Central City Public Library

 Currently, the library has the Christmas of Sharing doll quilts on display.  These beautiful quilts were made by the Central City Lone Tree Quilt Guild members.  The quilts are definitely works of art! 🙂

 Dress up your home for a holiday or special occasion!  Be sure to come to the “Tied Fabric or Ribbon Wreaths” Pinterest Party at the library on Monday, Dec. 3rd at 7:00 p.m.!  See the attached flyer for more details.

We are also hosting a “Cookie Swap” on Wednesday, Dec. 19th at 6:00 p.m.

See the attached flyer for more info! 🙂

Be sure to jot the date/time of December 20th (Thursday) at 5:30 p.m. down on your calendar!  Guggenheim Fellow, and winner of the “2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award” Kwame Dawes will be at our library to do a poetry reading!  Dawes is the Editor-in-Chief of the international literary journal “Prairie Schooner”.  The journal is based out of the University of Nebraska. The journal’s managing editor & poet Marianne Kunkel will also be here.

Dawes will embark on a driving tour in December 2012 to promote Prairie Schooner in public libraries across the state of Nebraska. This tour fulfills one of the goals that Dawes set for himself during the first few months of his tenure as editor-in-chief of Prairie Schooner.

“Prairie Schooner is one of Nebraska’s greatest and most enduring gifts to the world, and it has been giving America so much for eighty-six years. I want to find as many ways to remind the people of the state about what a treasure we have and to see if we can generate even more ownership and pride in the publication.”

Since his arrival, Prairie Schooner has expanded its web presence and has even made the move, after almost a century, to online submissions. Prairie Schooner has begun to have a marked international focus. Dawes, however, sees this tour as a way to remind its core base about the journal’s roots in Nebraska and its continued interest in regional writers as well as its reliance on the support and interest of Nebraskans.

“We do not want to be an impersonal journal, but one that is aware that real people read and support the journal, and many of those real people live here in Nebraska. The great perk for all of this, however, is that I get a chance to see the state more and to find out how Prairie Schooner can support the literary arts in Nebraska in town after town.”

The tour, which spans from Dec. 8 to Dec. 22, will take place in public libraries in more than twelve cities, including Alliance, Beatrice, Broken Bow, Central City, and Fremont. Each visit will feature poetry readings by Dawes and Kunkel followed by a question and answer session. Kunkel will promote the journal to attendees, offering information about submissions and selling single copies and subscriptions.

Rod Wagner, Nebraska Library Commission Communications Director, says, “This is a great opportunity for people across Nebraska to hear an internationally-known Nebraska poet read from his work and to learn more about Nebraska’s own Prairie Schooner.”

Make sure to stay tuned to Prairie Schooner’s website for a complete calendar of the dates and times of the inaugural Prairie Schooner library tour.

In its fifth edition of annual evaluations of public libraries nationwide, Library Journal has once again awarded the Central City Public Library a 5-Star rating!  (The 5-star rating is the best possible rating available).   7,570 libraries all across the country were evaluated.   Only 87 libraries received the 5-star rating for 2012.

Not only did our library receive the 5-star rating for 2012, our library has distinguished itself by being only one of 30 U.S. public libraries to earn a 5-star rating in each Library Journal Index Edition from 2009-2012.

To earn a starred rating, a library must

• Meet the Institute of Museum & Library Services definition of a public library
• Have a service area with at least 1000 population
• Have total operating expenditures of at least $10,000
• Report the output statistics of: patron visits, program attendance, circulation, public Internet computer use.