We had a fabulous summer at the library!  The last few months have flown by and now everyone is back in school.  We will be jumping into fall programming starting this month.  September programming includes our Gamer Thursdays, Lego Club, Books with Friends, 4-C Play and Learn and our 4-H Green Thumbs.  We have a Seed Saving Workshop and our Adult Book Club meeting in September.  It will be great to see all of our patrons at the Cypress House Market on Sept. 28^th from 9-1 p.m.  Check our website and Facebook page for up-to-date information about these programs.  Come into the library and pick up a schedule at the circulation desk.  We look forward to seeing you. 

This year marks the 23^rd anniversary of Sept. 11.  I was working at our library on the day that happened to our nation.  It was a tough day and many lives were lost.  Over the years we have collected many books about this tragedy in our nation’s history.  I invite you to take a moment and think about where you were that day.  

  “On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 terrorists associated with al-Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group, hijacked four commercial airplanes scheduled to fly from the East Coast to California. In a coordinated attack that turned the planes into weapons, the terrorists intentionally flew two of the planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, a global business complex in New York City, causing the towers to collapse. They also flew a third plane into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, in Arlington, Virginia. Passengers and crew members on the fourth plane launched a counterattack, forcing the hijacker pilot—who was flying the airplane toward Washington, D.C.—to crash the plane into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, near the town of Shanksville.

The 9/11 attacks killed 2,977 people. This was the single largest loss of life resulting from a foreign attack on American soil. The attacks caused the deaths of 441 first responders, the greatest loss of emergency responders on a single day in American history.” (https://www.911memorial.org/learn/resources/911-primer/module-1-events-day)

The library is a place where you can get information about numerous topics.  We will never forget 9/11. Those who lived through that terrible day will remember where they were on that day, what they were doing and the friends and family that were directly affected by these horrific events.  Now, it is our job as librarians to keep the information safe and accessible to our patrons so that they can learn about the events that happened in our nation’s history. Keeping materials available to the public, allow those that want to learn about specific events to have the opportunity to check out materials and learn about them.  By continuing to use your local library, you are contributing to a community of lifelong learning.  

I invite you to come into the library and see what materials we have on a variety of different topics.  We are happy to help you find the information you need, print out a document, come to a program, get a library card or order a book for you from another library. We will see you soon.

Sarah Flanagan is the director of the Flagg-Rochelle Public Library.