Climate Change, Sea Level Rise, and Martha's Vineyard with Tim Hall

The Vineyard Haven Public Library is pleased to welcome climate scientist Tim Hall for a discussion of climate change, sea level rise, and the impact on Martha’s Vineyard. This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, January 13th at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

Sea level is rising as the climate warms, and the risk of coastal flooding is increasing on Martha's Vineyard. Tim will address the basic factors driving climate change, the impacts on sea level, and the tools we use to predict future climate. As a coastal community, Martha's Vineyard is particularly vulnerable. Tim will show examples of current flood risk on Martha's Vineyard and forecasts of its evolution over the next several decades.

Tim Hall is a Senior Scientist in S&P Global’s Sustainable1 division. His work focuses on developing hazard and risk models of extreme weather and climate. Prior to S&P Global, he was a staff scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies for nearly 20 years, working in climate modeling. Hall has written more than 60 academic research publications and was a lead author on the 2017 National Climate Assessment Report. He has also served as consultant to the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and several risk modeling companies, reinsurers, and ILS investors. Hall holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Cornell University. Since 2021, he and his wife have lived full time on Martha’s Vineyard.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

Thanksgiving Holiday Hours at Martha's Vineyard Libraries

Vineyard Haven library holiday hours:

Closing early at 1pm on Wednesday November 26th
CLOSED Thursday November 27th & Friday November 28th
OPEN Regular hours Saturday & Sunday 

Join us for Storytime @Grace Church at 10:15am Monday 11/24 & Tuesday 11/25

Free Tickets For Interactive Polar Express at the MV Film Center!

 Free Tickets For Polar Express @ Film Center!

One showing only, 11 am Sunday December 7th  



Free Tickets will be Available Starting November 15! 

Come kick off the holiday season with a free interactive showing! Viewers will get prompts and props to interact with the film! Free tickets available through the Film Center Website while supplies last,  limit 4 per family. Sponsored by the Friends of Vineyard Haven Library and the MV Film Society.

NOAA Fisheries in the Northeast: What's Happening in the Waters Around MV

The Vineyard Haven Public Library is pleased to welcome Nicole Cabana, Deputy Director of NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) for a presentation on what's happening in the waters around our island. This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, December 2nd at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency. NOAA Fisheries is responsible for providing the scientific information and tools necessary for productive, sustainable, and healthy marine ecosystems and coastal communities in our region. Some of the high profile topics in this region include protection of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales and offshore wind development. These and other topics will be discussed.

Nicole Cabana is Deputy Director of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) in Woods Hole. She has been at the NEFSC since 2018, when she reported as a NOAA Corps Officer in the Chief of Staff role. In 2020 she retired from the NOAA Corps and stepped into a civilian role as the NEFSC Deputy Director. She has an undergraduate degree in Marine Biology, a Masters degree in Engineering, and certificates in Geographic Information Systems and Project Management. She is also a dual rated pilot, certified to fly both fixed and rotary wing aircraft and seaplanes. 

During her 20 years of service in the NOAA Corps, Nicole served in a broad range of operational, staff, and leadership positions. She operated NOAA Ships in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, served as a divemaster, and flew NOAA aircraft on a variety of scientific missions spanning from the equator to the arctic. As Deputy Director she oversees the Center’s five labs, 400+ staff, and scientific research to support productive, sustainable, and healthy marine ecosystems and coastal communities in our region.  

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

“A Musical Explosion!” featuring Allie & Paryss

The Vineyard Haven Public Library is pleased to welcome musical duo Allie & Paryss for “A Musical Explosion” of Rockin’ Soul and Jazz. This performance will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, November 18th at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

Allie & Paryss are a dynamic and versatile husband-and-wife musical duo that bring a captivating blend of soul, passion, and musicianship to every performance. Allie’s powerhouse vocals deliver deep, soulful melodies, while Paryss masterfully showcases his skills on lead and acoustic guitar, creating an unforgettable musical experience.

Trained by top professionals, Allie & Paryss have performed at venues across the United States, sharing the stage with award-winning artists. From the charm of local venues on the island of Martha’s Vineyard to grand stages nationwide, the duo seamlessly adapt their sound to any setting. With their deep musical connection and professional expertise, Allie & Paryss transform every event into a soulful, engaging, and memorable celebration of music.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

Two Special Family Events this Month: Pitter Patter Puppets, and the Poop Museum!

 Special Event! The Poop Museum, Friday, October 24th at 3:30 pm

Grace Church, 34 Woodlawn Avenue 
The Poop Museum is coming! Join us for a very special experience with international presenter Susie Maguire, founder of the Poop Museum. Learn lots of fun and fabulous facts about poop, and even taste poop honey! Kids say, "I give this 5000 stars out of 5!" Parents say, "This was pooopmazing! My preschooler and first grader both loved it!" Sponsored by Friends of the Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs Libraries.




