Birmingham Public Library Blog

Newspaper headline from Shores' scrapbook The Birmingham Historical Society and the Birmingham Public Library is showcasing the life and times of Birmingham civil rights attorney Arthur Shores in a special exhibit, November 4-December 28 at the Central Library. The exhibit features a scrapbook of newspaper reports and printed materials, which Shores collected throughout his legal and political career. The Birmingham Historical Society has copied numerous pages of the scrapbook, which is larger than the size of a newspaper, in order to display them in Central Library's 4th Floor Gallery. Shores, who was born in 1904, was a high school principal at Dunbar High School in Bessemer, Alabama, when he became a lawyer in 1937. Although Shores died in 1996 at the age of 92, the scrapbook and exhibit look at his career from 1939 to 1975. Some of the exhibit highlights include: How Shores and Thurgood Marshall successfully fought to get Autherine Lucy enrolled as the first bl...

Find Wendy Witch or guess how many Tootsie Rolls are in Fred's belly and they could go home with you. The Birmingham Public Library is ready to scare up some Halloween fun this month with decorated pumpkins, costume contests, and more. Back for another year will be the Ghouls' Ball , which will be held on Thursday, October 25 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Central Library . The event, which is for ages 13 to 18, will include music, dancing, food, treats, balloon sculptures, animals, a photo booth, free books, and Wii tournaments. The event is free. However, tickets are required for admittance and must be picked up in advance at the downtown library and branches. Call 226-3655 for more information. Other free events include: What's Up With Wendy the Witch and Fred Frankenstein? , throughout October, Eastwood Library . Wendy the Witch stays on the go so much, that librarians need help in finding her. Those who find Wendy at this branch will be entered into an Octobe...

Join Alabama author Jessica Penot , author of the books Haunted Chattanooga and Haunted North Alabama , for creepy lunchtime ghost stories from the American South. Books will be available for purchase and signing.Wednesday, October 31, noon. Feed your body and mind at BPL's Brown Bag Lunch programs . You bring the lunch and we'll bring the drinks. Central Library, Linn Henley Research Building, Arrington Auditorium, 4th floor. For more information call 226-3604 or visit www.bplonline.org.

Fringe-ology: How I Tried To Explain Away The Unexplainable—And Couldn't Steve Volk For years, I used to read a lot about the paranormal but eventually got frustrated because I wanted there to be proof and there never seemed to be, even though some leading universities researched the topic. As for the non-university world: forget it. Enter this book. Whether or not it provides proof is debatable. Steve Volk isn’t so concerned with handing proof over as assembling accounts that strongly suggest such proof. A lot of this debate about proof depends on what we call paranormal in the first place, and how open our minds are to the possibility of it. The two main barriers are, per Volk, religious narrow-mindedness and over-zealous scientific materialism. Both camps are especially tied into the fact that we are predisposed to “emerge from every conversation with our belief system intact.” Topics covered included life after death, telepathy, consciousness outside the brain, and the res...

Scorpion outlaws, Bonnie and Clyde Emperor scorpions are some of the largest scorpions in the world, averaging around 7-8 inches in length. They are popular here in the United States as pets and can live to around 5 to 8 years in captivity. Emperor scorpions are a West African jungle species, as opposed to scorpions found in desert areas. In the world. Like all scorpions, the Emperor scorpion’s tail ends in a venomous stinger but the sting is no more dangerous than a bee sting. They mainly used their large pincers to capture prey and defend themselves. Bonnie While Bonnie and Clyde are male and female, we don’t expect any offspring. When scorpions mate, they have to perform a “scorpion dance” which requires a large open space, which is not available inside their library home. In case they have offspring, which are born live and live on top of their mother, I am sure that we will be offering them to the Friends of the Library! On the October 28th program of Mythbuster...

Award-winning poet and community activist John Paul Taylor will lead a free adult poetry workshop on Tuesday, November 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Central Library. Gifts of a Wordsmith will take place on the library's second floor in the Story Castle. The topic for the November 6 session will be “How to Organize Your Writing Life," focusing on a book called Six-Figure Freelancing: The Writer's Guide to Making More Money by Kelly James-Enger. The workshop will also deal with how to find work as a freelance writer. These poetry workshops are held every first Tuesday of the month from 6 to 8 p.m. at the downtown Birmingham Public Library and is funded by the Friends of BPL . Taylor is one of the founders of Real Life Poets, a nonprofit creative writing program based in Birmingham. For more information on the adult poetry class, contact Taylor at johnpaul@reallifepoets.org or 205-585-8271. The Real Life Poets website is www.reallifepoets.org . The BPL contact is Har...

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is an annual writing challenge / literary marathon in which participants pledge to write a 50,000 word short novel in thirty days (which works out to 1,667 words of original fiction, or 4-5 single-space typed pages, per day). The premise is based on the idea that, in NaNoWriMo founder Chris Baty’s words, “The biggest thing separating people from their artistic ambitions is not a lack of talent. It’s the lack of the deadline.” NaNoWriMo provides that deadline and connects aspiring authors with a worldwide community of fellow writers sharing the same dream. NaNoWriMo began in 1999 with a mere nineteen participants in the San Francisco area. By last year, it had grown to over 250,000 authors worldwide, with even more expected to enter this year. In 2011, the Birmingham area alone had 376 registered participants, producing over 140 winning novels and writing over 7,000,000 words of fiction. While the vast majority of NaNo novels never see pu...

WHO: Birmingham Public Library (BPL) WHAT: Bards & Brews: BPL’s Poetry Performance Series WHEN: Friday, November 2, 2012, 6:30 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. Live Music and Sign Up at 6:30 p.m. Call Time at 7:00 p.m. WHERE: Avondale Regional Library, 509 40th Street South The Birmingham Public Library’s (BPL) popular Bards & Brews poetry performance/beer tasting series is hitting the road in November. Usually held the first Friday of each month, the November 2nd edition of Bards & Brews will travel to the Avondale Regional Library at 509 40th Street South. The program, which will be OPEN MIC, begins at 6:30 p.m. with live music, and poetry performances starting at 7:00. Emcee Brian “Voice Porter” Hawkins will deftly guide both novice and veteran poets through an evening of verse with topics that run the gamut from romantic relationships to the local political scene. The program is free of charge and open to the public. Craft beer will be available for sampling and lig...