Get the Most from Our Library

By Carol Van Why, Library Committee Co-Chair
Originally published in the April 2021 issue of the 1666 Coffman Newsletter

I hope you accepted Faye Herold's invitation, published in the February 2021 issue of the Coffman News, to ​explore some of the often-overlooked collections on the Library’s upper level. I echo Faye’s sentiments that if you haven’t spent much time there you’re missing some really readable and award-winning titles.

For cabin fever relievers, I’d head first to the TRAVEL WRITINGS section.

There you’ll find books by some of the world’s best travel writers— Ian Frazier, Jan Morris, and Paul Theroux, to name a few. If I’m looking for armchair travel and humor both, one of my favorite reads of all time is Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. It’s a great title to read out loud to someone; there are portions that will make you laugh until you cry. Good medicine.

While I’m thinking about the Library’s upper level, I am reminded of some shelving improvements I made in late 2020. In the interest of improving access to books on African American and Native American issues, I expanded shelf space devoted to both topics. Look for these sections in the upper level’s northeast corner. Of course, there are also works by African American and Native American authors in the BIOGRAPHY, FICTION, and POETRY sections.

While we’re talking about improvements, I need to tell you about a shelving change in the history sections on the lower level. Here, everything needed a rejiggering. Gone is the section devoted solely to WORLD WAR II. This allowed me to create an expanded MILITARY HISTORY section. Now all books on US wars and military incursions are shelved in this new section.

Have questions about how the 1666 Coffman Library works? Explore our website. Still need answers? Contact either of the Library Committee Co-Chairs, Katie Weiblen or Carol Van Why.