Special Event! Puppet Variety Show, Monday, October 27th at 10:15 am
Grace Church, 34 Woodlawn Avenue 
Join us for a special interactive puppet show with Mary Wilson from Pitter Patter Puppets! Enjoy songs, silly stories, and audience participation, enjoyable for all ages!

Programs are subject to change, please check our online calendar and Facebook page for updates. 

Thank you to the Friends of the Library for sponsoring our Children's programs!

Fall Schedule Changes, Including Sunday Hours

Sunday, October 19th will be the first Sunday of the season that the library will be open. The library will be open from 1pm-5pm most Sundays throughout the winter.

The Church Street library building will close early at 4pm on Friday October 31st. Stop by after the Parade on Mainstreet for Trick-or-Treating on the front porch from 4:30 to 6:30pm!

The library will be closed for Veterans Day on Tuesday November 11th. For Thanksgiving, the library will close early at 1pm on Wednesday November 26th, and remain closed on Thursday November 27th and Friday November 28th. The library will be open regular hours on Saturday and Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend.

Author Talk: “Time’s Bounty: Rethinking Aging,” by Philip Weinstein

The Vineyard Haven Library is pleased to celebrate the release of Professor Philip Weinstein’s new book of essays, “Time’s Bounty: Rethinking Aging,” with a reading and reception at 5:00 pm on Thursday, November 13th. This event will be held at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center, located at 130 Center Street in Vineyard Haven. Refreshments will be provided by the Friends of the Library, and books available for onsite purchase through Bunch of Grapes Bookstore. Free and open to the public. No registration required. 

Our culture isn’t kind towards age. The dominant drive is to celebrate youth, striving for more and more of everything, while age, we’re told, brings only depletion and loss. Even as Americans live longer, most consider old age with dread. It’s time to challenge these assumptions. “Time’s Bounty” is a bracing view of the surprises that lie ahead, as age enkindles in us new expressions of life. 

“Old-age situations, assumed to announce the end-of-the-road, actually generate fresh life-moves,” writes author Philip Weinstein. “As we age, we tend to become ‘lighter’ in more senses than one....Indeed, we may find ourselves catapulted into late-stage ‘adventures’ the young never dream of.”

“Time’s Bounty” offers a view of age that differs greatly from our preconceptions—surprising, emancipating, sometimes even joyful. In five brief chapters, the author takes us from the generative discoveries that age occasions to the freedom that comes in life’s late chapters, when no company or institution or cause any longer owns us. At last, we are our own, in ways we could not imagine when younger.

Weinstein, a retired professor of English, draws not only on his own insights but on the insights found in writers he taught for decades: Shakespeare, Yeats, Proust, Faulkner, Eliot, Beckett, and others. Brief forays into their imaginative works add further illumination to the author’s own discoveries regarding the dramas—both the trials and the gifts—of old age.

Philip Weinstein earned his PhD in English from Harvard University, staying on to teach at Harvard for the next 3 years. He then accepted a position at Swarthmore, where he remained for over 40 years, becoming Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor of English. He has written several books of literary criticism, many focused on Faulkner, including “Becoming Faulkner: The Art and Life of William Faulkner,” which won the Hugh Holman Award for the best book of literary scholarship or literary criticism in the field of southern literature published in 2010. In 2015, Weinstein retired from Swarthmore and moved to Martha’s Vineyard full-time. Since then, he’s gone on to write three more books and to continue teaching adults through the Vineyard Haven Library, Swarthmore Lifelong Learning, and the 92nd Street Y in New York.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

Spinnaker: An Entanglement Story, presented by Jesse Mechling of the Center for Coastal Studies

The Vineyard Haven Public Library is pleased to welcome Jesse Mechling, Director of Marine Education at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, for a presentation on Spinnaker–an 11-year-old humpback whale, whose skeleton provides important lessons for marine conservation. This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, November 4th at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

Spinnaker is a 36-foot humpback whale skeleton installed at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown in 2017. Spinnaker was an 11-year-old humpback, known to the Center since she was a calf, who tragically died after suffering many fishing-gear entanglements throughout her short life. Hear her story and marvel at images of the only large whale skeleton on Cape Cod, and the only whale skeleton in the world with the entanglement that led to her death still lodged in her bones. This program is suitable for all ages and tells the important message of long-term scientific studies and conservation efforts, as well as serious threats marine animals still face today. 

Jesse Mechling is the Director of Marine Education at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown. The ocean and ocean life are among his great passions, and he relishes his role of introducing new generations to the wonders of the ocean. A lifelong visitor to Cape Cod and permanent resident since 2008, he received a masters from the University of Rhode Island in Marine Affairs and was a 2005 John Knauss Marine Policy Fellow in Washington DC, working for the National Ocean Service. He has over two decades of experience in marine policy and education, and has been with the Center since 2009. He lives in Eastham with his family.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

Author Talk: “Stateless in Paradise: A Stranded Soul's Fight for Freedom"

The Vineyard Haven Public Library is pleased to welcome local author Mikael (Misha) Okuns for a conversation about his extraordinary journey from statelessness to citizenship, as described in his new book, Stateless in Paradise: A Stranded Soul's Fight for Freedom. This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, October 28th at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

About the book: 

Stateless in Paradise: A Stranded Soul's Fight for Freedom recounts the agonizing true story of a stateless individual, and his desperate fight to return to the United States. After living and working in the U.S. for 16 years, Mikael becomes stranded in American Samoa for over a year and five months, barred from re-entry due to a flawed immigration system and misunderstanding of his international passport and status.

