Regular visitors to various branches of the Kingston Frontenac Public Library recently had a chance to strike a pose to help celebrate October as Canadian Library Month.

At the Sharbot Lake branch on September 22, Debbie Whan of Mountain Grove, who is a regular visitor to the Sharbot Lake, Parham and Mountain Grove branches, was approached by Meredith Westcott of programming and outreach services with the KFPL. Westcott invited Whan to add her face to the MY KFPL promotional campaign, which aims to celebrate the faces of real people who love to spend time at their local libraries.

The photos along with a personal quotation stating why the library user loves to visit their local library, were taken at numerous branches of the KFPL including the Sharbot Lake and Sydenham branches and they will be used for various advertising and promotional publications for the KFPL in the upcoming months. “With stock photography you are not able to get realistic people who best represent your local community. The whole idea with this project is to find the real people who use the libraries and share their reasons why. Our aim is to show that we are a community organization and that we are open to all types of people of all ages and all backgrounds”.

Whan said that she visits her local branches regularly not only to quench her love for DVDs, especially those on the topic of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, but also because it is “a quiet and peaceful place to visit”.

Westcott said that she has photographed various local patrons who each have their own personal reasons for visiting their local branch. “It is the richness of the materials available that attract people. Not only do we have books on all topics, as well as a wide selection of DVDs and CDs but we also have download-able movies and magazines and our online resources are also phenomenal. For people who love music, they can get free music every week and it is all totally free.”

Westcott also mentioned the numerous free family programs that are also popular, including story times, P.A. Day and March break programs, and various live musical and theatrical performances by professional artists, which are available through funding by Friends of the Library.

This is the second time the KFPL has run the many local faces promotional campaign, the first having taken place in 2013. Westcott said that not only will this new promotion help library staff to update their photos but that the participants and local residents can look forward to seeing a few familiar faces in print and on view at their local branches in the coming weeks.

History buffs wanting to experience what living in pre-17th century Europe was like may be interested to know that there exists an international society with branches right here here in Canada that allows its members to do just that. The Society of Creative Anachronism is an international organization with over 30,000 members who research and recreate the arts and skills of those days long gone by. Consisting of over 20 kingdoms, members organize events and dress in period clothing and attend various events throughout the year.

As part of the Kingston Frontenac Public Library's series of live monthly speakers, Jon McLean, a member of the society, spoke at the Sydenham library branch on August about the organization and some of its practices. Society members can engage in many of the activities that were popular during those times, including armored combat, rapier combat (also known as fencing), various types of crafting, equestrian activities, archery and other thrown weaponry, heraldry and other forms or writing, performing arts, games, meal and beverage preparation and more.

McLean has a interest in making mead, an alcoholic beverage popular at that time and said that was what initially attracted him to the group. The first step for those interested is to locate the Kingdom closest to you by accessing the organization's website and looking at a list of their events that can be attended, or alternately by getting in touch with a member to find out more. McLean spoke of some of the events that he has attended, which have included special feast days when summer and winter Kings and Queens are chosen by the group; special combat days that are held in a drill hall located at CFB Kingston; large re-enactments of battles that have taken place, as well as other celebrations where members recreate period meals and activities in an effort to emulate life as it was back then. Members create their own authentic dress, and accessories and McLean stressed that it is up to members to go as in depth into the authenticity of their roles and gear as they like. McLean showed slides of members of his group at a special Trebuchet Day where they test fired a catapult they had built, and other slides showed members participating in a re-enactment of a Trillium War.

Those interested can visit the website at www.sca.org to find out more information and how to get involved.

Youngsters and adults of all ages had an opportunity to explore the latest in creative computing and other related technology thanks to a special interactive event put on by the Kingston Frontenac Public Library (KFPL) at Oso Hall in Sharbot Lake on July 3.

The event, titled the Mini Maker Faire, aims to engage youngsters in the latest cutting edge technology and was headed up by members of the KFPL staff. It included a number of interactive opportunities for kids and adults alike.

On site was a 3D printer where visitors had a chance to create their own 3D designs or choose an existing design to have printed out. A number of finished items were on display such as key chains and various toys, including one detailed dinosaur head.

Liz Coates, a teen and new adult librarian with the KFPL, explained the process. A design is first created and loaded into a computer attached to the printer, which then uses a raw plastic filament to create the object. The filament is fed into an extruder, which heats the plastic to 225 degrees Celsius. The plastic then immediately hardens, which allows layer upon layer to build up, creating a finished three-dimensional object.

