Lafayette Public Library brings community, information,
and ideas together to inspire literacy, learning, and discovery.

Each month we offer great ideas, opportunities, and resources with our Check In @ LPL monthly online newsletter. We love hearing from you - drop us a note with your comments and suggestions.

Spring, with all its lovely and wild weather is here. We have much for the community this month; events, information, and reading recommendations.
Enjoy all we have to offer during May, and stop by to visit.

The Library will be closed all day and the book drops locked on Sunday, May 26 and Monday, May 27, in observance of Memorial Day. No books are due on those days.

It's All About Reading!

It's all about Kids (and grownups) Reading!

Countdown to Summer Reading

Looking for summer fun? Join us for Summer Reading at the Library. Read, have fun at our events, and log your reading activities online to qualify for prizes.
Sign ups begin June 1, online or at the Library.

It's all about Adults Reading!

"If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children--four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness--sneak out to hear their fortunes. The prophecies inform their next five decades."

- The Immortalists, Library Catalog

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
Book discussion June17, 6 pm
LafayetteREADS! is a quarterly Lafayette community reading and discussion group. We select books that are not only great reads, but that are relevant to today’s issues. Informal discussions focus on the book itself, as well as on ways in which the story sheds light on the contemporary world. Read and relate to your community!

Have you had a chance to read The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin? The story asks how we might live if we knew the date of our passing. With which of the Gold siblings do you identify more? Would you be more likely to 'seize the day' and embrace life, or would you do all you could to stave off the inevitable? An award-winning novel, The Immortalists follows each Gold sibling into adulthood, painting a rich portrait of life in 1960s Lower East Side New York, 1980s San Francisco and more. Check out Chloe Benjamin on YouTube, talking about her work.

It's all about Library Staff Reading!

Explore all our blog posts this month for ideas on what to read and watch. We love to share what we come across, so try a few recommendations. You can access any of the books, CDs, and DVDs through our catalog.

Library 101 is where we highlight new Library resources and services, and also offer refresher reminders for some of our resources that you might not know about yet. Stay tuned each month for valuable Lafayette Library information!

New Library Calendar starting this summer - a new look for the Lafayette Library calendar and an easier-to-use room reservation system!
Thanks for your patience while we make the switch during May and June! Visit our Event Spaces page for details on how to reserve space during the transition. We hope to have our great new system up soon.

Flatirons Library Consortium A few years ago, our library joined the Flatirons Library Consortium, an affiliation of local libraries that has vastly increased the number of items available to our patrons, most within just a couple days. Now when you look at our catalog, you’re able to see at a glance the entire collections of all six consortium libraries (Longmont, Loveland, Louisville, Boulder, Broomfield and Lafayette).

If the item you’re searching for isn’t on our shelves, you can put a "hold" on a copy from one of the other libraries. We find that we can fulfill more than 98% of customer requests through our consortium! There is a bit of a wait for some of our popular items that have a long hold list, but your Lafayette Library account lets you put up to 25 items on your hold list at a time, so you’ll always have something to read.

If you have questions about your account or our library, always feel free to call 303-665-5200, email or stop by. We want to make sure you are using your account to its full potential.

Last month we celebrated our terrific volunteers with a lunchtime gathering where they could visit with fellow volunteers, learn about the full range of our volunteer program, and enjoy fine food.

We had asked adult and teen volunteers to complete the sentence: “I belong at the library because …" and we photographed them with their responses. Staff also had their pictures taken completing the prompt: “We love our volunteers because …”. We’ve assembled a slide show celebrating some of the more than 200 volunteers who help us carry out the important day-to-day work of the Library.

During April we were honored to have volunteers from the Empowerment Center of East County join us for a morning of vigorous spring cleaning. Thanks to these gracious and good-humored folks for spending some time with us and making our Library brighter.

Spring is a great time to join our volunteer team! We’re looking for folks to join our Studio 775 Makerspace volunteer team. Volunteers will introduce folks to our 3D printer, our "Carvey" and the other exciting resources in the makerspace. No prior knowledge is necessary, just curiosity and a welcoming attitude.

We get by with a little help from our FRIENDS

Our hardworking Friends of the Library Foundation volunteers are here every day, accepting, sorting, and organizing donations of books and related items. Through their efforts, they raise thousands of dollars for Library programming.

The Friends have lots of great news to share!
They have switched their sales model to a quarterly lobby sale, and have had much success with this new approach. Book sales have been steadily increasing, and the latest sale in March netted $4,471, averaging about $1000 more than previous sales.

Purchase Friends new gift certificates for gift-giving, available for purchase at the lobby desks. And the Friends new used book vendor has discovered lucrative markets for those community donations, so that now the monthly income from the vendor sales has increased significantly.

And finally for now, the Friends are in the process of creating a Paypal account! This will make it easy to donate dollars to the Friends – which of course means dollars to the Library.

So keep sharing your books with the Friends as they get ready for their next book sale in June. And please consider supporting your library as a Friend - join the Friends as a member, and better yet, as a volunteer. We are so grateful for our Friends, and all they do for our community.

LIBRARY TOOLS FOR EASY ACCESS

We offer an assortment of tools to simplify your Library life. Try out a few of this ever-growing list, and enjoy the advantages of easy access.

RB Digital eMagazines - Stream or download magazines for free.
Museum passes - Free admission to area cultural institutions-restrictions apply.
Text messaging with the Library - Manage renewals and holds by text message.
iPads - Enjoy the use of an iPad in the Library, for up to 2 hours.
Libby helps you find and reserve library materials, from anywhere!
Lucky Day - On display in the lobby - avoid long hold waits on popular titles.
NY Times - Access all the news you need, for free!
New! Consumer Reports website - free access to the member content of the Consumer Reports website!
We have many shiny new foldout Boulder County Bike Maps placed in various places around the library - enjoy and ride safe!
GET A HANDLE ON YOUR ENERGY USAGE Power Check Meters help you make your home more energy efficient! They are available for check out; watch the video tutorial.

ART @ THE LIBRARY

We offer several art galleries throughout the library featuring local artists, community art, and local school art projects. Exhibits change regularly, so keep an eye out when you're visiting and enjoy a range of works by local artists. Keep an eye out for this month's artwork featuring works by Jane Glotzer and Irmelin Shivley.

DATABASE COLLECTION

We continue to expand our database collection in order to offer easily accessible, comprehensive information on a wide range of subjects. See something on our list that you forgot was available? Try it - our librarians are happy to help.

Explore your Family History with Ancestry
Search billions of genealogy documents; access this resource at the Library.
Explora Easy-to-use and reliable content from leading publications.
Novelist Fiction readers, find new authors and titles based on what you like! Try Novelist Good Books Alerts to help you figure what to read next.
Novelist K-8 Kids and young adults find books similar to those they love.
ReferenceUSA gives you instant, real-time access to accurate, in-depth information on U.S. businesses and U.S. residents. Learn more!

LIBRARY OUTREACH

You don’t need to come to the Library to enjoy our services; we have a growing outreach program that allows us to present library services outside our building in places such as Josephine Commons elder housing, The Peaks senior living, Lafayette preschools and day care centers, and to our homebound patrons. See you at the Library, and not only in our building!

Did you know that our staff works each May to help keep kids in Lafayette reading all summer long? We visit schools and community organizations to spread the word about our summer reading program and get kids excited about coming to library programs and events. This summer we offer programs and events at Boulder Ridge MH Park in Lafayette, storytimes at Festival Plaza on S. Public Rd., information at monthly Art Night Out events, and at the Library.