Greetings from the Great Bend Public Library! I’d like to start off this week’s article with a huge thank you to the wonderful people who donated to our Giving Tuesday campaign! Thanks to our generous donors we were able to raise over $1,200. These donations will go to helping the library continue to serve our community. This was our first year participating in Giving Tuesday, and we are thrilled to have such a successful first year. 

We have a very exciting collaboration between the Kansas Wetlands Education Center and the Great Bend Public Library coming up. Bird Book Club will be a new book club running in addition to our Open Book Club. Instead of on a monthly basis, this book club will meet every other month, for three months. Our first meeting will be via Zoom on February 11 at 7 p.m. The first book will be “Alex & Me,” the story of an African grey parrot, named Alex, and his owner, research scientist Irene Pepperberg. Together for more than 30 years, Irene and Alex were able to disprove long-standing assumptions about avian intelligence. They showed that Alex was able to understand concepts, like “bigger or smaller,” and the bird could even solve simple addition problems. This story chronicles their amazing friendship, as well as the scientific breakthroughs Irene made with Alex. If you are interested in picking up a copy of this book, they will be available at the front desk for check-out.

Next week we have several children’s events planned, starting Tuesday with Virtual Story Time at 10:30 a.m. Take and make crafts related to the story will be available throughout the week after story time.

Then Wednesday at 3 p.m. our Virtual Library Learning Room with Miss Jessica will be posted on our Facebook and web pages. You can find our  S.T.E.A.M. Ahead activity in the same places Thursdays at 3 p.m.

Keep an eye on our Facebook and our website, greatbendpl.info, for upcoming programs and updates. You can also message us on Facebook or email us at gbcirc@gmail.com. We can also be reached at 620-792-2409.

This column was written by Hannah Grippin, the outreach manager at the Great Bend Public Library.