Blog Entries

It’s that time of year again! Time to make the annual trek to the County Collector’s office to pay taxes. Between the cost of this and Christmas, our bank accounts are lighter at the end of the year. As you take the time to review your bill this month, please note the taxes you pay to support Missouri River Regional Library (MRRL).

Many of our patrons may remember when the library rented the old Highway Administration building at 209 Adams Street, including the entire parking lot for patron and staff use.

Whether it be the customer service you receive in person or over the phone, to our programming offerings, or even how you search for a book in our catalog, the patron experience is something I take very seriously as the director of this library.  For many years, the way you search for materials on our catalog website has been the same.

This Place of Promise: A Historian’s Perspective on 200 Years of Missouri History

The Library has chosen Elise Hooper’s historical fiction, Fast Girls: A Novel of the 1936 Wom

Since 2006, I've led a book discussion group called Fiction at Noon with my coworker Kathy (now retired). We are lucky to still have most of the original participants and have added new friends along the way.

This year, we proposed a year of mystery to the groups and, as a result, have read the works of several good mystery writers. Two of my favorites this year have been "Magpie Murders" by Anthony Horowitz and "Test of Wills" by Charles Todd.

Each January, most of us make resolutions we hope will result in a better version of ourselves.  Generally, eating less and exercising more top the list.  For those of you who may want to save money, volunteer, get smarter, meet new people, and read more, don’t forget about the public library.

With the holidays upon us, it's time to think about buying presents for our people, right? Some of the best gifts you can give a reader are ones related to authors and titles they love.  The following is a list of websites that will help you locate a unique literary or book themed gift idea for the bibliophile in your life. Have fun! Buy a little something for yourself...or perhaps, your favorite librarian?

This year’s Capital READ title is by Melissa Scholes Young, a Hannibal native who now lives in Washington, DC, and teaches creative writing at American University. She explores the universal theme of escape and going home again in her first novel, Flood.

Last year I read the book The Thriving Library: Successful Strategies for Challenging Times. It’s the kind of book library directors read for fun, and it was professionally speaking just the right book at the right time.  There was a quote in this book that has stayed with me for well over a year.