Richmond Free Library

Did you know we now have certain books and audio on OverDrive available just to Richmond patrons? This means you may not need to wait for a popular title, or if you do, the wait time will be shorter! “OverDrive Advantage” is the name for the downloads the library has purchased for Richmond Library card holders. Below find the audiobooks and e-books available in OverDrive Advantage. Almost 50,000 other digital titles are also available in GLMC OverDrive! Click here to sign in to OverDrive; you’ll need your library card barcode (starts with PVSPQ) and your password, which is your last name. Contact us if you have questions.

Audiobooks

E-Books

Youth Summer Reading Club at the library will run from  June 22—July 31. Things are going to be a little bit different this year as much of the library building remains closed, but there will still be reading records, stickers, guessing jars, crafts, prizes and more. Instructions and self-serve activities await you in the library foyer and yard. Go to the Youth Services Page for detailed information and please visit as often as you can this summer.

Youth Summer Activities at the library will also run from  June 22—July 31. The library building may or may not be opening to the public during this time period, but visitors will be welcomed into the foyer space to participate in the Youth Summer Reading Club, to pick up books, and for instruction regarding the activities below. Please follow the current safety guidelines which include wearing a mask while inside public spaces and distancing from others. If there are others in the foyer when you arrive, please wait until they exit to go in yourself.

StoryWalk® A StoryWalk is an outdoor reading experience that reveals a story page by page as the reader follows the StoryWalk route. There will be a new StoryWalk set up around the library grounds each week. So come take a walk, read a book!

Take & Make Crafts Six weeks of DIY crafts! Stop by the Library foyer to pick up a take & make craft bag. Inside each bag you will find all or most of the parts, and the instructions you’ll need to create something new each week.

Outdoor Activities Each week we’ll put out directions and supplies for a new adventure around the library, park and/or town. We might send you on a scavenger hunt or perhaps invite you to add to some outdoor art.

Guessing Jars While you’re picking up your books, craft bag and getting your reading club charm in the foyer, don’t forget to make a guess. A new jar will appear on the foyer table each week along with a poster of winners from the week before. Winners go home with a book from the prize box.

Storytime Bags We’ve made storytime at your house easier than ever. We have put together eight themed Storytime Bags. Each Storytime Bag contains books, songs, rhymes and a craft/activity. Themes include: Pets; Gardens; Counting; Things that Go; Friends; Seasons: Silly Books and Camping.  Request one of the bags today by calling or emailing.

Online Resources Visit the Richmond Free Library Youth Services page to connect with TumbleBooks for a fun, gently animated picture book storytime and Storyline Online to hear  great children’s authors and other celebrities reading aloud from fabulous picture books. Here you will find links to other great youth sites as well including resources for elementary-aged and older youth.

As James Baldwin wrote in his letter to his nephew in The Fire Next Time, white people “are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.”

Below find a *few* of the resources we have available at the Richmond Library (with links to our online catalog). We also have DVDs, youth books, and plenty of additional titles. An internet search will yield many antiracist reading lists (check out this one from Read It Forward), and if you see something you are interested in but is not available at RFL, we can try to get it for you via Inter-Library Loan (titles must not be newer than 6 months).

NONFICTION

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
by Michelle Alexander

One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy by Carol Anderson

Black Is the Body: Stories from my Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine by Emily Bernard

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson

Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History, 1513-2008 by Henry Louis Gates

March: Book One by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin
March: Book Two by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin
March: Book Three by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race edited by Jesmyn Ward

BIOGRAPHY

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

The Autobiography of Malcolm X with the assistance of Alex Haley

Arthur Ashe: A Life by Raymond Arsenault

FICTION

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Novels by Toni Morrison

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

We are very pleased to once again be able to offer library patrons access to the physical collection. This includes books, audiobooks, magazines, and DVDs. We cannot allow visitors beyond the outer foyer but you will find that this space has been adapted to serve as a safe and convenient place to pick up your item requests. Book bins in the foyer have been labeled alphabetically. Requested items will be bagged, labeled and placed in the bins according to patron’s last name. The door will be left open so visitors need not touch anything except their own bag. Please be mindful of others and wait your turn to enter the space if there is already someone there.

There are three ways to request materials:

1. Place a hold on whatever you like through your library account at rfl.kohavt.org.  You will need your library barcode number to log in to your account.  Your password is your own last name (capital first letter). Please note that the maximum number of holds allowed per account is five.
2. Call us at 434-3036. Leave a message if it is after hours.
3. Email us at rfl@gmavt.net.

Pick up times are as follows:
Mon, Wed & Fri: 10 – 4 pm
Tues & Thurs: 12 – 4 pm
Sat: 12 – 2 pm

* All items can be returned to the outdoor book return bin anytime.

We sure miss our Storytimes with the kids,  but know that all you fine parents have it covered. Home Storytime!  The good news is that we just made it a little easier for you to enjoy a themed storytime in the convenience and safety of your own home.  We have put together eight Storytime Bags for you and your child to check out and enjoy.  Each Storytime Bag features a different theme and contains, books, songs, rhymes and a craft/activity to do with your child.  Current themes include: Pets; Plants, Flowers & Gardens; Counting; Cars, Trucks & Things that Go; Silly Books; Friends; Seasons & Weather and Outdoors & Camping. We’re pretty sure your child is going to love this idea, so give it a try.  Request one of the bags today.

Here are some images of the marvelous art that is currently hanging in the library with no eyes upon it. Women Speak: Resistance Art–created in response to recent political and cultural events and concerns–was installed in our downstairs gallery space prior to our necessary closure. You can learn more about the artists, Meta Strick, India Tresselt and Sarah Rosedahl, in another post below.  Perhaps on a sunny day in the future you will be able to see their work in person. For now… enjoy this sampling.

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The library now has a TumbleBook Library subscription. TumbleBooks, a world leader in online children’s book databases, has made its family of online libraries available for free to public libraries until at least August 31. Thanks TumbleBook!

Its flagship product, TumbleBook Library is a collection of animated talking picture books, read-alongs, ebooks, quizzes, lesson plans, and educational games. You will find a link to these animated picture books as well as links to math picture books and books for teens on our YOUTH SERVICES page.