Coates informed me that all card-carrying members of the KFPL can put in orders to have their own 3D designs printed out at the library's main branch, which can then be delivered to any member branch. At another station of the Mini-Maker Faire, Derek Fenlon, a tech tutor with the KFPL, showed guests something called arduino, a creative computer/electronics kit complete with a detailed instruction guide that shows youngsters the basics of computer technology by showing them how to create their own computer-based electronic objects. The kit shows the users how to program tiny computers called micro-controllers, which causes objects to be interactive. The kit aims to get youngsters engaged in creating their own designs, which can eventually evolve into more complicated objects like robots.

Another attraction at the fair was a special button-making machine, at which a crowd of youngsters and their parents were busy making their own buttons.

Huda Shaltry, programming and outreach staff with the KFPL, was pleased with the turnout for the first time Sharbot Lake event and said that a lot of parents brought along friends with kids. Although the primary aim is to get young ones involved in the various programs the library offers, these can be a relaxing and equally engaging experience for adults as well. One parent said that she spent hours with her kids, who were thoroughly engaged for the entire duration of the event.

For those who missed the first fair, a second KFPL Mini Maker Faire will take place at the Barrie Hall in Cloyne on Friday, August 14 from 1 to 3pm.

Shaltry also made note of a number of summer reading clubs for youngsters and teens as well as the library's “Books Clubs with a Difference” events, which offer adults a chance to meet for relaxed conversations about the books they have been reading. For avid readers in this area, the book clubs will take place at the Cloyne branch on Friday, July 17 and Friday, August 21 at 11am, and at the Sharbot Lake branch on Tuesday, July 28 and Tuesday, August 25 at noon.

A number of programs geared to children and the whole family are scheduled for this summer at a variety of KFPL library branches and include LEGO making workshops, puppet shows, story telling, concerts and more. For a full listing visit www.kfpl.ca

The Kingston Frontenac Public Library is delighted to offer a StoryWalk® in Sharbot Lake on Saturday, July 25, from 10am to 12 noon. StoryWalk® is a fun activity that places a children’s story along a walking trail or route in the community. It was conceived as a way to inspire parents, teachers, and caregivers to take young children outdoors to combine physical activity with learning.

StoryWalks® will take place at Oso Beach in Sharbot Lake and will feature the charming and heart-warming picture book Your Hand in My Hand by Mark Sperring and Britta Teckentrup. The story follows a mouse and her mum as they take a trip through the four seasons. Find the pages along the beach.

Following the StoryWalk, enjoy a themed craft together. Throughout the event, share your photos with us online using the hashtag #KFPLStoryWalk.

The StoryWalk® Project was created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, Vermont, and developed in collaboration with the Vermont Bicycle & Pedestrian Coalition and the Kellogg Hubbard Library. This project is sponsored by the Friends of the Kingston Frontenac Public Library.

For more information about our StoryWalk® and other events, pick up the summer edition of What’s Happening, call your local branch, or visit the Programs and Events section of the library’s website at www.kfpl.ca.

The puppet show that was presented by The Flying Box Theatre from Montreal last weekend in Sharbot Lake, Perth and McDonalds Corners features a related set of German Fairy Tales. The show is called Hans Dudeldee and Other Forgotten Fairy Tales and the story behind the story is quite interesting.

We’ve all heard of the Grimm brothers who collected children’s stories and passed them out to the masses. Cinderella ring any bells? I doubt as many of you have heard of Xaver Von Scönwerth however. The eighteenth century historian spent much of his life collecting folklore in the Bavarian region of Oberpfalz. Despite their overshadowing success, the Grimm brothers felt inferior to Scönwerth’s method of collection and told King Maximilian II of Bavaria that the only person who could replace them was Von Schönwerth. This was because, unlike the Grimm brothers, Schönwerth did not doctor the tales in any way. Due to this among other factors, the complete 500-story collection had been long lost and forgotten for 150 years.

Last year, the cultural curator of Oberpfalz, Erika Eichenseer, published a selection of fairy tales from

The Scönwerth Collection that she had discovered while leafing through archives in Reegensburg, Germany, where they had been left dormant. In 2008, Eichenseer helped to found the Franz Xaver Von Schönwerth Society, an interdisciplinary committee devoted to analysing his work and publicizing it. It is Eichenseer’s goal to translate the 500-some tales into English with the help of Munich-based English Translator, Dan Szabo. The Flying Box theatre has taken on the mission of presenting these tales for the very first time in English, and boy do they do it well.

