Latest / On the Same Page: A KCPL Podcast / Chapter 2: Dinos, Dungeons, and InDependence

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Chapter 2: Dinos, Dungeons, and InDependence · On the Same Page: A KCPL Podcast

0:00
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, good wherever you are.
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It's that time again for another podcast from On the Same Page, a KCPL podcast.
0:14
I'm Evan.
0:16
And I'm Tanya.
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And we are your co-hosts on this brand new adventure.
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Well, it doesn't feel so brand new now.
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We've got a few under our belt, but it's still pretty new.
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I'm super excited.
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I mean, so far so good.
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I've heard good things from people.
0:35
Right now, we are in the middle of Summer Library Club.
0:39
Wow.
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It's a busy time.
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You know, I think I remember what it's like to be this busy.
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And then it comes and I'm like, oh my goodness, what is going on here?
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It's just madness in the best way possible.
0:54
It's my first year getting to do it, and it's been a lot of fun.
0:58
I love the theme.
0:59
I love the dinosaur on Earth Astoria stuff.
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My first year's theme, because I came in in June, so the theme, I kind of didn't really
1:10
do much with SLC that year because I was still a newbie.
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But my first one that I really remember was superhero themed.
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So I loved that.
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Batman came to the library.
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So we always do fun stuff during SLC.
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We're going to talk a little bit more about that later and some things we have going on.
1:29
And speaking of that, we have another guest this time.
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Our guest is Amanda Gibson.
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And Amanda's here, and she's going to tell us a little bit about what her role is and
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what she does.
1:42
So welcome, Amanda.
1:43
Hello, hello.
1:44
I'm Amanda Gibson.
1:47
I'm the Adult Programming Librarian.
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I'm stationed here at the main library in downtown Charleston, but I plan events all
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across our library system.
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So it's a very fun position to have here at the library.
2:00
Oh, absolutely.
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Events are kind of some of the special things that we do and ways to bring people in that
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may not come to the library otherwise.
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Events can be a good opportunity to draw people here.
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So I'm sure that is fun being a part of, getting to put all that together and do that.
2:20
And so I know you do events like in, like the actual event events.
2:27
You also do reading challenges, and you're behind a lot of those that happen outside
2:35
of SLC, and you work with the Adult SLC, so you do all sorts of wonderful reading challenges.
2:42
Yes, we do a lot of reading challenges throughout the year.
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We just wrapped up a Mental Health Awareness Month reading challenge in May, and all year
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this year, we have the America 250 reading challenge.
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So every single month, we have a new reading prompt to celebrate America's 250th birthday.
3:01
In June, right now, we have West Virginia history, and I think whenever this podcast
3:07
comes out at the 1st of July, it's going to be, oh my gosh, I should have looked it
3:13
up.
3:14
It's something patriotic.
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I have it here.
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Colonial Era or Independence Day, like the early American time period is what it is.
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Sweet.
3:28
Okay, perfect.
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Because I know I just, I have the sheet of stickers.
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Every month, you can get a new sticker to mark off your reading log.
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If you're doing a physical reading log, we have those at all of our library branches,
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and the sticker sheet on my desk for July is a little firework sticker, and it's adorable.
3:45
It's one of my favorite months that we have.
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I've been doing this America 250 challenge, and I will say that it has caused me to read
3:55
some things that I may not have otherwise, and it's been a really, really cool experience.
4:01
And I will also say the stickers and that bookmark, typically, I don't do well keeping
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track of bookmarks and sticker, so it has its place.
4:13
It doesn't even live in a book.
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It has its place.
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It stays there, and when I complete it, I go get the sticker, and I put it there, and
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it lives there because I'm going to keep it as almost like a pride.
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That in itself is achievement.
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I did this challenge, and I read things that I normally wouldn't, so I'm loving it.
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I'm loving the year-long reading challenge.
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There is a prize at the end.
4:40
I will take suggestions for the prize.
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You don't get the prize until December because you have to finish all 12 months, and I want
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the prize to be something special, so I've considered things like, I don't know, like
4:54
those color-changing cups if we get red and blue ones or something, or maybe a little
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tote bag.
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We have, like, an America 250 at KCPL logo that I could put on a tote bag, so I've still
5:06
been tossing a few ideas back and forth, but there will be a commemorative prize at the
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end to be announced that, yes, there is a prize, my bookmark that I've been keeping
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track with my stickers, and there is the Beanstack option as well.
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We do all of our reading challenges on Beanstack, which is an online way to track your reading
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and you can create an account, and we have links to that on our website, so I've been
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keeping track both ways on my paper reading log and Beanstack.