Mikael's planned four-day New Year's Eve getaway to American Samoa in December 2011 quickly transforms into an unexpected ordeal, as he becomes ensnared by the island's harsh realities. Between the oppressive heat and humidity, which particularly affect the heat-sensitive Mikael, and frustrating bureaucratic challenges, he finds himself longing for the familiar comforts of Los Angeles – its fresh produce, juice bars, and vibrant coffee scene.

Desperate for a connection to the outside world, Mikael frequents the local McDonald's to use their free Wi-Fi and to email friends and advocates, seeking help for his case. He blogs about his experiences, sharing his struggles with the world and in the process, shedding light on the plight of the 4,000 stateless individuals living in the United States.

The book explores Mikael's family history, uncovering the events that resulted in his stateless status. Born to an Armenian family in Azerbaijan during the Soviet era, Mikael and his family were displaced by the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Tragically, his aunt was stoned to death by local Muslim Azeris, and his family's subsequent attempts to seek asylum in other republics were thwarted by discrimination stemming from their Armenian ethnicity and his sexual orientation.

About the author:

Mikael Sebastian Okunuga (aka Misha Okuns) is a multifaceted professional and creative entrepreneur with a diverse international background. Originally from the former Soviet Union (Azerbaijan SSR), he lived in the United States as a stateless person for over 16 years before becoming a U.S. citizen. A passionate world traveler, he has visited over 77 countries across Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Cuba. Mikael is married to Quadri Okunuga, and the couple divides their time between the United States and Latvia. In the United States, Mikael lives on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, where he runs the popular Edgartown cafe, Behind the Bookstore.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

Shipwrecks: Models for Understanding a Changing Ocean with WHOI scientist Kirstin Meyer-Kaiser, PhD

The Vineyard Haven Library is pleased to welcome Dr. Kirstin Meyer-Kaiser for a presentation on shipwrecks and what they can teach us about the ocean and the environment. This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, October 21st at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

There are 3 million shipwrecks worldwide, which serve as habitats for marine animals. In this presentation, Kirstin Meyer-Kaiser will show how her research on shipwreck communities helps us understand human impacts on the environment and plan for a more sustainable ocean. Free and open to the public. No registration required.

Dr. Kirstin Meyer-Kaiser is an Assistant Scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She studies communities of animals on the seafloor to understand how habitats are colonized, connected, and change over time. She is a technical SCUBA diver and has traveled to 6 continents and numerous island nations. She lives in Falmouth, MA with her husband and her 100-lb golden doodle, Kraken.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

Book Talk: "The Revolutionary War on Cape Cod and the Islands" with Tom Dresser

The Vineyard Haven Library is pleased to welcome local historian Tom Dresser for a discussion about Martha’s Vineyard’s role in the American Revolution as portrayed in the new book coordinated by the Cape and Islands Historians Committee, The Revolutionary War on Cape Cod and the Islands to which Dresser is a contributor. This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, October 14th at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

Prepared in time for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, The Revolutionary War on Cape Cod and the Islands brings together under one cover the facts and narratives about often little-known histories of the American Revolution on Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket, from the period 1761 (end of the French and Indian Wars) to 1783 (Treaty of Paris). Coordinated through the Cape and Islands Historians Committee, the book includes chapters by 24 contributors, including local historians Tom Dresser and Bow Van Riper.  

Book topics include: accounts of the few battles fought on Cape and Islands, privateering, the serious splits between Loyalists and Patriots, British shipwrecks off of Cape Cod which resulted in favorable outcomes for the Patriots, the history of African Americans and Native Americans from the region who served actively in the War, and the stories of 10 important individuals from the region who played important roles in the Revolutionary period. The Revolutionary War on Cape Cod and the Islands was published by West Barnstable Press in August 2025 and is available in bookstores, libraries, and schools across the Cape and Islands.

Tom Dresser came to Martha’s Vineyard in 1995 to visit the woman who would eventually become his wife, Joyce Dresser. Since then he has written dozens of books, booklets, and articles about the history of Martha’s Vineyard. Tom has also worked as a teacher, a school bus driver, a tour bus operator, a walking tour leader, and a speaker on various aspects of island history. 