As part of their programming titled "Home Town Home Front: Kingston Frontenac in World War 1", the Kingston Frontenac Public Library's Sydenham branch invited Laura Robinson (photo left), head of the English department at the Royal Military College in Kingston, to present a talk on the life of famed Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery and her reflections of World War 1.

Robinson's talk coincides with a multi-media exhibit she put together that will be up in the Delahaye Room at the Kingston Library's Central Branch until Saturday, September 27.

Robinson focused her Sydenham talk on Montgomery's 1921 novel titled "Rilla of Ingleside", the eighth novel in her Anne of Green Gables series. Robinson said that while Montgomery drew on the raw material from factual war time realities, she used this material to create her own style of fiction and in doing so “highlighted the heroism that took place in rural Canada during those times.”

Robinson also said that Montgomery demonstrates in the "Rilla" characters some of her own ambiguities about the war by presenting many female characters doing their best to serve the war efforts, some happily, but others not so much. Similarly some of her male characters are presented with some opposing emotional feelings about the war itself.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Robinson's talk was when she spoke of Montgomery's more private self as gleaned from the author's journals, which when published beginning in the 1980s, caused a huge resurgence of interest in the Canadian author. The journals laid bare a side of Montgomery not formerly known, a more caustic, biting side, less charming and up beat than how she presented herself in public.

Robinson is the perfect choice to speak about Montgomery, having focused on her as a PhD student while at Queen's University in Kingston. Robinson included Montgomery's Anne series in her PhD thesis, which focused on girls' stories.

In her talk Robinson was careful to present Montgomery as a complex character, one who experienced her own personal woes throughout her life and who was a far more complicated individual than her books infer. For Robinson it has always been Montgomery's mastery of irony that attracted her to her work. “On the surface she always managed to toe the party line and behave properly and yet she still managed to get away with a lot. I think that is why so many people continue to love her and read her. It's because she writes things that are not as straight forward as they appear. Her characters and their feistiness show that although everything seems to work out in the end, in the middle parts of her books, her characters are always getting away with lots of stuff.”

Judging by the wealth of questions and comments from the audience at Robinson's talk in Sydenham, Lucy Maud Montgomery continues to inhabit the hearts and minds of many Canadians.

by Maddie Field-Green

On August 15 at the Sydenham Library, a spectacular Puppet Show Extravaganza hit the stage! The show was fox-themed and featured KFPL puppeteers Brenda Macdonald and Margi Mckay. There were over 30 kids and over 20 parents in the audience. It was a rainy day but that didn’t deter the crowd as they sang, “If all of the rain drops were lemon drops and gum drops, oh! What a rain it would be.”

The first performance was one of Aesop’s Fables, "Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes", retold and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. The story follows a fox as he attempts to retrieve a bunch of grapes while dismissing his friend’s suggestions. Eventually, he gives up and leaves. Meanwhile, his friends discuss each other’s plans and decide that the mouse’s idea was the best. They retrieve the grapes while working together and attempt to cheer up their old friend, the fox. During the intermission, Margi read "Hattie and the Fox" by Mem Fox. Clearly, they were intent on sticking to the “Fox” theme.

The final show of the day was an adaptation of the pop hit, "What does the Fox Say?" by Norwegian comedy duo, Ylves. The show was completely hilarious. The audience was enthralled and credit must go to the puppeteers, as the song goes very quickly!

 

On July 13 a puppet show extravaganza hit the stage at the Sharbot Lake branch of the Kingston Frontenac Public Library (KFPL). The two puppeteers, Brenda MacDonald and Sarah Balint, have been on the road touring various library branches for the past few weeks. They performed two classic children's stories. The first was “Strega Nona”, written and illustrated by Tommie dePaola and the second was “Three Little Pigs”. Both books are available to borrow through the branch near you.

At the Sharbot Lake performance the house was packed with children from all around the area, starting from the age of 5 months. The stage was elaborate and circus-themed. One boy, when asked what his favourite part about the stage was, said, “I like it because it's red.”

“Strega Nona” translates to Grandmother Witch, and the story centres around a magical old woman who seeks out the help of Anthony, a boy who is thought to be inattentive, as she is getting rather old. However, Anthony creates trouble when Strega Nona leaves her house under his care for a few days. He does not heed a warning to leave the pasta pot on the stove alone, causing it to overflow and fill first the house, then the entire village with pasta, with terrifying and funny results.

The show was full of comedic moments and stirring suspense.