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That's exactly what I've been doing.
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I have both, yeah.
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We were, before this podcast episode started, we were talking about our cats, and I have
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been using my America 250 bookmark.
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My cat is also obsessed with paper, so there's now a chunk of the top of my America 250 bookmark
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where she has been into it, so mine has not been kept safe.
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It's just well-loved.
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It's just well-loved.
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Yes.
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See, my way of making it well-loved is making sure I still have it.
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Yes.
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So, you know, it's just well-loved in a different way.
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It's fine.
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I was just going to mention one of the books that I read this year.
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For February, the theme was Black History Month, and I finally got around to reading
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Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.
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They made a movie several years ago with Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx in it, and
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it's about the Innocence Project and how there was this one case that got Bryan Stevenson
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kind of down that road of the justice system.
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There can be things that, you know, it's flawed because people are flawed, and he kind of
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works to try to fight through some of that, and the movie was really good.
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I love the movie.
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It made me angry that, you know, that kind of thing happens.
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I cried when I saw that movie.
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Yeah, I mean, but the book, I mean, it was really well-written, and I had always wanted
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to read it.
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It was one, like, I saw the movie, I put it on my to-read list, and it kind of got buried
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under the pile until I was looking at the America 250 Challenge, and I'm like, you know,
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I think this kind of fits for that month, so, you know, I'm like, let's give it a shot,
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and it was a really good read, so I'm glad for these kind of things, because, like, everybody
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sets, well, not everybody, but a lot of people set reading goals, and they're like, I want
7:35
to read this many books this year, but doing these kind of things is fun because it expands
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those reading goals to be more specific and get you out of your comfort zone a little
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bit.
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I mean, I always still end up back in that comfort zone, but, you know, I do have some
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detours and things I normally wouldn't do, so I think these reading challenges are perfect
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for that.
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Yeah, I've definitely read some things, like the Military History Challenge that we had
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in May.
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I read Days Without End by Sebastian Barry, and it's, you know, something that I wouldn't
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have even considered.
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I did that one for April, Civil War.
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Oh, nice, yeah.
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It does occur, you know, during that time, well, it starts a little bit before that,
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but it kind of covers that, and so, yeah, I read that one.
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It was a good one.
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Yeah, he joins the U.S. Army to fight in the Indian Wars, and then the Civil War, and the
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Indian Wars is not something that I know much about.
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It's not something we covered much in, you know, history classes that I've taken.
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That was really interesting to read about.
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I mean, I know it's fiction, but, you know, his experience in the Civil War and joining
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the Army was just, I don't know, it was really interesting, and it's not something I would
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have picked up originally, and I also read, and I read The Women by Kristen Hanna.
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That one's been very popular lately, and I read that for Women's History Month.
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I was a little late getting to that one, which is also something, I don't know if we've mentioned
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it yet, but you can.
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Not yet.
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Okay, because you can work backwards in the challenge.
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If you're just now hearing this podcast and you want to start, you can start the challenge
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now, and you can start all the way back in January and read up until this point, but
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you cannot work ahead, Beanstack won't let you, and we don't have our stickers at our
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libraries until the next month, so you can't work ahead, but you can go back and read previous
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topics.
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So, I was a little late to The Women by Kristen Hanna, but it was also very good.
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It was about the Vietnam War, which also is before my time, so a lot of my knowledge about
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the Vietnam War honestly comes from the movie Forrest Gump, so that's not great.
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So it was really interesting, I mean, again, it's fiction, but the depiction of PTSD and
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what happened when she came back home from the war was really impactful, so both of those
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are really good.
10:16
Yeah, see, for my Military History Month, I was able to work in another area of interest
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of mine, and I did a book called Disney During World War II, How the Walt Disney Studios
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Contributed to the World War by John Baxter.
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It is a book that's no longer in print, so I had to put in a request and get it through
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our interlibrary loan or ILL from another library out of West Virginia, it was in another
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state.
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They had to send it in so I could read that one, and it was fascinating to see all the
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things that Disney did during that time period, and he was one of the only companies during
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World War II that did not turn a profit for their military work.
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He was not profiting off of anything they did.
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In some cases, he was at a loss and he was losing because, you know, there was always
11:23
more things that came up and it was more expensive than he planned, and so I was able to work
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in, I'm a Disney adult, I love Disney, so I was like, Disney and military history, who
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would have thought those two things could go together so well?
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That book was really, really good, so it's kind of fun to work the challenge around your
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own interest in some months, but then other months it's completely out of the realm of
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what you would normally read, so I'm trying to balance that, do a little of both.
