Blog Entries

In 1846, a large party of emigrants left Springfield, IL for a new life in California. The first part of their journey went more or less as planned, with few casualties. The farther they went, however, the more perilous their passage became. The routes at the time took groups of settlers over dangerous mountain passes, across raging rivers, and through the dry and deadly salt flats near the Great Salt Lake. Tales of shortcuts passed from party to party, but were largely theoretical and potentially more dangerous than the established routes.

The year is 1988. Tween newspaper delivery girl Erin is biking through her tiny Ohio town in the pre-dawn light the morning after Halloween, when she’s accosted by three teen boys who are still wearing costumes and causing trouble in the neighborhood. As the boys surround Erin, making violent and even sexual advances, the rest of the newspaper girls arrive. Mac, Tiffany, and KJ are all old hands at delivering newspapers and confronting dumb teenagers, and, armed with hockey sticks and barbed tongues, they’re able to drive the boys off into the night.

Summer is finally here and what an awesome time to be a teen! After a year that pushed all the boundaries of patience and stress, you can finally breathe free and roam a bit! Better yet, you can breathe free inside and outside with groups of friends and in public places. It’s time to meet up with friends once again and make some fun plans. But now that you have all this freedom, what are you going to do with yourself?

The Missouri River Regional Library Summer Reading Program is back from June 1-August 7, 2021! Join us at the library for a variety of programs all summer long, plus earn prizes when you read. Printed reading logs will be available at the library, but participants are encouraged to use READsquared online to track their reading. Signup may be found at http://mrrl.readsquared.com.  

Summer Reading Program Kickoff Night at the Missouri River Regional Library Park on Friday, June 4th, 3-6 pm.

We did it!  The Osage Branch is alive and well in its new location at 22 Library Lane, Linn, MO.  Although we have had to make adjustments, we are currently providing full library services.

One big change from our old location to our new location is that we are now open on Mondays!  Our new hours are Monday-Friday 9 AM – 6 PM and Saturday 9 AM-1PM.

STI Technology Solutions has been a long time event sponsor of the Foundation Mini Golf Fundraiser. They are writing a guest blog here today to share some security tips with you! 

 Be Cautious of Links

• Be suspicious of any links in emails. These are common ways for criminals to get your personal information

 Vary your Passwords

As part of National Library Week, Missouri River Regional Library will honor Erin Hart from KAT Country as the 2021 Library Ambassador of the Year.  Hart is an avid library user, and consistently shares about the work the library is doing, both in the community and on social media. She has volunteered as a celebrity reader, is a frequent Book Box participant, and writes blogs often on her experiences at the library.

Missouri River Regional Library will join with libraries across the nation in celebrating National Library Week April 5-10, 2021.  This is the 63rd year that libraries have celebrated NLW. 

“National Library Week is a chance for us to highlight our impact on the community,” says Claudia Cook, Director. “It is also a great time to celebrate our patrons, and welcome back members of the community who haven’t visited us recently.” 

• All week long:

Missouri River Regional Library has created a virtual meeting room that is available for use in Cole and Osage County. Virtual rooms are available to community groups, non-profits, and businesses, and are hosted on the Zoom platform.  By scheduling your meeting through the Library, community members will have an unlimited amount of time for meetings and up to 300 attendees! 

Are you homeschooling and a bit overwhelmed? 

Are your kids learning from home and you need a little extra help?

Missouri River Regional Library can help you out! The Children’s Department would be happy to assist you with your curriculum needs. The staff can put together a selection of books on a specific topic or on multiple subjects. All you need to do is give us a call or send an email and let us know what subjects you need additional information on and what age your child is. 

More than 100 readers participated in the 2020 Winter Words Adult Reading Club. They read hundreds of books in all fiction genres and nonfiction categories. We asked the participants to name a book they read in 2020 that they’d recommend to other readers. Their recommendations follow: 

Fiction

By now you’ve surely heard about our popular Book Box service. The premise is simple: fill out a form with your literary likes and dislikes, tell us how often you’d like to receive books and how many you’d like at a time. Our staff will then select books we think you’ll like based on the information you’ve given us and put them on our holds shelf for you to come and pick up. But what if you’re not sure whether a Book Box subscription is right for you? What if you’ve been getting a Book Box, but it’s not working quite as well as you’d hoped?

(Spoiler Alert: No)

Many of our phone calls and more than an occasional patron ask variations of the same question:

I was trying to (insert action here) and it said – voice rising questioningly -- my library card had expired?

Sometimes it is followed by the secondary question: Have you guys canceled my account?

Good news! Unless it has been a number of years since you have last used your library card, the answer is “no” – you are not canceled, just in a time out.

So what happened?

Supplies Needed:  Washable project paints or liquid food coloring, baby shampoo or bubble bath, corn starch and water.

Utensils Needed: Mixing bowl, measuring cups/spoons, spoon, paint brush or brushes.

Extra Supplies: Paint palette, small silicon muffin pan, plastic divided container, or small plastic bottles/cups.

Compulsion rules Collin’s life. He can’t stop himself from counting the number of letters in words spoken to
him. Nor can he stop himself from announcing those totals to the speaker. If he tries to stop, he becomes
overwhelmed. Life has been extremely difficult for Collin because of his struggle with Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder. He has been raised first by his grandparents and then his father, but his OCD has made him too
much for them to handle. His grandparents gave up on him very early on, and now his father has finally