Birmingham Public Library Blog

As part of the citywide celebrations honoring the 50th Anniversary of the pivotal year in the Civil Rights Movement, the Birmingham Public Library is having a contest in which participants must use their smartphones and the Instagram app in order to find and photograph historically significant locations from around the city. During the contest, participants will discover some of the famous and not-so-famous places that played an important role in the Civil Rights Movement during 1963. Each branch of the Birmingham Public Library will  have a packet with information about a location that is not far from each library. These locations all figured into the day-to-day activities of the Movement in 1963. Several of the locations included in our Instagram photo hunt were iconic factors in the Movement. The Civil Rights Sleuths contest will begin on Monday, March 18th and concludes on April 12th. Participants are allowed to compete as teams in the contest and there will ...

In this historical year when Birmingham remembers the Civil Rights struggle of 1963, Karl Friedman, then a practicing attorney in Birmingham who had already served in many positions of leadership in the general and Jewish community, recalls for us how the Jewish people and community responded to the momentous events that were taking place as the African American community fought the battle for equal rights. Wednesday, March 13, noon. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Birmingham's civil rights struggle, the Birmingham Public Library is sponsoring the Year of Birmingham , a 12-month series of lectures, documentary films, performances and panel discussions. 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.

The Entry: The Baptized and Their Sponsors , John Reese, 1980 BPL Digital Collections In the late 1970s, journalist and folklorist Kathryn Tucker Windham interviewed and recorded the residents of Gee's Bend, Alabama. The Archives Department at the Birmingham Public Library has about 30 of the interviews. Kelsey Bates, director of development at the Birmingham Public Library, will discuss the interviews and the residents' comments on cooking and eating traditions, politics, religion, and family. Wednesday, March 13, 10:30 a.m., Five Points West Library . For additional information on this program visit Birmingham365 . org .

On April 16, 2013, the 50th anniversary of the day that Martin Luther King , Jr. began writing his Letter from Birmingham Jail , the Birmingham Public Library will sponsor a program titled Letter from Birmingham Jail: A Worldwide Celebration. Participants in this program will host public readings from the Letter at various locations around the globe: libraries, museums, schools, universities, churches, synagogues, temples, places where people work, public parks, bookstores, street corners, coffee shops and anywhere that people want to participate. In addition to people who are participating throughout the Birmingham area and around Alabama, there will be participants from around the globe, from Israel to China to England to South Africa and Somalia. Mayor William Bell will read from the Lette r at Central and more names are being added each day. People who participate in the readings can read the full text of the Letter or selections from the Letter, individually, as a group,...

In the summer of 2011, the City of Birmingham launched its comprehensive planning process to create the Birmingham Comprehensive Plan, a 20-year policy and strategic framework to guide future administrative, legislative, and financial decisions affecting the city of Birmingham's quality of life, environment, and economic prosperity. Over the last 20 months, the City staff and consulting team have engaged the public through a series of community meetings, open houses, public forums, small group gatherings, and individual and corporate interviews as well as other public engagement methods to seek ideas and determine the issues and concerns facing those who live, work, and own businesses in Birmingham. Now that the Birmingham Comprehensive Plan is complete in draft form, the general public is being invited to view it and comment on it. Hard copies of the plan will be available for review at nine Birmingham Public Libraries : Avondale, Central, East Ensley, East Lake, Eastwood, Five...

Molley Mooney , Roman Pettway Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections Kelsey Bates, the Birmingham Public Library’s Director of Development and the library’s former Assistant Archivist, has received the David Warren Bowen Award from the Alabama Association of Historians . Kelsey received the award because her paper "The Women of Gee’s Bend" was selected as the best paper presented at the Association’s annual meeting in Florence last month. While the world knows Gee’s Bend for its quilts, Kelsey spoke about the insights revealed in oral histories conducted by Alabama writer and storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham with the residents of this rural community in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Those oral histories are now preserved in the BPL Archives and available online. Kelsey’s research looks at foodways, and she has discovered that as the women of Gee’s Bend discussed food—growing, cooking, and eating traditions—they simultaneously revealed their feelings, bel...

Birmingham Public Library (BPL), in partnership with Birmingham Children’s Theatre (BCT) and Junior League of Birmingham (JLB), and the Jefferson County Library Cooperative (JCLC), would like to invite you to attend From Page to Stage: Charlotte’s Web , a Readers’ Theatre Workshop for children, coming to a library near you ! In anticipation of the upcoming BCT performance of Charlotte’s Web , BPL will be hosting free workshops at some of its area libraries. Children, aged 7 to 12, will have the opportunity to learn how storybook characters come alive though the magic of a theatrical play. JLB will be on hand to coach the children through the play and introduce them to related literature located within the walls of their local library. Each child will also receive TWO FREE TICKETS (one child ticket and one adult ticket) to the Birmingham  Children’s Theatre’s Charlotte’sWeb production . Space is limited, so please visit here  to sign up now or visit/...

Beyond the Basics of Genealogy (BtB) workshops, a series of classes covering various topics on genealogical research will be conducted in the Birmingham Public Library (BPL) beginning in April 2013. Workshops will run from one to two hours, and be conducted by members of the Southern History Department staff. Participants will gain in-depth knowledge on specialized areas of researching genealogy. The BtB classes are designed to expand on information provided in the Introduction to Genealogy classes, which are offered throughout the year by the Southern History Department. Registration is limited to the first 18 respondents. Classes will be held at 10:00 a.m. in the Board Room of the Central Library. The subjects being taught and dates are as follows: What’s Up Doc?: Government Documents in Genealogical Research – Saturday, April 13th The Bases Are Loaded: BPL’s Catalog, Worldcat, and Other Databases – Saturday, May 18th Loving the LDS: An In-Depth Guide to Using Familys...