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That's one, and then we obviously have our summer reading going on, which is a reading
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challenge on Beanstack.
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It has some things that aren't reading as well, like coming to programs and events and
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things, but it works the same.
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You have goals and you can log them in Beanstack.
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We have paper sheets that you can get at the library if you want to do the paper sheet
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instead, and this year it's bingo, so you can get five in a row in any direction and
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that counts as a completion of the program.
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You can get your prize then, but then you can keep going if you want, and do a whole
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blackout and do all the squares, so it's kind of up to you, but the prizes for that one,
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we have the prizes for that set.
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Do you want to tell us a little bit about what those prizes are and the grand prize?
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Yes, we do have those prizes.
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Yes, so the adult prizes, so a bingo and blackout, you get two different prizes, and we have
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a treasure chest that you can choose from, and in there I have dinosaur chicken nugget,
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keychains, I have tote bags, I have, I completed summer library club color-changing cups, and
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I have dinosaur stickers.
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They have the little KCPL logo.
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They come from our marketing team.
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One of our marketing team members designed them herself, and it's a little T-Rex holding
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a laptop.
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Super cute.
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They are really cute.
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So there's a little selection of things to choose from in there for bingo and blackout,
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and for the teens and the children's challenges, they have different prizes to choose from
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as well.
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They work in similar ways.
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Yeah, I mean, I think we have some pretty cool prizes.
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The dinosaur chicken nuggets were the ones that, you know, most appealed to me, just
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because I think that's hilarious, and to do dino-themed and dino chicken nuggies as the
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internet has called them.
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They're plushy too, aren't they?
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Like, they're soft keychains.
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Yeah.
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They are soft.
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Yes.
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They're not like rubberized or, you know, like that.
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They're soft.
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That's a really, really cool prize, and as we were talking about dinosaur chicken nuggets
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and dinos, that can roll right into our next thing.
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So what we're going to do now is we're going to do a mini show and tell book club, which
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is the kind of book club that I do, where you're trying to convince someone else the
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book you read why they might want to read it.
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Amanda has a book, and me and Tanya have a book that we both read that we've teased on
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the podcast.
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Tanya and I both read Jurassic Park to go along with the theme for the summer, and so
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we're going to talk a little bit about that.
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Do you want to keep them in suspense for the Jurassic Park, and you go first, Amanda,
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and talk about your book?
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Sure.
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So a book that I've been reading, which is, I think, on a lot of everyone's to-be-read
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lists right now, is Dungeon Crawler Carl.
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I run a Monday night book group here at the main library, and that was our book choice
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for the month.
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I think there's eight, if I'm not mistaken, I think there's eight books in the Dungeon
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Crawler Carl series.
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I think the eighth one just came out.
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So a lot of people have been reading it.
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Everyone I've talked to really, really loved it.
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I took a little bit longer to get into it.
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I was like, what is this?
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It's basically, it's basically like if you're playing a video game, if that video game character
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that you're playing is like a sentient being, and you wanted to read a book from his perspective.
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So that's why it took me a while to get into it, because it literally, I've heard that
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the audio book is a better reading experience than the physical book.
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So keep that in mind, because I'm reading the physical book, and it has like all the
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pop-ups that he sees, like as he's going through the dungeon.
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Basically aliens have taken over the planet, and have collapsed it all into a series of
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I think there's 13 dungeons, and like no one's made it past the 12th floor.
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But yeah, so there's like pop-ups that he sees like whenever he gets like a loot box,
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or an expansion, or his skills increase.
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So that's why it took me a while to get into it, because those little pop-ups kept kind
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of like throwing me out.
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But the more I got into it, and the more you get into the characters, the better the book
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gets.
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Because he's also traveling with his cat, who is, she's a show cat.
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Back on Earth she was a show cat, and she develops the ability to speak in the dungeons.
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And her name is Princess Donut.
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She has a longer name, it's like Princess Donut Queen Anne Chonk, something like that.
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There's more to the name.
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She has like some awards she's won, so she's tacked those onto her name.
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Anyways, Princess Donut is a character.
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And Carl is our main character, and he is also pantsless, and he doesn't have shoes.
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So-
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Get it together, Carl!
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Literally, yes.
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So they're just, you know.
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And I am a sucker for, I'm a sucker for a book that's like about a guy, he just broke
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up with his girlfriend, you know, when the planet collapses.
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And he'd been left with her cat, and when the planet collapsed he'd been outside at
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night trying to rescue the cat from a tree because she jumped out a window.
