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BIG READ Kick-off Event | |
Sat., Mar. 3, 6-8 PM
Register online or call 462-5141, ext. 211.
The Hancock County Public Library launches The BIG READ,
a month-long schedule of community events celebrating John Steinbeck's great American novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Most activities highlight the book's 1930s culture and history.
The kick-off, free and open to the public, includes bluegrass music from Mike Butler and Slim Pickin' and a keynote address from Professor Robert G. Barrows, chair of the Department of History at IUPUI, who will discuss "The Great Depression in Indiana: Then and Now." People attending can also pick up a free copy of the book.
On the ground floor as visitors enter, "The Artists Upstairs" will be painting large panels inspired by prose and imagery from The Grapes of Wrath. Watch them begin creating that night, and return to see the finished paintings on display the following week for "Second Friday," when a blank canvas will be set up for visitors to add their own artistic interpretations of the book.
BIG READ events include concerts, drama, movies, discussions and dancing. After March 3, while they last, pick up a copy of The Grapes of Wrath at either Hancock County Public Library location or aboard the library's Techmobile.
The BIG READ is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
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Second Friday Art Exhibits | |
 Student Reception & Artist Upstairs Exhibit
Friday, March 9, 6-9 PM
2 W. Main St., Greenfield
No registration is necessary.
Through the month of March 2012, the Hancock County Public Library, in association with the Creative Arts and Event Center and the Artists Upstairs in downtown Greenfield, will present two exhibits of visual art celebrating John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath.
The show coincides with Second Friday events on March 9 at the downtown gallery. Professional artists have painted panels inspired by passages or imagery from Steinbeck's work, housed in the J. Ward Walker room of the Creative Arts and Event Center.
On the second floor, during an opening reception from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., see a Steinbeck-inspired art exhibit by the Greenfield-Central Junior High and High School students of Sandy Hall and the Eastern Hancock Middle and High School students of Jaydene O'Donoghue.
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Big Read Performances | |
TIM GRIMM CONCERT
Tues., Mar. 6, 7-8 PM
In the library's Greenfield Banking Co. Community Rm.
Register online.
Singer-guitarist Tim Grimm is an award-winning songwriter and actor on stage and screen. Critics most often compare his style with Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen.
As the owner of a 62-acre farm in southern Indiana, the region where he grew up, Grimm's songs are rich with descriptive details that recognize the vanishing landscape of rural America and our national romance with the idea of the family farm.
Each of his past five albums reached the tops of the folk/American-roots charts. His recording, THE BACK FIELDS, was named Best Americana Album in Los Angeles' Just Plain Folks Music Awards. Named 2000's "Best Discovery in Roots/Americana Music" by the CHICAGO SUN TIMES and "Male Artist of the Year" by the Freeform American Roots DJs, his songs and performances have established him as a unique voice in Americana music.
This free concert is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Hancock County Public Library through the sale of donated books, DVDs and CDs.
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BILL JAMERSON: DOLLAR-A-DAY BOYS
Mon., Mar., 12, 7-8 PM (Students Grade 6 to Adult)
In the Library's Greenfield Banking Co. Community Rm. Register online.
PBS filmmaker Bill Jamerson presents music and storytelling about the Civilian Conservation Corps, the government program that put young men to work from 1933 to 1942, during the heart of the Great Depression. The boys earned a dollar a day and were required to send $25 a month home to their parents.
Jamerson tells stories, based on oral histories collected from people with firsthand knowledge, and sings about the CCC while playing guitar. His original songs, ranging from heartwarming ballads to foot-stomping jigs, are as educational as they are entertaining.
Jamerson will also read excerpts from his novel, Big Shoulders, which follows a year in the life of a seventeen-year-old youth who enlists in the CCC in 1937.
Since 1992 when he produced his first PBS film (the first of 11), Jamerson has been collecting stories and turning them into films, books, articles and songs.
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DANCES OF THE 1930s
Tues., Mar. 20, 7-8 PM
In the Library's Greenfield Banking Co. Community Rm.
Register online.
Local dance instructor Stacey Poe, along with her students, will demonstrate dances popular in the depression era.
