Archives for Featured

Five Years of Teen Services: A R-Edge-rospective

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the Edge, the Library’s teen space. Before the Edge opened, there was only a small collection of materials for teens in the Library, and with a staff of only one teen librarian we held just one program each week. Not surprisingly,  few teenagers used the Library. Since opening the Edge in December 2013,  the number of teens who come to the Library has grown immensely. Our Young Adult collection has expanded in print and electronic formats to meet the needs and interests of teenagers.  We offer innovative and creative programs for teens throughout
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Categories: Director's Corner, eNewsletter, Evergreen, Featured, Library News, and Teens.

Best Books of 2018 Poll

Here are the top ten books published this year that librarians across the country love. Just click on a title or book cover to place it on hold. When you're done reading the list, make sure to vote for your favorite! We'll be sharing the results in one of our upcoming newsletters. Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover Published: 2/20/2018 by Random House “In her memoir, Westover recounts her childhood growing up in a strict Mormon family, ruled by an erratic father, and living off the grid in Idaho. Westover compellingly sketches her years growing up, her relationships with siblings,
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Categories: Authors & Books, Director's Corner, eNewsletter, and Featured.

Art Exhibit: Akimie Worrell

Join us on Saturday, November 17 from 2:00-4:00 p.m. for the opening reception of Akimie Worrell's art exhibit “No Longer Hidden: Being—without—Being Sick Cell.” “No Longer Hidden: Being-without-Being Sickle Cell“, is an exhibit comprised of mixed media art portraying to the perils, small comforts, and life, one faces when: navigating the world with the horrific pain of Sickle Cell Disease (SCD). Akimie Worrell grew up in Barbados, and graduated with a M.S. from The College of New Rochelle. She was born with the inherited, debilitating blood disorder SCD. Worrell navigates life between worlds of fashion, art and illness. She states
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Categories: eNewsletter, Events, Featured, Gallery, and Library News.

Museum Passes: Fall Exhibits

At the Frick: The Charterhouse of Bruges: Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus, and Jan Vos (through January 13, 2019). “For the first time in twenty-four years and only the second time in their history, two masterpieces of early Netherlandish painting…are reunited. These works…are shown with a selection of objects that place them in the rich monastic context for which they were created.” The Guggenheim is exhibiting the stunning paintings of Hilma af Klint, (through April 23, 2019). “When Hilma af Klint began creating radically abstract paintings in 1906, they were like little that had been seen before: bold, colorful, and
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Categories: Director's Corner, eNewsletter, and Featured.

Fall Gala 2018 with Ron Chernow

On October 20, over 200 guests enjoyed the Foundation’s 2018 Fall Gala, An Evening with with Ron Chernow. Thank you to everyone who supported the event and help raise funds for the Library! A special thank you to Vino 100 of White Plains and the fabulous venues, restaurants and businesses that donated raffle prizes for the Gala: Bowlmor of White Plains, California Pizza Kitchen, Capers Restaurant, Captain Lawrence, Chef Jonathan Kava, Copper House Restaurant, Edible Arrangements, Philip Johnson Glass House, Kee Oyster House, The Library Hotel, Moleskine, Out of Print Clothing, The Puzzle Parlour, Penguin Random House, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater,
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Categories: eNewsletter, Events, Featured, and Library News.

Automatic Renewal

Here’s some good news: from now on, we will automatically renew your material before it becomes due. Why are we doing this? Because the number one reason most people don’t use the Library is that the loan periods are too short (and difficult to keep track of). And because when life gets hectic—and when isn’t it?—the first thing we forget to do is to renew our library books, movies, and music. Here’s how automatic renewal works: The day an item becomes due, you will receive an email stating: “The following items have been renewed for you (title, new due date).
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Categories: Director's Corner, Evergreen, Featured, Homepage, and Library News.

A Major Improvement to Our Overdrive Platform

If you read eBooks or audiobooks using Overdrive, then there are some changes underway. Until recently, each public library in Westchester had its own Overdrive account. So too did the Westchester Library System (WLS). So if you were a White Plains cardholder, and were searching for a title, you had to check both our White Plains account and the WLS account. This week, the Overdrive collections from the 38 public libraries in Westchester, along with the WLS collection, have come together to share our digital books and become, effectively, one collection. Why is this a good thing? It means that
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Categories: Featured and Homepage.

We’re Fine Free!

We want kids to read. So we are eliminating one of the biggest impediments kids face: late fees on children’s and young adult materials. A public library’s most important responsibility is to develop readers. And research has shown that having books in the home is a critical factor in becoming a reader. But the sad fact is, too many young people can’t borrow books because of outstanding fines. But even though we are removing fines, kids and their caregivers will still be responsible for returning all library material—or else risk having their account suspended. How this works: We expect all
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Categories: Evergreen, Featured, Homepage, Kids, Library News, and Teens.

Café Opening

We're excited to announce that the Everyday Healthy Café will officially open on Wednesday, May 9th. (although if you are around next week take a look—they may open early.) In addition, this also brings us the new home of the Friends Bookstore as well as the completion of The Hub for adults, with the new Community Room. “When’s the café opening?” has probably been the number one reference question this spring. Some of you may be familiar with the Everyday Healthy Café since there are two located in White Plains Hospital. Part of Peter Herrero’s NY Hospitality Group (which includes
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Categories: Evergreen, Featured, Homepage, and Library News.