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So that's why he has no pants and no shoes, and he has the cat.
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So I'm a sucker for a book about this bumbling guy just trying to make it through life after
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he breaks up with his girlfriend.
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I do love books like that.
18:04
There's one, it's still like one of my favorite books, it's called Good Material.
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And it's about a book about a guy after a breakup.
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And anyways, I'm a sucker for that kind of story.
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And so it's taken me a while just because the video game concept, but otherwise it has
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been a really-
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I'm sold on.
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Yeah.
18:24
I'm sold on Princess Donut.
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Right?
18:26
I'm sold on the video game concept because when I play video games, I'm all about, like,
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the lore.
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I'm, like, wanting to know the story and how these people, you know, all of that.
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So, like, I am totally about that aspect of it.
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I mean, Princess Donut sounds amazing, too.
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But yeah, so I think I would be sold on it for the video game aspect alone.
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So I think you have convinced us.
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We have to convince you about Jurassic Park.
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Now, you're like me, like the way I was a few years ago, because I went back and looked.
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It was 2022 when I watched the Jurassic Park movies.
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So I did not see them until I was an adult, well into an adult.
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So I'm kind of newer to this, and Tanya is not so new to the overall Jurassic Park.
19:24
I'm obsessed.
19:25
I love Jurassic Park, which is wild that I had never read the book.
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See?
19:30
Yeah, here we are.
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Now I got to.
19:33
Here we are.
19:34
And so do you want to go first, Tanya, and talk about, since you're coming into it as
19:40
a fan of the movie, now a fan of the book, I would think.
19:45
I absolutely love this book.
19:47
I love horror, and there are so many scenes in this that are set up so well and so suspensefully
19:54
that, I mean, I devoured this book, I think, in like three days, the audio book, three
20:01
or four days.
20:02
So like when you, the book opens, you're in Costa Rica, and it's pouring the rain.
20:07
You can hear a helicopter coming, but you can't see it yet.
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So there's all this noise that's, I really liked that setting.
20:14
And the book overall is so much darker than like the original movie.
20:19
The original movie is scary because obviously dinosaurs are a threat to the people on the
20:25
island, but they go into a lot more detail in the book.
20:31
I think this is pretty common knowledge at this point, but John Hammond's character is
20:36
not sympathetic in the book, and he's, it's so much darker.
20:43
Yeah, it is a lot darker.
20:46
And, you know, the thing of it is, that's really interesting to me, is if I had read
20:52
this book first, I don't know how I'd feel about this movie, because they are so different
21:00
in the sense of like the way some of the characters act, the way in which they flip-flop the ages
21:08
of the kids and, you know, kind of the interests, like some of the changes that they made.
21:14
I would have been like, oh, that's not like the book, that's not like, there's enough
21:17
changes in it that I think I would, you know, not love the movie.
21:23
I would think, eh, it was all right, you know, because there's something lost there.
21:30
However, knowing what I know now, after reading the book, and I've seen some of the later
21:36
movies and things, that they did take a lot of things that were in this book and adapt
21:43
them later on and, you know, work them into later movies.
21:49
So I think I would overall be a fan of the series still.
21:53
I just, I question if I had read the book first, how I'd feel about the movie, because
21:58
they are that different.
22:00
But the one thing that they both do is the idea that in science and money don't always
22:10
go together, you know, the line of you, you were so focused on, if you could, you never
22:17
stopped to think if you should.
22:20
And that is really a theme throughout the book and in the movie.
22:28
And if you haven't seen, since you haven't seen the movie, Amanda, we can talk, I can
22:32
tell you this, Jeff Goldblum, that right there should be enough to convince you to watch
22:37
the movie.
22:39
Jeff Goldblum's character in that movie is probably the most book accurate, I think.
22:48
I agree.
22:49
Like it translates really, really well from the book to the movie.
22:54
In the movie, he has a lot more one liners that aren't necessarily in the book, but that's
22:59
Jeff Goldblum.
23:00
Like, you know, you just kind of who he is.
23:02
So I would think it would be worth your time to check that out.
23:06
Okay.
23:07
Yeah, I'm way behind on the Jurassic Park fandom and there's like three movies now,
23:12
isn't there?
23:13
Did they just come out with like, oh, there's like five.
23:16
Oh, okay.
23:17
Seven.
23:18
Seven movies.
23:19
So yeah, see, I'm so behind, I have not read the books, I have not seen the movies, any
23:24
of the movies.
23:25
Tanya and I, we were talking earlier and when you mentioned it's like, oh, kind of horror,
23:30
like suspense.