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

September Library Renovation & Addition Project Update

 

The library renovation project is well underway, with a projected opening around Memorial Day. In April, the 200 Main Street Building closed to the public, with library services offered from the 15 Church Street satellite location. Approximately 42,000 books and other library materials were packed, labeled, and put into storage. Shelving, furniture and fixtures were also disassembled and stored. Work on the site began in May with our general contractor Construction Dynamics Inc. This has included interior and exterior demolition work to prepare for full replacement of Heating, Cooling, and Ventilation systems and new electrical, plumbing, and IT infrastructure.  The front stairs have been removed in preparation for a more accessible entryway. Bricks from the existing patios were recovered and stored for later use. Work on the foundation for the basement of the addition is nearly complete. Inside the building, the stairs from the children's room have been removed and will be floored over to create a new Tween alcove in that space. The wall to the Director's office has been taken down to extend the reading room to provide a view to the courtyard. This month and into the fall, more visible work will be undertaken, including replacement of existing faulty windows, framing of the addition, and new insulation, siding and roofing.  If you'd like a look at what has been going on inside and around back, watch a short video showing the progress: https://vimeo.com/1117592963/9bab19afe3 We look forward to welcoming you to the fully renovated and expanded library next year. In the meantime, please visit us at the satellite library at 15 Church Street, or attend one of our programs, held at various locations thanks to our community partners around town!

Greenwood Avenue Road Closure September 15th - 19th

Road Closure Next Week for Library Construction, September 15th - 19th!

Due to construction work taking place at the 200 Main Street library next week, Greenwood Avenue between Main Street and North William Street in Tisbury will be closed to through traffic Monday to Friday from 7am to 5pm. The road will be open to abutters and residents only during these work hours.

Author Talk–"The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World" by Peter Brannen

The Vineyard Haven Library is pleased to welcome award-winning science journalist and author Peter Brannen for a conversation about his latest book, “The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World.” This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, October 7th at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

Book synopsis:

Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by putting gigantic amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. But CO2 isn’t merely the byproduct of burning fossil fuels—it is also fundamental to how our planet works. All life is ultimately made from CO2, and it has kept Earth bizarrely habitable for hundreds of millions of years. In short, it is the most important substance on Earth. But how is it that CO2 is as essential to life on Earth as it is capable of destroying it?

“The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything” explores how carbon dioxide’s movement through rocks, air, water, and life has kept our planet’s climate livable, its air breathable, and its oceans hospitable to complex life. Starting at the dawn of life almost 4 billion years ago, and working all the way up through today’s global climate crisis and beyond, he illuminates how CO2 has been responsible for the planet’s many deaths and rebirths, for shaping the evolution of life, and for the development of modern human society. And he argues that it’s only by reckoning with this deep planetary history that we can understand the cosmic stakes of our current moment on Earth—and how dangerous our experiment with the climate really is.

With groundbreaking research and a clear-eyed perspective, Brannen shows how a deep exploration of the carbon cycle across our planet’s history can shed light on the way forward for humanity, as we try to avert environmental catastrophe in the future. And it all begins with a richer understanding of the critical role of CO2 in our world.

Peter Brannen is an award-winning science journalist and contributing writer at The Atlantic. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired, Aeon, The Boston Globe, Slate and The Guardian among other publications. His book, “The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything,” was published August 26, 2025 by Ecco. His previous book, “The Ends of the World,” about the five major mass extinctions in Earth's history, was published in 2017 by Ecco. 

Peter was a 2023 visiting scholar at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, and is an affiliate at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He was formerly a 2018 Scripps Fellow at CU-Boulder, a 2015 journalist-in-residence at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center at Duke University, and a 2011 Ocean Science Journalism Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, MA. His essays have been featured in the “Best American Science and Nature Writing” series and in “The Climate Book” by Greta Thunberg. Peter worked for the Vineyard Gazette from 2009-2012.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

 

Virtual–Preserving Vineyard Homes for Future Generations: History, Strategies, and Solutions

The Vineyard Haven Library is pleased to host a virtual presentation on Preserving Vineyard Homes for Future Generations by estate-planning attorney and author of the book, Saving the Family Cottage 7th Ed., Tim Borchers. This program will be held at 1:00 PM on Friday, September 19th via Zoom. Interested patrons may register here: https://forms.gle/EkdK9e3zYatpPFCH6

Preserving Vineyard Homes for Future Generations explores the evolution of Vineyard vacation homes and the challenges of heirloom home succession. Tim Borchers will highlight the importance of creating a specific, practical, achievable, and measurable plan to preserve family properties. The presentation will also address the successes and failures of passing down family homes, emphasizing the need for proper planning to protect valuable properties and maintain family legacies.

As managing partner and founder of Borchers Trust Law, Tim Borchers is a sought-after public speaker and trainer on the topics of estate planning, family legacy, and trusts. He has developed numerous trademarked programs and resources that make the estate planning and probate processes more accessible, organized, and easily maintained, including but not limited to Inheritance Trusts™, TrustSupport™, and the Heirloom Ownership Trust™. As an accomplished writer and editor, he has authored a wide variety of articles on a range of estate planning topics. 

