for 2012 to buy ebooks and audiobooks for use statewide.  Belleville library patrons have free access to the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium's ebook and audiobook collection through OverDrive using their library card number. 

Have you wondered which cities are the biggest e-reader users?  The April 18, 2012 issue of  The Atlantic magazine analyzed Amazon Kindle sales by city to rank how popular e-reading was across the nation.  Madison was number 3! 

Are you interested in trying ebooks?  Or downloading audio books to your MP3 player?  Click on the OverDrive icon at the left and select the Getting Started drop down menu for more information.

2011 Library Circulation

It's no wonder the library seems like a busy place.  In 2011 we checked out over 85,000 items to our patrons.  Over 58,000 visitors came through our front door during the year.  Every morning we receive red boxes of materials from other libraries and send them boxes of our materials.  The items sent and received in 2011 totaled 80,440. Shared resources with other South Central libraries is an important part of our service to our patrons.  Never hesitate to ask us to place a hold on material from another library.

Ear Buds for Computers

If you would like to use ear buds while using our patron computers, they are now available for purchase at the library for $1.25.  Kids may leave their pair at the library in a labeled plastic bag.