During intermission one of the puppeteers, Brenda MacDonald, led a song with the children. As some of the kids knew the song, they stood up and sang it out with Brenda, much to her delight. This was followed by a reading of John Burningham's “Mr. Gumpy's Outing” [Editor's note – the best picture book ever written, with the possible exception of Mr. Gumpy’s Motor Car].

The puppet show then continued with a fantastical performance of “Three Little Pigs” which literally had the audience rolling on the floor in hysterics. Brenda and Sarah really understood their audience and clearly love what they do. They were welcoming and entertaining from the get-go. They made sure to credit the audience for their energy; as Sarah said, “They were our best audience all week.”

Sarah and Brenda will be performing again on August 15 at the Sydenham branch at 10am. They will be performing two fox-related puppet shows, one based on the hit song “What does the fox say?” and the other based on the children's story “The Fox and the Grapes”.

Feature Article - May 25, 2006

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Feature Article - May 25, 2006

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by Janice Coles, RuralBranches Librarian

New Rural Branch Hours: Effective Monday, June 5, all rural branches, except Sharbot Lake , Sydenham and Storrington, will have new opening hours. We are not cutting hours; rather we are moving about some hours to make visiting your local libraries more convenient.

In North Frontenac, the Cloyne branch will be open longer on Wednesday nights, the Plevna branch will open Friday mornings when the Township office and the dump are open, and the Ompah branch will open Tuesday mornings.

In Central Frontenac, the Mountain Grove branch will open on Wednesday nights and the Arden branch on Thursday nights, giving area residents two evenings of library service. In addition, the Arden branch will be open longer on Saturdays. The Parham branch will now be open Saturday mornings from 10 a.m. to noon.

In South Frontenac, the Hartington branch will open on Mondays and Wednesdays. These hours, along with those at the Sydenham branch, offer library service in the area six days a week, including four evenings.

Many thanks to all who took the time to respond to our questionnaires about hours. Your feedback was invaluable.

Please check our ads in the May 18 and June 1 issues of The Frontenac News for full details, or head to our website www.kfpl.ca.

Have a Seat at our Sydenham Branch: We are thrilled to announce that we have three new beautiful and comfortable armchairs at the Sydenham branch, which replace the old ones which had seen better days! We are indebted to the KFPL Friends of the Library for providing the funds for these wonderful chairs.

The Friends of the Library (FOL) is an active volunteer charitable organization which fosters understanding and appreciation of all seventeen KFPL branches by raising funds to enhance services and provide materials and equipment not provided by public funding. The group provides a way for people of all ages to contribute to the Kingston Frontenac Public Library. A twelve-month membership or renewal may be taken out at any time of the year by visiting any KFPL branch. Friends receive a 15% discount at the Novel Idea Bookstore in Kingston .

The Friends’ AGM is at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 6 in the Delahaye Room, KFPL Central Branch, 130 Johnson Street in Kingston . FOL memberships can be purchased at the AGM. More Friends information can be found at www.kfpl.ca/about/friends.htm

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Feature Article - February 15, 2007

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Feature Article - February 15, 2007

KFPLBookmarkby Janice Coles, Rural Branches Librarian

In 2006, the Kingston Frontenac Public Library was the proud recipient of a Trillium Grant, from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, to purchase DVDs and Books on CD for our rural branches. Items purchased with this grant money have already arrived at our Frontenac County branches, and new DVDs and CDs arrive on a regular basis. Drop by the branch nearest you to see what we have, or check our catalogue at www.kfpl.ca.

KFPL is on the road again! After our October appearances at the Frontenac Farmers Market in Verona and the Business over Breakfast meeting in Sharbot Lake , we will be at the Heritage Festival in Sharbot Lake on Saturday, February 24. (*Note that this is a change from the Thursday date on the Heritage Festival flyer.) At 11 a.m., at St. James Major Catholic Church, enjoy a puppet show presented by KFPL Librarian Kimberly Sutherland-Mills. As well, we’ll have a selection of books and a booklist on the Heritage of Frontenac County available and will be happy to talk to you about library services of all kinds.

On March 6, I am looking forward to speaking to the Arden Seniors about library services, and on March 26 I’ll be in Crow Lake speaking at the new (old) School House. Hope to see you at one of these events!

If your group wants a speaker for a meeting or some other event, I would be more than happy to come and talk to you about what KFPL has to offer. I can talk about what the library has on specific subjects hunting & fishing, crafts, business, local history etc. just let me know. Best of all, I can come and speak at no expense to you! Contact me at 613-549-8888, ext. 1500 or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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