Click here to check out new photos from inside the new Park Street Library @ the Lyric building, including a look at the beautiful reproductions of the hand-painted murals that once adorned the front of the Lyric Theater (pictured above).
The original artworks were part of mural projects led by painter and graphic designer Marcelina Sierra, whose murals included the 52-foot Water of Dreams and the 17-piece Imagenes, and painter and sculptor Victor Pacheco, whose large mural highlighted Pacheco’s Puerto Rican heritage
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Join the HPL team! We are looking for passionate and skilled people to join us.
Positions Available:
• Communications Manager
• YouMedia Manager
• Facilities Manager
• Youth and Family Services Librarian
• Boundless Librarian
• Teen Services Librarian
• Outreach Assistant
• Supervising Library Assistant
• Senior Library Assistant
• Floating Library Assistant
• Maintainer lll
• HR Generalist
• Security Guard
• YouMedia Mentor
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Hartford Springs Into Summer Exhibit Program Now on YouTube |
Missed Hartford Springs into Summer exhibit program on Zoom? Watch the replay now on the Hartford Public Library YouTube's page!
Join Hartford History Center at Hartford Public Library’s Historical Research Specialist Maureen Heher and Archivist Jennifer Sharp on an exploration of archival materials from the Hartford City Parks Collection that pertain to the recreational history of Hartford's parks, with a focus on the early part of the 20th century.
For questions or to set up an in-person research appointment with the Hartford History Center, email: [email protected]
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No human being is illegal. When Dartmouth College students challenged anti-immigrant language in the Library of Congress, their activism sparked a movement--and a cataloging term became a flashpoint in the immigration debate on Capitol Hill. The documentary has been screened at over one hundred universities and libraries in the United States and around the world, and has inspired library workers to address the ways that systemic racism continues to pervade institutions, particularly in controlled vocabularies.
Dates: Tuesday May 25th
Time: 7:00 pm
Virtual, Zoom
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Make your own positivity jar filled with positive messages, affirmations, and quotes to foster a positive mindset.
Haga su propio frasco de positividad lleno de mensajes positivos, afirmaciones y citas para formentar una mentalidad positiva.
May 26 / 26 de mayo
3:30 PM
Zoom
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HPL Summer Rainbow Party! |
Saturday, June 5th: 1:00-3:00pm
Downtown Library Front Terrace
We’re back! Hartford Public Library is kicking off outdoor programming with a Summer Rainbow Party! Join the fun as we celebrate the book The Boy and the Bindi by Vivak Shraya for LGBTQ Pride month. Featuring drag queen storytime, entertainment, crafts, henna, ice cream, and free LGBTQ books while supplies last.
All ages are welcome.
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National Mental Health Awareness Month Book Suggestions |
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Over the course of Mental Health Awareness Month, we’ll be sharing suggestions from the HPL leadership team of books and podcasts that have inspired them, given them peace, and offered a new perspective on how to be in the world.
This week Leticia Cotto, HPL's customer experience officer, shares her suggestions.
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On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
by Ocean Vuong
Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. With stunning urgency and grace, Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. "This novel is poetically written with rawness that speaks to the heart. It reveals how language and writing can be used as a mechanism in the process of healing," Cotto said.
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We Do This 'Til We Free Us
By Mariame Kaba
What if social transformation and liberation isn’t about waiting for someone else to come along and save us? What if ordinary people have the power to collectively free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle. "Prison industrial complex abolition is a positive project that focuses, in part, on building a society where it is possible to address harm without relying on structural forms of oppression or the violent systems that increase it. Abolition challenges us to ask, Why do we have no other well resourced options? and pushes us to creatively consider how we can grow, build, and try other avenues to reduce harm," Cotto said.
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Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month Book Recommendations |
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May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month – a celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. |
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Speak, Okinawa
By Elizabeth Miki Brina
A searing, deeply candid memoir about a young woman's journey to understanding her complicated parents—her mother an Okinawan war bride, her father a Vietnam veteran—and her own, fraught cultural heritage. Clear-eyed and profoundly humane, Speak, Okinawa is a startling accomplishment—a heartfelt exploration of identity, inheritance, forgiveness, and what it means to be an American.
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Fifty Words for Rain
By Asha Lemmie
From debut author Asha Lemmie, a lovely, heartrending story about love and loss, prejudice and pain, and the sometimes dangerous, always durable ties that link a family together. Spanning decades and continents, Fifty Words for Rain is a dazzling epic about the ties that bind, the ties that give you strength, and what it means to be free.
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Hartford Reads in Color is a book club committed to delving into the narratives and rich diverse voices of communities of color.
The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's first novel, a book heralded for its richness of language and boldness of vision. Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. "The Bluest Eye" remains one of Toni Morrison's most powerful, unforgettable novels- and a significant work of American fiction.
Sunday May 30, 2:00pm.
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We've added a Vaccine Information page to our comprehensive collection of Covid-19 related materials. Learn the facts about the virus and how to protect yourself and your family. There is also information available about housing assistance, financial help and the latest from the Hartford Public Schools.
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“In the library, time is dammed up-- not just stopped but saved. The library is a gathering pool of narratives and of the people who came to find them. It is where we can glimpse immortality; in the library, we can live forever.”
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