He is recognized on Boston Magazine’s Top Lawyers list; honored on the Massachusetts Super Lawyers list; has held the distinction of and was one of the first lawyers in Massachusetts to be recognized as an Estate Planning Law Specialist (EPLS) as certified by the Estate Law Specialist Board, Inc.; and is an Accredited Estate Planner (AEP®) accredited by the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils.

Tick Bite Prevention Program Video and Handouts

Vineyard Haven Library recently presented a Zoom presentation "Prevent the Bite" with Lea Hamner and Stephanie Barth, in collaboration with the Martha's Vineyard Tick Program. If you were not able to attend live or wish to watch the program again, here is the link to the video recording. 

You may also be interested in this showcase of previous programs on ticks and tick borne illnesses, hosted by the Vineyard Haven Public Library in collaboration with the Martha's Vineyard Tick Program.

Also available from the MV Tick Program, a pdf of the slideshow presentation, and handouts of "top tips," in both English and Portuguese. 

Katharine Cornell and the Vineyard, presented by Bow Van Riper

Promotional photograph of Katharine Cornell as
Countess Olenska in the Broadway production of
The Age of Innocence. Source: Wikimedia Common

The Vineyard Haven Library is pleased to welcome local historian Bow Van Riper for a presentation on Katharine Cornell and the Vineyard. This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, September 23rd at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

Katharine Cornell's connection to the Island began as a child when she visited the Innisfail hotel at the headwaters of the Lagoon with her parents. Bow will present an overview of Cornell's life and career, focused primarily on her lifelong love of the Island, her contributions to it, and her part in the Island "celebrity culture" of the 1940s. 

“Katharine Cornell and the Vineyard” is the final in a three-part series of talks relating to the Katharine Cornell Theatre and presented by Bow Van Riper in 2025. On May 27th, Bow delivered a presentation entitled, “Association Hall and the History of Vineyard Haven,” and on July 22nd, he presented “History on Plaster: The Stan Murphy Murals.”  

A historian for 40 years, A. Bowdoin "Bow" Van Riper received his BA from Brown University and his MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. He taught at the college level for more than 20 years and is the author, editor, or co-editor of 22 books and over 100 articles. He has been Research Librarian at the Martha's Vineyard Museum since 2014.

A third-generation washashore, Bow first came to the Island in 1963, at the age of 3 months, and moved here permanently in December 2011. He lives on the shores of Vineyard Haven Harbor in a 19th century house where, as far as he can tell, nothing of historical significance ever happened.

For more information, please contact the library at (508) 696-4211 or vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org, or consult the library website: https://www.vhlibrary.org.

Author Talk–Cop Cop: Breaking the Fixed System of American Policing

The Vineyard Haven Library is pleased to welcome co-author and senior investigator Mac Muir for a conversation about his new book, “Cop Cop: Breaking the Fixed System of American Policing.” This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, September 16th at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

In “Cop Cop,” former senior investigators at Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), Mac Muir and Greg Finch, delve into the hidden gears that turn at the heart of American policing, distilling the complex web of police oversight into a far more accessible story. Across nearly a decade, Muir and Finch interviewed over 1,000 police officers and hundreds of victims of misconduct, and spoke with countless witnesses, policymakers, journalists, jailers, and gatekeepers of the criminal-justice system. The result is a web of real cases, spanning instances of chokeholds, stop-and-frisk, shootings, egregious verbal abuse, bodycam footage tampering, distortion of policing data, and much more.

Combining their unique perspectives as police misconduct investigators, the authors provide a new way of framing the history of policing, tethering a story that begins in the fields of Ireland and the plantations of Barbados, courses along the cobblestone paths of Charleston, South Carolina, and London, England, flows through the heart of New York City, and bleeds into the present day.

Mac Muir was raised in Oakland, California. From 2016 to 2022, he rose to become a Supervising Investigator at the New York City CCRB. From 2023 to 2025, Mac served as Executive Director of Oakland’s Community Police Review Agency.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

Fauxlore: A Myth-Busting Romp through Colonial Vineyard History with Norah Van Riper

The Vineyard Haven Public Library is pleased to welcome back local historian Norah Van Riper for an interactive program about the history of Martha's Vineyard, entitled “Fauxlore: A Myth-Busting Romp through Colonial Vineyard History.” This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, September 9th at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

We all know that “back then" everyone — especially Islanders — grew all their own food and made all their own clothes and never bought anything from anyone… Or did they? Play along as we tackle some of the most pervasive myths about pre industrial life on Martha's Vineyard and across New England in this highly interactive, very lighthearted myth-busting presentation. We’ll dissect everything from the houses they built to the clothes they wore, the food they ate, and the lives they actually lived, all while uncovering how the myths began and how they replaced the realities. Presented by Norah Van Riper. 

Itinerant historian Norah Van Riper has been in the museum and living history trades for the better part of twenty-five years. Her focus is primarily on historical agriculture and domestic life in New England before the Industrial Revolution, however, she’s known to dabble in a number of other subjects and periods. Her real passion lies in giving voice to the forgotten and misunderstood people of the past. She lives in Vineyard Haven.