23:31
I like, I'm a big horror reader.
23:33
I love Stephen King.
23:36
I don't know, I just finished another horror novel, which I kept falling asleep trying
23:40
to read it.
23:41
Tanya was making fun of me for that.
23:43
Oh, man.
23:46
It was very stabby.
23:47
And here I am just like falling asleep during it, like could not stay awake.
23:51
Anyways, so I love horror, it's like what I read.
23:54
And so I never, like, I always consider Jurassic Park, I mean, it's like sci-fi, but I think
24:01
I would really enjoy the horror element of that.
24:05
So well, I'm the same exact way.
24:08
And I poke fun at you, but I like can put on a horror movie and fall asleep.
24:12
I think we've talked about that in the last episode.
24:14
Yes, we did.
24:15
And I love the Jurassic Park movies, but the books are so much more horrifying.
24:23
They're scary.
24:25
And that really took me by surprise because the movie is for kids can enjoy the movies.
24:31
So yeah, I think if you like horror, you would love the Jurassic Park book.
24:37
It's sci-fi horror, for sure, but yeah.
24:42
I will, I will have to try it.
24:44
Well, and one of our badges for our activities for the challenge for the Adult Summer Library
24:51
Club program is to read a book with a dinosaur on the cover.
24:54
So Jurassic Park does indeed have a dinosaur on the covers.
24:58
Yes, it does.
24:59
And I marked that square when I read Jurassic Park because that fits.
25:05
And the good thing about it is, though, if you do decide to read the books, there's only
25:09
two books.
25:10
There's seven movies, but there's only two books.
25:13
So you could catch up on the books a lot quicker.
25:17
And that's what I was talking about.
25:18
They took some things and adapted them later on.
25:21
There's scenes in both of the books that end up in movie fives, except they've kind of
25:27
spread out some of the stuff.
25:29
So it makes its way to the screen, but not.
25:32
Yeah, like what they had to do with Game of Thrones to finish that last season.
25:39
And so, you know, you would have an easier time.
25:43
You wouldn't have seven book series.
25:45
Like, you know, if we read Dungeon Crawler Carl, we will have quite a few to get dive
25:52
in there.
25:53
Yeah.
25:54
Yeah.
25:55
That is the one thing about getting into a series like Dungeon Crawler Carl is with eight
26:00
books in the series.
26:01
I have to be very careful when I start a series because I will make it my entire personality.
26:09
I did that with A Quarter Thorns and Roses.
26:12
I did that with the Twilight series.
26:14
I did that with the Percy Jackson series.
26:17
Dungeon Crawler Carl, I, you know, there's eight of them.
26:21
So I have to be careful, but I'm in it now.
26:23
So yeah, see, there's a series that I've been working on since October of 2024.
26:31
And I am not I'm not finished yet because I'll read a book or two of it and then I'll
26:37
just read.
26:39
I'm a mood reader.
26:40
So you know, that really affects a lot on that.
26:46
It's the Orphan X series.
26:49
I started reading it because Greg Hurwitz, when he came to the book festival, I was like,
26:53
I hadn't read any of the authors that were coming and I'm like, well, I want to read
26:57
something by one of them.
26:59
And I started that and the main character's name is Evan.
27:02
So I'm like, all right, let's go.
27:06
Let's do this.
27:07
And I'm only on book, I think like nine, 10 and there's like 12.
27:12
So I'm getting there.
27:13
Wow.
27:14
Okay.
27:15
I think I know that.
27:16
I can space it out.
27:17
I can space them out like that.
27:20
Just because mood reading, you know, but that's not everyone.
27:26
Sometimes when you get a series, you dive right in and you're all the way in.
27:29
So I have become more of a mood reader as I've gotten older.
27:34
Like back in the day, I would have had to finish like all eight at one time.
27:40
But I have, especially with the Quarter Thorns and Roses.
27:44
I'm still working on the books.
27:47
They're not all out yet.
27:48
And also there's like three different series and like the worlds are supposed to collide.
27:52
One series is finished, but the other two are not.
27:55
So it's like, we're getting information piecemeal.
27:58
And then I have a couple of crime series that I'm reading and so those aren't finished yet.
28:05
So I've, I had to become okay with just not finishing a series all at once as I've gotten
28:11
older.
28:13
I get it.
28:14
Yeah.
28:15
That's kind of what I've tried.
28:16
I mean, that's what I've transitioned into.
28:17
It's just like not forcing myself to read all of the, you know, at once.
28:22
And in some ways it makes it nice because like that series is part of your life longer.
28:29
It's true.
