Saturday, April 28th, 9-4, Library Lawn
This is an annual event - a fundraiser for Independence Day committee. The town's big party, the yearly full day of festivities on the 4th of July, does cost money. If you enjoy the parade, the fireworks, and the other activities, please come support them.
What do people actually do while working on the desk of a library? For a couple of days we have been recording some of that - if it isn't too busy for words. Follow our activities at Twitter. An RSS link can be found on the page if you search a bit.
This is just an experiment, we may (and probably will) stop/start at any time.
Spring for Poetry in Takoma Park!
Have you noticed the poetry signs all over town? This is a project created by Ann Slayton of the Friends of the Takoma Park Maryland Library along with faculty and students of Montgomery College and Columbia Union College, and the City's Department of Public Works. The project includes a diverse selection of 36 poems by poets of the Americas, produced as 13 x 19-inch posters. Each poem was individually designed by typography students at the School of Art and Design at Montgomery College. The poets range from Emily Dickinson (“I shall keep singing”) to Rita Dove (“Fox Trot Fridays”) and in between, Theodore Roethke (“My Papa’s Waltz”), Langston Hughes (“Mother to Son”), Mary Oliver (“Wild Geese”) and Pablo Neruda (“Ode to Salt”). There are also poems by four former Maryland Poet Laureates, Lucille Clifton, Reed Whittemore, Linda Pastan, and the late Roland Flint.
update: where are the poems located?
List of Poems
1. Love After Love, Derek Walcott
2. Those Winter Sundays, Robert Hayden
3. Fox Trot Fridays, Rita Dove
4. Good Times, Lucille Clifton
5. Mother to Son, Langston Hughes
6. Rune, Muriel Rukeyser
7. Wild Geese, Mary Oliver
8. Black Boys Play the Classics, Toi Derricotte
9-10. I’m Nobody, I Shall Keep Singing, Emily Dickinson
11. Returning, Jean Connor
12. Who Am I, Felice Holman
13. The Dogwoods, Linda Pastan
14. The Wind One Brilliant Day, Antonio Machado
15. Ode to Salt, Pablo Neruda
16. The Distant Footsteps, Cesar Vallejo
17. Coyote Shaman Songs, Jaime de Angulo
18. Afternoon on a Hill, Edna St. Vincent Millay
19. A Blessing, James Wright
20. Skin, Roland Flint
21. Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be The Same, Robert Frost
22. Chansons Innocentes, e.e. cummings
23. Fierce Girl Playing Hopscotch, Alice Fulton
24. Spring, etc., Reed Whittemore
25. My Papa’s Waltz, Theodore Roethke
26. Shoulders, Naomi Shihab Nye
27. Notice What This Poem is Not Doing, William Stafford
28. From Six Variations, Denise Levertov
29. Swift Things Are Beautiful, Elizabeth Coatsworth
30. Housekeeping, Natasha Trethewey
31. From Four Songs of Life(1,3), Ray Young Bear
32. Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein
33. A Story, Li- Young Lee
34-35 This Is Just to Say, William Carlos Williams and Variations on a Theme, Kenneth Koch
36. Miss Rosie, Lucille Clifton
At the library we have a paper copy of the list of locations.
Updated 11/16/09
The City is no longer hosting electronics recycling events in the library parking lot. Please go the the main City pages for information on weekday electronic equipment drop-off at the Public Works offices.
Saturday, April 21, 2007 from 10 am to 1:30 pm in the parking lot behind the Library. 
Why? most electronic equipment contains potentially hazardous metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium and chromium.
Bring your broken computers, monitors, scanners, keyboards, modems, laptops, smaller TV’s, typewriters, fax and answering machines, phones, VCR’s, radios, stereos (no speakers) and tape players.
Questions, contact the Public Works Department 301-891-7633.
And if you stop in to the library you can check out PC World, look through our many computer books, or try out the public computers which use Linux and open source software. Even if you have a working computer at home, you might enjoy trying an alternative operating system as well as the Open Office suite - which is free, excellent, and works on Linux, Mac and Windows systems.
Favorite Poem Evening returns!
The 9th. annual Favorite Poem Evening will be held on Thursday April 26th. In the Takoma Park Maryland Library at 7:30 p.m. This year’s public celebration and reading of poems will be sponsored jointly by the Library and the Friends of the Library, and will once again be hosted by Takoma Park’s Poet Laureate Don Berger.
If you are interested in participating in this year’s event, choose a poem you have read and admired by a published poet (rather than poems written by you or your friends). Poems written in languages other than English are welcome, if they are accompanied by an English translation.
Please send the name and author of the poem you have chosen and your own name and generic occupation for inclusion in a printed program to Ellen Robbins at the Takoma Park Maryland Library, or by e-mail to ellenr@takomagov.org The deadline for submissions is April 20.
The Favorite Poem Evening has been a lovely, warm and community-building event for the past eight years. Please come and bring your friends and neighbors! Refreshments will be provided by the Friends of the Library.
This year we will also have a poetry creating night for children: Spring Poetry Night with local poet Rosanne Singer. Monday, April 16 at 7 pm. Please call the library to sign up in advance. 301.891.7259
Arbor Day celebration. April 14th. 10-2. Community Center.
For information please call 301-891-7633 or see the City's main page.
And please stop in at the library when you come.
We have many good tree books (go directly to Dewey 582.16) and well as a subscription to American Forests. You can check out any issue but the newest one.
Although we have snow this morning, this should have no effect on our day except to add beauty. Opening at 10 am as usual.
THE LIBRARY IS A DEPARTMENT OF THE CITY OF TAKOMA PARK
