Introducing "Spotlight On..."

By Victoria Tirrel, originally published in the May 2026 issue of the 1666 Coffman Newsletter

You’ll notice something new when you walk into the library starting today—our “Spotlight On” feature area. We’re dedicating one set of shelves between the sliding glass doors (look for the sign!) to a rotating collection of books on a theme or of a type.

For our first Spotlight, we’ve pulled from our collection 33 works by 29 different authors (Atwood to Vonnegut ​with some unexpected authors like Erdrich between) in the broad genre of science fiction. These books explores “what if” scenarios that involve technology, space, time travel or science. The lifeblood of fiction is conflict, so while science fiction can focus on utopian outcomes, usually the tone is dystopic—imagining a resulting oppressive, ruined or nightmare society. But they can also be tender or funny.

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Exploring these books is easy. For borrowers, nothing changes about the checkout or return procedures. All you need to do is add this set of shelves to your browsing habit…and open your mind to other timelines, other worlds and other beings.

We expect the Spotlight to rotate every three or four months. So once science fiction disappears back into the regular collection, there’ll be another theme to take its place. Right now the second Spotlight is a mystery; it could be stories “with ghost narrators” or “set in Minnesota” or “reminiscent of Jane Austen.” Or maybe something completely different…

Coming soon online, the Spotlight list with links to each book’s entry in our online catalog!