28:30
You move on like it's, you know, so, but yeah.
28:36
But I'm going to give Dungeon Crawler Carl a chance and I'm going to read the second
28:42
Jurassic Park.
28:43
I don't know if me or Tanya, either one said that, but I plan to read the second Jurassic
28:48
Park.
28:49
The first book was good and I'm like, let's read the next one.
28:53
So it sounds like if you're a big fan of the movies, it'd be worthwhile to read the second
28:59
one if the movies kind of incorporate that as well.
29:02
Oh yeah.
29:03
No, if you're a big fan of the movies, yeah.
29:05
Because there's things that they draw from the, and later on, like, you know, I mean,
29:10
they're working with two books of material to make seven, is that what you said, Tanya?
29:14
Seven movies?
29:15
There's seven movies.
29:17
Seven movies.
29:18
So, you know, they got to kind of draw from somewhere, but.
29:21
Well, you know, they keep making Star Wars movies too.
29:25
I feel like sci-fi, they could, like, I don't know.
29:28
I don't know if it's just easier to draw on that material to like make more.
29:33
I don't know.
29:34
I mean, Star Wars, like, was never even a book.
29:38
It was, it's a screenplay, like, drawn from someone's imagination, which, I don't know,
29:43
I just kind of find fascinating because they just keep making them, drawing from the same,
29:47
like, movie materials.
29:48
I don't know.
29:49
Now we need dinosaurs in space, and literally everyone will go see it.
29:56
I was watching, I think it was a TikTok somebody was talking about the other day, and like,
30:02
about the idea of what if we were all wrong about dinosaurs?
30:06
Like, dinosaurs had everything they need to go to space, like it existed on the Earth,
30:12
you know, like all of the, you know, so what if the dinosaurs just left Earth?
30:19
They weren't, didn't go extinct, they just left.
30:23
Maybe they just hitched a ride on that comet or the meteor that hit.
30:27
What if aliens are dinosaurs?
30:32
They're just dinosaurs that left Earth.
30:34
I mean, I saw, I think it was on TikTok or Instagram Reels or something, somebody was
30:41
just, you know, making that silly proposal, and I'm like, you know, that is quite silly,
30:46
but it's an interesting thought, you know, process to think, huh, wonder if.
30:51
And you said dinosaurs in space, and that instantly popped in my head, so.
30:55
I feel like we need, if this was a video, we would insert the aliens meme here from
31:00
the History Channel.
31:01
Yes.
31:02
So just close your eyes and picture that.
31:04
Yes.
31:05
Which, look, I know there's so many problems with that show, but I do love the History
31:10
Channel aliens show.
31:11
I mean, Ancient Aliens.
31:14
Ancient Aliens, yes, that's the show.
31:16
I used to watch that all the time.
31:18
Ancient Aliens, dinosaurs as aliens.
31:21
Yes.
31:22
Oh, maybe that'd be a new season or a new, like, you know, special they do.
31:27
Look at dinosaurs as aliens.
31:30
We need that episode right now.
31:32
If the History Channel's listening.
31:35
Maybe they will.
31:36
Speaking of history, now that you said that, that's the perfect segue right into the next
31:42
thing.
31:43
So we talked about last time that we're going to do segments in some of our episodes and
31:48
different things for you to look forward to, and we're going to introduce our next segment,
31:54
which is entitled History Doesn't Have to be a Mystery, in which we will talk about
31:59
things relating to history and books and who knows what avenues of history we will
32:05
end up discussing as this evolves.
32:07
But I thought what would be kind of cool today is to talk about the Kanawha County Public
32:13
Library and a little bit about its history.
32:17
So I asked our reference department to give me some things that, you know, little interesting
32:25
tidbits about the library, and they came back with some pretty cool ones.
32:30
Some ones that I didn't, I did not know about.
32:34
I'll give you a little bit of the, a little piece by piece.
32:37
So first things first, very first book that was acquired by KCPO, but at that time it
32:47
wasn't a public library system.
32:49
It was just the earliest library in the county, was the Charleston Public Library at that
32:57
time.
32:58
It was titled The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott.
33:03
And most interesting part that I found out about this is that book is still in the main
33:10
library in Charleston.
33:12
It is not in circulation.
33:14
That book is still in the library from 1909.
33:22
That book is still there.
33:24
You can't check it out.
33:26
We do have a copy of that book that you can check out, but it's not the one from 1909.
33:32
But it is still in the library.
33:34
And I had to clarify with reference, like, so you mean by saying we still have it, not
33:39
that we just have a copy, but we have the actual 1909 book?
