Harry Potter Series Now Available as Library eBooks and Downloadable Audiobooks

J.K. Rowling's phenomenally popular Harry Potter Series is now available through the CLAMS "Overdrive" download service. All 7 books are now available as eBooks for the Nook, Kindle, and other eReaders, and in MP3 audiobook format.

OverDrive is a collection of downloadable digital media including audiobooks, ebooks, and music. To get started, browse the OverDrive Digital Catalog, then use your CLAMS card to check out an title to read or listen to on your home computer or portable device.

New to eBooks and downloadable audio? Drop by the library on Saturday mornings between 10am and noon for informal demonstration of the library's Overdrive service. Library staff will be present to answer your questions and show you how to get started, and the library's eReader devices including a Nook, Sony Reader, and Kindle will be available for hands on demonstration.

Art in the Stacks: "Sense of Place," Photographs by Marilyn Miller

The Friends of the Vineyard Haven Public Library are pleased to present "Sense of Place", an exhibit of original 35mm and digital photography by Marilyn Miller. The exhibit will be on display during regular library hours througout the month of April.

This collection celebrates our island from farm to sea, day into night, and includes a nostalgic vignette from a West Chop icon, now gone. Marilyn's work seeks to capture the light of a special moment or an everyday view that is extraordinary. Whether the surreal sight of a dinghy floating in the grasses on Chilmark Pond or the thrill of fireworks exploding over Ocean Park, her perspective is a little different – she notices the minuscule, the detail. "In all seasons, Martha's Vineyard is a beautiful place. Living on Martha's Vineyard is a visual delight, for which I am grateful". Marilyn's photographs have appeared in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Savor the Moment calendars, published by the Oak Bluffs Public Library.

"Art in the Stacks" is an initiative of the Friends of the Vineyard Haven Public Library, to provide individual artists an opportunity to show their work, and for library patrons to enjoy art at the library throughout the year.

New Survey on the Future of Library Services

The Library needs your help in planning ahead and setting our priorities and goals for the next 5 years. Please take a few moments to respond to a brief survey concerning the library services that are most important to you and your family, friends and neighbors. To take the survey online, visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/vhlib. Hard copies are also available at the library.

This is a different survey than the one many of our patrons completed during the summer and fall. If you completed the previous survey, we would still appreciate your further input.

Schedule Changes in April For Town Meetings and Holidays

The library will close early on Tuesday, April 3rd and Tuesday, April 10th, due to the Tisbury Special Town Meeting and Annual Town Meeting which will take place on those dates at the Tisbury School Auditorium at 7pm. The Library will close at 6:30pm, and library computers will be shut down at 6:00pm. The Warrants for both meetings are available on the Tisbury Town Website at http://tisburyma.gov. The League of Women Voters of Martha's Vineyard will host a Tisbury candidates forum at 7 pm on Wednesday, April 4, at the Katharine Cornell Theatre.

The library will also be closed on Sunday, April 8th, Sunday April 15th, and Monday, April 16th, due to Easter and the Patriots Day Holiday.

Join Us For "Common Threads" Poetry Discussions in April

Common Threads is a program of MassPoetry.org that seeks to have as many people as possible read and discuss the same nine poems during the month of April, National Poetry Month. All poets selected have strong ties to Massachusetts. As part of the annual celebration, Michael West will lead a discussion of the poems on three afternoons in April at the Vineyard Haven Library. Each week Michael West will be joined by one of the island's poet laureates to discuss three of the poems:

Saturday, April 7th, 2pm
Justen Ahren (incoming poet laureate of West Tisbury)
Baseball by Gail Mazur
Horseface by Sam Cornish
The Hardness Scale by Joyce Peseroff

Saturday, April 14th, 2pm
Fan Ogilvie (outgoing poet laureate of West Tisbury)
No. 1129 – Tell all the Truth but tell it slant by Emily Dickinson
For the Union Dead by Robert Lowell
if see no end in is by Frank Bidart

Saturday, April 28th, 2pm
Dan Waters (first poet laureate of West Tisbury)
Out at Lanesville by David Ferry
The Author To Her Book by Anne Bradstreet
The Fire of Drift-Wood by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The nine poems and discussion questions are available at http://masspoetry.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/This-Is-It.pdf. This year the MassPoetry website also features videos of the living poets reading their own poems as well as those poems of the non-living poets: http://masspoetry.org/about/common-threads-2012-updated/?. Even if you are unable to join the discussion, please stop by the library to read the poems, which will be featured in a special display throughout the month of April.

Attend the Library Community Forum and You Could Win an eReader

The Library is in the middle of a planning process to map a course for the next five years. On Wednesday March 28th at 6pm, the Library will host a forum to discover where you would like to see the town in five years and how the library can help with your vision.

As a special thank you to participants, the Friends of the Vineyard Haven Public Library have sponsored door prizes for this event. Those who attend will have a chance to win a Nook eReader that may be used to check out library eBooks, or a gift certificate to the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore in Vineyard Haven.

We want to make sure we're meeting the needs of the community as best we can. If you're happy with what we do we'd like to hear from you, and just as importantly we'd like to hear what you'd really like us to change. Barbara Andrews, an adviser from the Massachusetts Library System will be facilitating the discussion. Light refreshments will be provided.

We're hoping to get a representation of all the different populations in Tisbury-- town officials as well as ordinary citizens, primary residence or second home owner, library users and non library users, older residents, and younger ones! This is your chance to tell us what really makes this library important to this community and what we need to do to keep it that way. We're looking forward to hearing what you have to say-- please come!

Art in the Stacks: "Material World", Photographs by David Welch

The Friends of the Vineyard Haven Public Library are pleased to present "Material World", an exhibit of photographs by David Welch. The exhibit will be on display during regular library hours througout the month of March.

David Welch is a fine art photographer based on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. His work explores social issues, using large-format photography steeped in conceptual influences from art history and economic theory. His work has been widely published and exhibited both nationally and abroad. David was recently awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2011 Hey Hot Shot! competition and in 2011 he was selected as one of Photolucida’s Critical Mass top 50 photographers. David is a recent graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, where he earned his MFA in photography. He lives on the island with his partner Trina and daughter, Camden. The artist has said of his work:

"Material World is my response to our contemporary consumer milieu. By treating these artifacts of consumer culture as Duchampian-inspired Assisted Readymades, I photograph assemblages, constructed by my own hand to form monuments and totems that serve as precarious externalizations of culture and social biography. Modeling Marx’s concept, the photographs of the totems then act as symbolic mirrors, points of reflection for my own contemplative gaze and that of society’s. The photographs speak of accumulation and materiality and aim to encourage debate about consumption and the ways in which we feel compelled to consume."

"Art in the Stacks" is an initiative of the Friends of the Vineyard Haven Public Library, to provide individual artists an opportunity to show their work, and for library patrons to enjoy art at the library throughout the year.