Stamford Museum & Nature Center Pass Now Available

We're pleased to announce the addition of Stamford Museum & Nature Center in Stamford, CT to our Museum Pass Program.  The Library pass provides free admission for two adults of the same household and all children under 18 to the Museum and its grounds.  The pass also covers free parking and a 10% discount at the Museum Gift Shop. This 118 acre facility has much to offer: Heckscher Farm, a wonderful New England working farm; Heckscher WILD!, a live-animal exhibit; the Museum galleries; the Observatory; and over 80 acres of hardwood forest with miles of nature trails. To reserve a
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Categories: Evergreen, Featured, Homepage, and Library News.

New Movie Streaming Service Available: Kanopy

We're excited to now offer Kanopy, a streaming movie service.  Kanopy offers a unique and compelling collection of films ranging from documentaries, indie and foreign films to must-see classics and blockbuster movies. But don’t take our word for it, go to the site itself and take a look. When you first access Kanopy, you must register with your name, email address and password. A verification message will be sent to the email address provided. It will contain a link that takes you to Kanopy to finish the registration process. At that point, you enter your library card number and PIN,
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Categories: Featured and Homepage.

Family Films Showing December 2017 in the Trove

Sunday Cinema continues at the Trove this month with a great selection of new and classic family films. Here’s a quick look at some of the titles we’ll be showing at 2:00 p.m. in Galaxy Hall throughout the month of December. Note: we have one extra weeknight film on Wednesday, December 20. Descendants 2 (2017) – December 3 This is the very popular sequel to the Disney Channel Original Movie Descendants and it continues with an exciting story and great soundtrack. Rated TVG, 111 minutes. Frozen (2013) – December 10 The wildly popular animated Disney hit for all ages. It
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Categories: Events, Featured, and Kids.

Boscobel House and Gardens Pass Now Available

The White Plains Public Library is pleased to announce the addition of Boscobel House and Gardens in Garrison NY to the Museum Pass Program. The Library pass provides free admission for one adult and three guests of any age, plus a 10% discount in Boscobel’s gift shop. Boscobel House and Gardens is considered one of the leading historic house museums in the United States. Its Neoclassical mansion holds an exceptional collection of New York furniture from the Federal period. Situated in the Hudson Valley, fifty miles north of Manhattan, Boscobel directly overlooks the Hudson River, Constitution Marsh and West Point.
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Categories: Featured and Library News.

Storm King Art Center Passes Now Available

The White Plains Public Library is pleased to announce the addition of Storm King Art Center at 1 Museum Road, New Windsor NY to the Museum Pass Program. The Library pass provides free admission for two adults and all children under 18 living in the same household. Widely celebrated as one of the world’s leading sculpture parks, Storm King Art Center has welcomed visitors from across the globe for over fifty years. Located only one hour north of New York City, in the lower Hudson Valley, its 500 acres of rolling hills, woodlands, and fields of native grasses and wildflowers
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Categories: Featured, Homepage, and Library News.

Meet Bobby Calero

We are excited to welcome librarian Bobby Calero as the newest addition to the Trove. Bobby comes here from the Children's Library Discovery Center of the Queens Library in Jamaica, Queens. Despite the fact that he’s only five feet and six inches—and weighs about a 140 pounds—he was once the bouncer at an all-night jazz club in the West Village. But today he says that he “loves singing ‘The itsy-bitsy spider’ to two-year-olds at 10:30 a.m.!” Bobby is a big fan of children’s book authors Yuyi Morales, Emily Hughes, and Neil Gaiman. He also loves Roald Dahl, particularly The Witches.
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Categories: Featured and Library News.

Meet Libby

If you’re just starting out with library ebooks or audiobooks (and for the rest of this post, “books” will mean both), you may have planned to download OverDrive onto your tablet or smartphone. Well, don’t. Use the new Libby app instead. Libby is actually created by OverDrive (the company) as well, but it is so much simpler to install and borrow books with than the old app.  With Libby, it takes just one tap to borrow and download the book—there’s no need to choose a format. Libby also has many new features you can play with, like tags to create
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Categories: Featured, Homepage, and Technology.

Fall Gala – October 21

The annual fall Gala is Saturday, October 21, 2017, from 7-10 pm. We'll be celebrating in the Hub, our newly renovated first floor! This year, we're excited to welcome gala honoree & keynote speaker Sloane Crosley, celebrated author and graduate of White Plains High School.  Sloane’s most recent publication is the bestselling novel The Clasp (“a highly comic, highly affecting novel”–NY Times Book Review, “A sad, hopeful, endlessly entertaining book,”–Time). Her essay collections, I Was Told There'd Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number, were both New York Times bestsellers and the former was shortlisted for The Thurber Prize. Sloane's
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Categories: Events and Featured.

New York Historical Society Museum Passes Now Available

The White Plains Public Library is pleased to announce the addition of the New-York Historical Society Museum at 170 Central Park West to the Museum Pass Program.  The Library pass provides free admission for two adults and all accompanied children under eighteen years of age. The New-York Historical Society’s museum is the oldest in New York City and predates the founding of the Metropolitan Museum of Art by nearly seventy years. Its art holdings comprise more than 1.6 million works. Among them are a world-class collection of Hudson River School paintings, including major works by Thomas Cole and Frederic Edwin
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Categories: Featured, Homepage, Library News, and Local History.

Fake News Workshop 3/22 @ 7:00 PM

Fake news is a topic we hear a lot about, but is it as simple as figuring out what's fake and what's real? Join Librarian Ben Himmelfarb on Wednesday, March 22, at 7:00 PM for Present-Truth: How To Navigate the World of Fake (and Real) News. We will learn skills for determining what in the news is true and how to analyze your information sources to make sure you are the best informed that you can be. In this participatory workshop, we will also discuss strategies for dealing with rapid news cycles, social media dynamics, and how the library can
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Categories: Events and Featured.