33:45
I said yes.
33:46
Is that something people can look at if they just want to see it?
33:50
I would imagine so.
33:52
I'd have to talk to the reference department.
33:55
I mean, Amanda, do you know if...
33:57
I would imagine, I might have to go check out our West Virginia archives after this
34:04
podcast to go see if it's in there.
34:07
Because we do have some special things in storage, in, like, archival boxes and such.
34:13
I think it's an archival box.
34:15
Yeah.
34:16
It might be harder to, like, dig out, because I think we had it on display.
34:21
I could be wrong.
34:22
I feel like we had it on display at one point.
34:24
We have a glass box that we display stuff at the main library sometimes.
34:28
We had a Peter Rabbit display.
34:30
We have some artifacts from the author who wrote, like, the Peter, or no, Peter Cottontail.
34:35
But I know all of that came out of, like, archival boxes.
34:37
So it might just be harder to get to.
34:40
But I'm sure we could pull it.
34:42
It might just take some work.
34:44
You might want to email us in advance.
34:46
You might want to inquire about that one in advance.
34:51
Another thing that people might not know that I found fascinating is the concept of
35:00
having a public library supported was started by the Women's Kanawha Literacy Club.
35:11
And it was a group of women who appointed a committee to kind of get that together and
35:18
start a library in the county.
35:21
I think that's really cool because in 1908, women doing something like that in a political,
35:30
you know, raising funds were doing this, which now would be considered, you know, in the
35:34
political arena.
35:36
This was before they could even vote.
35:39
That's true.
35:40
And they are out here, you know, starting a club and organizing and, you know, supporting
35:45
a public library.
35:46
And so, like, I think that is absolutely amazing.
35:51
So that's something people might not know about the Kanawha County Public Library.
35:56
That's awesome.
35:57
I wonder if they chose the first book.
35:59
The first book was actually donated.
36:01
Donated?
36:02
Oh, that's cool.
36:03
It was donated at a reception that was held on March 12th, 1909.
36:09
And so the library didn't actually open until June of that year.
36:15
So, like, it was donated a few months before that.
36:18
They didn't necessarily get to choose it, but, I mean, it doesn't say who and what I
36:23
have here.
36:24
It doesn't say who donated it.
36:26
So maybe they were involved with that.
36:29
Maybe it was their group that donated it.
36:31
And then on the other side of things with that, the very first patron who registered
36:39
was Miss Samuel Matheson of Washington Street.
36:43
Now, if you think about that and the way I just said that, Miss Samuel Matheson, we don't
36:50
know her first name.
36:52
That's true.
36:53
Because back then, that was, you know, she went by Mrs. Samuel.
36:59
So we might, I mean, we'll probably never know.
37:02
I mean, I guess we could do ancestry and figure out maybe what her name is.
37:07
But as far as our records go, there's not a first name.
37:11
So it's like, you know, it's interesting, the two perspectives there.
37:15
We have a group of women who are out here making moves, starting a library.
37:20
And then we have our first patron who we don't even know their first name.
37:25
So like, it shows the kind of what was going on in the world in 1909 when all this was
37:30
happening.
37:31
So that's just a little history for you.
37:35
That's super cool.
37:36
Now, we've talked about history.
37:39
Let's jump back in to the present and talk about some adult programs that are going on
37:45
in July or even beyond July, if you have something you would like to talk about.
37:51
Well, yeah.
37:52
So we talked about the America 250 Challenge and what we're reading for it for a while
37:56
at the beginning of this.
37:59
And we are celebrating America 250 all year.
38:03
And we're doing a lot of programs for America 250 as well, including this summer.
38:08
In July, we're going to have History Alive, which is a program of the West Virginia Humanities Council.
38:15
We're going to have History Alive with Thomas Ingalls, which if you've read Follow the River,
38:20
Thomas Ingalls was Mary Ingalls' son who was captured.
38:26
Doug Wood, who comes and does a presentation on Thomas Ingalls.
38:31
The Children's Department also has a West Virginia Mine Wars traveling trunk.
38:35
Yeah, so that's going to be at various locations.
38:39
There's going to be artifacts where you can learn about the dangers of coal mining and
38:43
then about the community and coal camp life.
38:46
And also it touches on, of course, the mine wars and the coal miners fighting for their
38:52
civil liberties.
38:54
And then we also have this summer Women in History with Katherine Johnson.
39:00
We're going to have a living history portrayal of Katherine Johnson, who was NASA computer.
39:07
She was a mathematician.
39:08
I think there's a statue of her at West Virginia State now.