For more information, please contact the library at (508) 696-4211 or send an email to vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org. 

Wintering and Migratory Habits of Martha's Vineyard Black Skimmers with BiodiversityWorks

The Vineyard Haven Library is pleased to welcome biologists Luanne Johnson and Liz Olson of BiodiversityWorks for a presentation on findings from the Martha's Vineyard Black Skimmer banding project. This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, September 2nd at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

BiodiversityWorks has been collaborating with The Trustees, MassWildlife, and the Town of Edgartown to band black skimmer chicks with colored, field-readable bands that are unique to each bird. The project has banded 58 chicks since it began in 2017, and receives re-sights from birdwatchers and other biologists every fall and winter. In this presentation, they share the remarkable migratory movements, relationships, and winter hot spots revealed from reports of these banded birds. 

BiodiversityWorks director and founder Luanne Johnson is a wildlife biologist with a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies and Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England, a B.S. in Zoology from Butler University, and 30 years of experience as a conservation biologist. Assistant director Liz Olson is a wildlife biologist with an M.S. in Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England and a B.S. in Wildlife Management from the University of New Hampshire.

Founded in 2011, BiodiversityWorks is dedicated to promoting the conservation of biodiversity on Martha’s Vineyard through a combination of wildlife research and monitoring, while at the same time providing opportunities for people to engage in hands-on nature study. The organization researches and protects dozens of species, from endangered shorebirds to native snakes to the Northern Long Eared Bat.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

Virtual Tick Talk: Prevent the Bite!

View recording of this event:

https://vimeo.com/1109408521

The Vineyard Haven Library is pleased to welcome public health epidemiologists Lea Hamner and Stephanie Barth for a virtual tick talk entitled, “Prevent the Bite.” This virtual event will be held at 1:00 PM on Friday, August 8th via Zoom. This program is being held in collaboration with the Martha’s Vineyard Tick Program. Click here to register on Zoom.

“Prevent the Bite” will focus on how community members can protect themselves and their loved ones from tick bites and the diseases they can carry. Participants will learn how to identify local tick species, understand the risks, and get practical tips on prevention, from permethrin to repellents to tick checks. The presentation will be led by Lea Hamner and Stephanie Barth, public health epidemiologists working with local health departments across the Cape & Islands to prevent, track, and respond to tick-borne diseases.

Lea Hamner is an epidemiologist for the Inter-Island Public Health Excellence Collaborative. She focuses on infectious diseases of public health significance and supporting data-informed decision-making to support healthier communities. The Inter-Island Public Health Excellence Collaborative of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket is a project funded by the Massachusetts Department of Health to fortify local public health monitoring and delivery. The initiative is led by the joint Boards of Health on Martha’s Vineyard along with Island Health Care and the Town of Nantucket.

Stephanie Barth holds both a Bachelor of Science in Public Health and a Master of Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology from Old Dominion University. Before transitioning into public health, she worked as an oral surgery assistant, gaining valuable clinical experience. Originally from New Hampshire, Stephanie has lived in various regions across the United States and abroad, and she now resides in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Her diverse background and passion for population health have helped guide her work and interest in communicable disease prevention and surveillance, including a focus on vector-borne illnesses such as tick-borne diseases.

This event will be held via Zoom. Interested patrons may register on the library’s event calendar at www.vhlibrary.org to receive the Zoom link. For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

“Free”: A Reading by Professor Philip Weinstein

View the recording of this event:

https://vimeo.com/1113388331

The Vineyard Haven Library is pleased to welcome Professor Philip Weinstein for reading from his forthcoming book, “Time’s Bounty: Rethinking Aging” to be released on November 11, 2025. This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, August 26th at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

Professor Weinstein will read from the final chapter of “Time’s Bounty,” entitled “Free,” in which he reflects on a peculiar kind of freedom that arises for the elderly—one in which commonplace daily rituals have the potential to be remarkable, perhaps even blessed. The idea for “Time’s Bounty” grew out of Weinstein’s realization that much of his experience of aging differed provocatively from stereotypes about old age. “But interesting things are going on in this wintry season: it is a dramatic time of life!” insists Weinstein.

Philip Weinstein earned his PhD in English from Harvard University, staying on to teach at Harvard for the next 3 years. He then accepted a position at Swarthmore, where he remained for over 40 years, becoming Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor of English. He has written several books of literary criticism, many focused on Faulkner, including “Becoming Faulkner: The Art and Life of William Faulkner,” which won the Hugh Holman Award for the best book of literary scholarship or literary criticism in the field of southern literature published in 2010. In 2015, Weinstein retired from Swarthmore and moved to Martha’s Vineyard full-time. Since then, he’s offered several series of literary lectures for adult learners through the Vineyard Haven Library, Swarthmore Lifelong Learning, and the 92nd Street Y, New York.  

