Blog Entries

Missouri River Regional Library will honor Claudia Visnich as the 2022 Library Volunteer of the Year at the annual MRRL Friends meeting on January 28th at 10am at Missouri River Regional Library. Visnich has served as the MRRL Friends President the last two years and was an active member prior to that.

It’s that time of year again! Time to make the annual trek to the County Collector’s office to pay taxes. Between the cost of this and Christmas, our bank accounts are lighter at the end of the year. As you take the time to review your bill this month, please note the taxes you pay to support Missouri River Regional Library (MRRL). Twenty cents is levied per $100 assessed valuation of your personal property/real estate taxes. This is the formula used to determine the amount of library tax you owe.

Many of our patrons may remember when the library rented the old Highway Administration building at 209 Adams Street, including the entire parking lot for patron and staff use. When library staff moved from that building in 2019 and the County purchased it, the library began renting spaces from them.  Over the last couple of years, the County has needed more parking for their own staff and the library has had to be adaptable.

Whether it be the customer service you receive in person or over the phone, to our programming offerings, or even how you search for a book in our catalog, the patron experience is something I take very seriously as the director of this library.  For many years, the way you search for materials on our catalog website has been the same. This has its advantages --- it’s familiar, you have it bookmarked, it does what you expect it to do, right?

Bernice Buttman, Model Citizen By Niki Lenz centers its story around the titular character, Bernice Buttman, the youngest child in a family of troublemakers living in a trailer park in Kansas City, Missouri. With four older brothers who only care about making mischief and a momma who only cares about getting rich and famous, Bernice has learned to take care of herself the only way she knows how: bullying others and lying.

This Place of Promise: A Historian’s Perspective on 200 Years of Missouri History by Gary R. Kremer has been chosen for Missouri River Regional Library’s 17th annual Capital READ.  Conceived of as a way to commemorate Missouri’s bicentennial of statehood, this unique work presents the perspective of Gary Kremer, one of the Show-Me State’s foremost historians, as he ponders why history played out as it did over the course of the two centuries since Missouri’s admittance to the Union. 

Recently I helped someone who was looking for news articles about a childhood friend. Could the library help with that?

Yes. Yes we can.

If you have ever searched for a newspaper article online, you probably have run into the paywall that protects much of that information.

One way around that is to get a free account to Newspapers.com. Only trouble is, that is a one-time (and one week) option and if you forget to cancel it (if you’re like me!) the meter starts running pretty quickly.

When you read the phrase “invisible library,” you might think that this post is somehow Halloween-related.

Not true. Instead, it refers to something that may not be on our shelves, but is still available to you.

Interested? Read on!

It’s always fun to create something unique and formed by your own burgeoning skills! Sometimes the hardest decision can simply be which avenue to pursue first. Even among the crafters of the world, there are so many types of art and media to learn and love and express yourself with. The joy of creating a silk dyed scarf or learning to paint in watercolors or making your first quilt are only limited by your time, access to material, and teachers. If you are crafter, then carving out time to work on your inspirations is as important as taking time to sleep and eat!

Anyone with a Missouri River Regional Library card can now enjoy thousands of free videos from Kanopy, a company committed to streaming high-quality films that inspire, educate and entertain to libraries around the globe. Kanopy’s unique selection offers something for everyone, from award winning indie films to important and timely documentaries, to foreign films, popular cinema, children’s shows and more.  

You will need:

(updated 3/22/22)

Last fall the front of the library had a strange sign: We are not currently accepting donations. 

When we recently had our March Used Book Sale (and the pop-up sales we held in the Art Gallery) it has allowed us to once again take donations. Even then, we do not take everything. Encyclopedias, textbooks, magazines, VHS tapes (except for Disney movies in the original cases) are some of the items that we say "No thanks" to.

We’re all aging, even if we don’t want to acknowledge or think about it. And we’re all living longer in a society that fears aging and often looks on aging as a disease.

 What questions really matter as we age?

 How are we facing the inevitable changes aging brings?

 How can we deal with a healthcare system in which the work of medicine is often incompatible with both care and health?

August passed by and September is on its way out. Unbelievably, school has already been in session for several weeks. Teens are now fully committed to schedules of club meetings, study, and sports events. The life of a teen these days almost never slows down! The library has a place specifically for that, though! The Teen Staff at the library understand that everyone needs downtime to relax and reconnect with their friends outside of school. For that purpose, the Teen Zone has comfy furniture and quirky decor made to make teens feel welcome and breathe easy!

Hometown boy makes good certainly characterizes Allen Eskens’ careers, both literary and legal. A mid-
Missouri native and graduate of Helias High School, Eskens’ novel, "Nothing More Dangerous", is the
library’s 2021 Capital READ. Eskens has written six books, all of which have garnered critical praise and
earned him multiple prestigious awards and nominations. At the library, reference staff field frequent
requests for his books, and the books rarely languish on the shelves.