39:14
So I believe so.
39:16
Yes.
39:17
The more local history there related to America 250.
39:20
And then adult programming wise, we'll be doing more America 250 in September.
39:25
We'll do handwriting the Constitution.
39:28
We're planning a Boston Tea Party at some point.
39:32
Unrelated to America 250, we'll have various programs coming up like I'm going to be doing
39:37
in August.
39:38
I do an Otis Lowry Nutritional Literacy Food Film Festival because we have our Otis Lowry
39:45
Nutritional Literacy Center here at the main library.
39:48
So I show some like foodie films throughout the month of August.
39:52
So people can be on the lookout for those.
39:54
And we'll do lots more fun stuff throughout the year.
39:57
So just check our calendar, kcpls.org.
40:01
There's a link to our calendar under attend.
40:03
Click on our calendar and see all of our events.
40:06
Yes.
40:07
You can stop by any of the branches and get our monthly calendars if you prefer the paper
40:12
format.
40:13
We have them out every month.
40:14
Our marketing department puts them together for each location.
40:18
So you can see what's going on at your local branch or downtown at the main library.
40:22
So definitely check those out too.
40:26
We'll be doing Summerween on July 11th.
40:29
Yeah, on July 11th here at the main library from 10am until 1pm.
40:35
We will have Summerween so it's a Halloween celebration during the summer.
40:40
And I know our idea lab is their 3D printing some pineapple shaped jack-o'-lanterns that
40:48
people can paint.
40:49
We'll have like a temporary tattoo station.
40:53
I believe the children's department is getting from the West Virginia State University.
40:58
I think they're getting a bat, like a display on bats so people can explore things about
41:03
bats.
41:05
And so yeah, we'll be we'll have a lot of stuff on July 11th and that is possibly costumes
41:12
from what I've heard.
41:13
Yes, we're trying to get some people in costumes and surely if people want to come in costume
41:18
that would be totally fine.
41:19
We would love for you to come in your Halloween costume in July.
41:22
That would be great.
41:24
Yes.
41:25
Why not?
41:26
We have Christmas in July, Halloween in July.
41:29
Exactly.
41:30
We can do what we want, right?
41:33
Yes.
41:34
Which I'm all for the Summerween.
41:36
That has been like a thing I think the last like few years, which I love because then
41:40
people come out with more like horror themed book lists in the summer and I'm like, yes.
41:50
You know, because I think horror itself is like not a very well represented genre sometimes,
41:56
you know.
41:57
And, and so I just I love, I love the recognition anyways, but yes, Summerween is happening.
42:05
And yeah, definitely go to the branches and pick up the paper calendars there because
42:10
at the branch libraries, they do, you know, so many different adult craft events.
42:15
They'll have their own lectures with local presenters like St. Albans has the St. Albans
42:20
Rights Program where they get local writers in.
42:22
Yeah.
42:23
So, so beyond the main library, there's a lot to do at the branch libraries too.
42:27
Yes.
42:28
And as I always like to mention, if you are listening and you are not in Kanawha County,
42:34
we're glad you're listening, but check out your local library, wherever that may be,
42:40
because I'm sure they're doing lots of fun things too.
42:43
And if you hear us talk about something that you think is cool, let them know, say, hey,
42:49
we're doing this.
42:50
Can we do something like that?
42:52
We always love hearing, you know, ideas and things that, that people actually want.
42:57
So please, you know, check with your local library, wherever you may be.
43:02
Well, with that, I think this is, we're coming to the end of our podcast here.
43:08
So any, anyone have any final words, final thoughts before we sign off?
43:13
Amanda, you did excellent.
43:15
I'm so happy you were able to be on.
43:17
Both guests we've had have been so good.
43:19
Oh, yes.
43:21
Loved hearing about the books you're reading and everything you're doing at the library.
43:24
So I appreciate you very much.
43:27
Yay.
43:27
Thanks for having me.
43:28
I appreciate it.
43:30
Before, before we go, I want to mention that we do have an email.
43:34
So if you're listening and you're enjoying this, if there's something you want us to
43:38
talk about on the podcast that you think it'd be interesting to hear our perspectives, or
43:43
just want to send kudos, or any reason you might want to contact us, we have an email
43:49
set up, which is podcast at kcpls.org.
43:55
And you can email us there and get in touch.
43:58
So we, I just wanted to throw that out.
44:00
And with that, this has been On the Same Page at KCPL Podcast.
44:06
I'm Evan.
44:08
And I'm Tanya.
44:10
And thank you for listening.
44:12
Yay.
44:13
Yay.