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

Complimentary Tickets for Film Screening of THE LIBRARIANS, at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center

The Friends of the Vineyard Haven Library have made available a limited number of complimentary tickets for interested patrons to attend a film screening of the award-winning documentary feature, THE LIBRARIANS, followed by an in-person discussion with director Kim Snyder and producer Maria Cuomo Cole. This event will be held at 7:30 pm on Thursday, August 7th at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center, located at 79 Beach Rd in Vineyard Haven. Interested patrons may collect their tickets at the library’s new satellite location at 15 Church Street. Tickets are free but pre-registration is required. 

Librarians emerge as first responders in the fight for democracy and our First Amendment Rights. As they well know, controlling the flow of ideas means control over communities. In Texas, the Krause List targets 850 books focused on race and LGBTQia+ stories – triggering sweeping book bans across the U.S. at an unprecedented rate. As tensions escalate, librarians connect the dots from heated school and library board meetings nationwide to lay bare the underpinnings of White Christian Nationalism fueling the censorship efforts. Despite facing harassment, threats, and laws aimed at criminalizing their work – the librarians’ rallying cry for freedom to read is a chilling cautionary tale. 

Academy Award nominee & Peabody Award-winner Kim A. Snyder’s latest feature documentary, THE LIBRARIANS made its World Premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, and has already garnered multiple festival awards  (Best Doc Sarasota and Dallas and Audience Award Milwaukee). Her most recent short, DEATH BY NUMBERS was nominated in 2025 for an Academy Award, and has received multiple festival awards. DEATH BY NUMBERS is the first Oscar Nominated film about gun-violence to be co-created by a gun-violence survivor, writer Sam Fuentes. Snyder’s documentary, US KIDS premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, winning 14 subsequent festival awards. Her short film, LESSONS FROM A SCHOOL SHOOTING: NOTES FROM DUNBLANE, premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival and was awarded Best Documentary Short followed by the DocDispatch Award at the 2018 Sheffield DocFest and a Grierson Award nomination. LESSONS is a Netflix Original.

Prior, Snyder directed the Peabody award-winning documentary NEWTOWN, which premiered at Sundance 2016.  NEWTOWN screened at premiere festivals worldwide and was theatrically released followed by a national broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens and Netflix. Snyder’s other works include the feature documentary, WELCOME TO SHELBYVILLE, nationally broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2011, and over a dozen short documentaries. Kim’s award-winning directorial debut feature documentary, I REMEMBER ME was theatrically distributed by Zeitgeist Films. In 1994, she Associate Produced the Academy Award-winning short film TREVOR, which spawned The Trevor Project, a leading national not-for-profit addressing LGBTQ teen suicide. Kim graduated with a Masters in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and resides in New York City.

Maria Cuomo Cole is the Peabody and Emmy award winning producer recognized for making social impact on highly relevant issues with compelling artful storytelling. She has most recently produced the Academy Award® nominated DEATH BY NUMBERS documentary short film, THE LIBRARIANS (Sundance 2025, PBS/Independent Lens) feature documentary, and US KIDS (Sundance 2025) feature documentary — all in collaboration with Director / Producer Kim A. Snyder. The film team partnered on LESSONS FROM A SCHOOL SHOOTING: NOTES FROM DUNBLANE and NEWTOWN, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, also directed by Kim A. Snyder. Filmed over the course of nearly three years, NEWTOWN documents a traumatized community fractured by grief and driven toward a sense of purpose. After broadcast on PBS, the film was theatrically distributed across the country, and later by Netflix International. 

In 2015, Cole executive produced THE HUNTING GROUND, directed by Kirby Dick, which investigates the epidemic of sexual assaults on college campuses. This Emmy and Peabody Award-winning film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, aired on CNN and was released on Netflix in 2016. Cuomo Cole worked with the same team as an executive producer of the 2014 Oscar®- nominated, THE INVISIBLE WAR, about the epidemic of rape and sexual violence in the U.S. military and served as a catalyst for federal policy reforms. THE INVISIBLE WAR won two Emmy® awards and a Peabody. Cuomo Cole’s 2010 documentary, LIVING FOR 32, about the tragic gun shooting on the Virginia Tech University Campus, was short-listed for an Academy Award®, aired on Showtime and was distributed by BBC Worldwide. The film achieved significant social impact at screenings in numerous festivals, and on The National College Campaign to End Gun Violence.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

Friends of the Library Virtual 5k Fundraiser

 

Registration is now open for the Friends of Vineyard Haven Public Library's 28th annual 5k Run/Walk to benefit the library! Due to the library renovation project underway, this year will be a virtual, run anytime, run anywhere, event. The suggested donation of $25 will help the Friends continue to support library programs and services in the coming year.

Virtual participants can run or walk a 5k anytime between July 26th, 2025 and September 30th, 2025. Participants can run or walk the traditional 5k route from the library at 200 Main Street to the West Chop Lighthouse and back, or on any 5k course of their choosing. 

Register today on RunSignUp.com!

