Gentry County Library

Books & Bytes from your library director - As the number of COVID cases in Gentry County, and the surrounding counties has gone down, we are lifting our mask mandate to optional for both staff, and the public. If you are more comfortable with wearing a mask, then continue to do so. Curbside service is now a permanent service, if you are reluctant to come in to a place where you may encounter someone not wearing a mask, then curbside is available for you. Fair warning, should those numbers change, and active cases becomes a problem again, we will make masks mandatory once again. Thank you for your continued support and understanding. This has been a very long and difficult year for us, as we know it has been for everyone else.

Jack and the Beanstalk!

Find out how libraries of all types are continuing to serve their communities during the pandemic in the State of America’s Libraries Special Report: COVID-19. It also includes the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2020. https://bit.ly/soal-report-2021 #NationalLibraryWeek #BannedBooksList

Books & Bytes from your library director - Today is the first day in a year that gloves at the library will be optional, and not mandatory, and believe me when I say, your library staff is just as happy about that as you are. However, masks are still mandatory for the time being. We hope, along with everyone else, that we will be able to make them optional soon. Presently, 25% of the population of Gentry County has been vaccinated which is fantastic, but we still have a ways to go. We are watching the numbers closely, not only those from Gentry County, but those from the counties which surround us, as we are the only county library in a five county area. We just need to be vigilant a little longer.

The world's most visited museum just put it's entire collection online for anyone to see. For free.

Another literary giant, Larry McMurtry, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove has died at age 84. His voice will be missed.

Beverly Cleary, the author of the beloved Ramona Quimby books, died at 104 years old on March 25, 2021. She will be missed, but always remembered in her amazing characters.

Books & Bytes from your library director It has been a year this week since the Gentry County Library closed due to the pandemic. It has been a hard time, filled with heartache for those we lost, with fear for those who were infected, and gratitude for those that survived. We have learned new ways of doing almost everything, from book processing to virtual children’s programs, to deep cleaning and to providing new and varied services for our patrons. We appreciate everyone’...s patience during these long months, particularly in regard to new and strange protocols that we instigated to keep both our patrons and our staff safe. Slowly as infections rates in northwest Missouri have gone down, and the vaccination rates have raised, we have begun to adapt our protocols to those changing statistics, always vigilant to the fact that things could change again, just as quickly as they changed before. Beginning April 1st, we will be ending our glove requirement. Gloves will still be available if you are concerned about contact with materials that have been handled by others. Hand sanitizer will always be available as it always has, and we encourage its use. For the time being, masks will still be required, and social distancing will be encouraged. Curbside pickup will now be a permanent service offered by the library. Also don’t forget our digital library is always open at http://www.gentrycountylibrary.org! There are 73,249 ebooks, 32,906 audiobooks, streaming videos, Tumblebooks, databases, Heritage Quest, genealogy resources, and Creativebug, all available 24/7 with just your library card. We are continually expanding those services. We are making the best decisions we can based on the information we currently have available to us. We hope with these precautions we can keep our staff and you, safe during these unprecedented times. We appreciate your support and understanding. See more

When was the marshmallow invented? What is emmer? If you are interested in food, you will find The Food Timeline fascinating!

Pre-school is popping!

2020 has been a rough year for all of us. We still have some books and movies that you have checked out that were due in 2019! We have some others that were due in the beginning of 2020! We know how difficult it has been, but it is time for those things to come home. Please get your overdues turned in! We don't want to spend the last few days of 2020 making calls about overdues! Thank you!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays from your friends at the Gentry County Library! Stay safe, stay healthy, and we will see you back here at your library on Tuesday, January 5th!

Looking for something new to read over the holidays?

Books & Bytes from your library director - We will be closed the week between the Christmas holiday, and New Years. We are hoping everyone will stay safe during the holiday season this year so that we will all be around to really celebrate next year. So next week, you will have Tuesday, and Wednesday to stock up! As always, our digital library is available to you, with our collection of 68,649 ebooks, 34,767 digital audiobooks, and online magazines. Creativebug and Heritage Quest are also available to you 24/7 with just your library card, at http://www.gentrycountylibrary.org!

Always wondered what it would be like to wander around Athens, Greece? Take a walk at City Walks.

Happy Thanksgiving from your friends at the Gentry County Library!Happy Thanksgiving from your friends at the Gentry County Library!

The Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed Joy Harjo as the 23rd Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress on June 19, 2019. Harjo was reappointed to a second term on April 30, 2020, and a third term on Nov. 19, 2020. Joy Harjo is the first Native American poet to serve in the positionshe is an enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Her signature project is The Living Nations, Living Words project which features a sampling of work by 47 Native Nations poets through an interactive ArcGIS Story Map and a newly developed Library of Congress audio collection. https://www.loc.gov/ghe/cascade/index.html