Why Local News Matters with Charlie Sennott

Join MV Times publisher Charles Sennott for a conversation about the national crisis in local news, and how it has everything to do with the crisis in our democracy. This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, August 5th at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

Sennott, who took on the role as a local news publisher in January of 2024, is the founder of the national, non-profit GroundTruth, which launched Report for America, a service program that has been featured on CBS News' 60 Minutes and applauded nationally for its pioneering approach to addressing the spread of "news deserts." Since 2018, Report for America has placed more than 700 reporters in more than 300 newsrooms across all 50 states. 

The recipient of the 2024 World Press Freedom Award for his work locally and globally as the head of GroundTruth, Sennott brings lessons learned from Report for America newsrooms across the country here to the Island where he lives year round with his family. He will share details of an approach that he calls "a hybrid" business model through memberships which call the community together to join in support of local news gathering as a public service.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

Free Beach Parking and Museum Passes

 

This summer the Trustees have partnered with Martha's Vineyard Libraries to offer free access to library patrons. Each pass provides one-day free parking and admission for Long Point Wildlife Refuge, or Wasque on Chappaquiddick. The library has one pass for each property for each day of the week. Passes may be checked out for three days and must be returned to the library.

For visits to other Trustees properties statewide, the library also has coupons for free or reduced admission that can be used anytime. For more information about these passes as well as museum passes sponsored by the Friends of the Library, visit: www.vhlibrary.org/passes.shtml

Butterflies of Martha's Vineyard with Matt Pelikan

The Vineyard Haven Library is pleased to welcome community naturalist Matt Pelikan of BiodiversityWorks for a presentation on the various species of butterflies found on Martha’s Vineyard. This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, August 19th at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above Tisbury Town Hall). Free and open to the public. No registration required.

Beautiful, easily studied, and ecologically important, butterflies may be the most universally loved group of insects. Naturalist and photographer Matt Pelikan will introduce us to the surprising diversity of these creatures on Martha’s Vineyard: their ecology, their identification, their changes over time, and how we can help conserve them. 

Naturalist and freelance writer Matt Pelikan has studied wildlife on Martha’s Vineyard since he moved to Oak Bluffs in 1997. Matt has photographed nearly all of the butterfly species that occur on the Vineyard and maintains detailed records of abundance and seasonality. Currently the community naturalist for BiodiversityWorks, Matt has worked or volunteered for most of the conservation organizations on the Vineyard and has written extensively about Island wildlife, ecology, and environmental affairs.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.

 

An Evening with Nicole Galland, NYT Bestselling Author of "Boy: A Novel"

The Vineyard Haven Library is pleased to welcome critically-acclaimed local author Nicole Galland for a conversation about her latest historical novel, Boy, set in Elizabethan England. Nicole will be in conversation with Scott Barrow. This event will be held at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, August 12th at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, located at 51 Spring Street in Vineyard Haven (above the Tisbury Town Hall). Books will be available for on-site purchase through Bunch of Grapes. Free and open to the public. No registration required.

Sander Cooke is the most celebrated “boy player” in William Shakespeare’s theatre company. Indeed, Sander’s androgynous beauty and deft portrayal of female roles have made him the toast of London, and his companionship is sought by noblewomen and -men alike. But now at the height of his fame, he teeters on the cusp of adulthood, his future uncertain. Often, he wishes he could stop time and remain a boy forever.

Joan Buckler, Sander’s best friend, also has a wish. Though unschooled, she is whip-smart and fascinated by the snippets of natural philosophy to which she’s been exposed. As a woman, she has no place in the intellectual salons and cultural community of the day; only disguised as a boy can she learn to her heart’s content.

Joan’s covert intellectual endeavors attract the attention of Francis Bacon: natural philosopher and trusted adviser to Queen Elizabeth. It is through their connection with Bacon—one of the greatest minds of their time—that they will be changed forever as they become embroiled in an intricate game of political intrigue that threatens their very lives.

Nicole Galland is a proud graduate of the West Tisbury Elementary School and MVRHS. She's the author of 7 historical novels, several of them Shakespeare-themed, and co-author of the NY Times bestseller The Rise and Fall of DODO. Her contemporary work includes On The Same Page, about two newspapers on Martha's Vineyard. She has recently become an editor at one of these papers in real life. With Chelsea McCarthy, she co-created the popular off-season "Shakespeare for the Masses" series, and also directs plays off-Island.

Scott Barrow is Company member of Tectonic Theater Project where he is part of the team creating and performing in the Pulitzer Prize Finalist Here There are Blueberries. He is a contributing author of the company’s devising methodology book: Moment Work, and was part of the creative team on broadway’s Tony award-winning 33 Variations starring Jane Fonda. On island Scott's favorite credits include Hamlet and Every Brilliant Thing, Much Ado about Nothing and a dozen Shakespeare for the Masses directed by Nicole at the MV Playhouse and the sinister Square Master under MVFF’s Cinema Circus's big top.

For more information, please contact the library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or (508) 696-4211.