Also, see Dana Hart, director of Sacred Ground School of Dance, perform a dance solo in the style of Isadora Duncan, a modern dance pioneer in the U.S. Her style, which was liberated from ballet, embodied freedom, emotion and self expression.
Dancing was a relief of sorts from everyday life during hard times. Hollywood films made swing, rumba and other steps popular; and dance marathons, all the rage, helped young couples win a few dollars.
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 Q ARTISTRY:
DUST BOWL ON THE RADIO
Thurs., Mar. 22, 7-8 PM
In the Library's Greenfield Banking Co. Community Rm.
Register online.
Join Q Artistry for a wild and unpredictable radio show parody.
Audience members won't just step back in time, they'll be thrust into the old time radio world as the library itself becomes a studio during the Dust Bowl years. A zany cast of characters straight out of the American prairie (circa 1933) perform comedy and music.
Viewers become part of the action when the sound effects engineer pulls a "no show" and audience members have to fill in.
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Storytelling Guild |
Mon., Mar. 12, 1-3 PM, in the library's Greenfield Banking Co. Community Rm. A. Register online.
Keep memories of people and experiences alive. Join the "Hancock County 'As I Recall' Storytelling Guild."
Tell stories for pleasure while learning techniques that will engage listeners during monthly sessions with Hancock County's local storytelling group. Meetings are informal and open to anyone interested in finding out more.
The guild is co-sponsored by the Hancock County Public Library and Storytelling Arts of Indiana.
On a separate day, as part of our Big Read celebration this month, the storytelling guild will take a field trip to engage residents at Springhurst Health Campus in stories about the 1930s. They'll also stop in at the Kenneth Butler Memorial Soup Kitchen, a session that's open to the public.
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Talk about Local History: 1930s Depression |
 Sit in on any or all these discussions with historians and people who remember stories from Hancock County in the 1930s.
(Photo, Library of Congress Prints & Photographs, Migrant Cherry Picker)
PANEL DISCUSSION ON 1930s NEW PALESTINE
Thurs., Mar. 8, 7-8 PM, New Palestine Lions Club
The Great Depression affected almost every aspect of life during the 1930s in New Palestine. Phyllis Arthur will lead a panel of area residents who lived through those times.
Arthur and her husband, James, received a 2011 Hoosier Homestead Award for their more than 150-year commitment to Indiana agriculture. Their family farm was established in 1860.
Sun., Mar. 11, 2-3 PM, Chapel in the Park (at Riley Park), 28 N. Apple St., Greenfield. No registration required. People who lived through the depression or who know family stories from the 1930s are invited to share these unique memories with an audience focused on local history. If possible, bring photos or items from the period to stimulate conversation. PANEL DISCUSSION ON 1930s HANCOCK COUNTY Wed., Mar. 21, 7-8 PM, in the Library's Greenfield Banking Co. Community Rm. B. Register online. Join Hancock County's Official Historian, Joe Skvarenina, and a panel of local residents as they discuss life during the Great Depression. Hear from Rich and Ellie Trautmann, he a minister from New Palestine, she a schoolgirl from Greenfield; Minister Darell Deck from Charlottesville; and farmers Don Vail from western Hancock County, and Ken Ferris from Greenfield. The panel will discuss memories of farming and caring for livestock in the 1930s, going to school, transient hobos and gypsies, gardening, and foods. Back to Top |
| Grapes of Wrath Book Discussions |
 This month, the groups below are discussing The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, as part of the Hancock County Public Library's Big Read celebration, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
If you'd like to participate, request a free copy at either library location.
SOUP & GRAPES BOOK DISCUSSION
Thurs., Mar. 8, 11 AM-1 PM
202 E. Main St., Greenfield. No registration required. As a bonus to the book discussion, Hancock County's "As I Recall" Storytelling Guild will share tales from the 1930s era, the time of the novel's story.
Steinbeck's iconic homeless family, the Joads, and their economic plight look all too familiar to many in Hancock County. People who attend the discussion are encouraged to bring canned goods to support the kitchen's efforts to eliminate hunger in the community.
BROWN BAG BOOK DISCUSSION Tues., Mar. 13, 10-11:30 AM Library's Greenfield Banking Co. Community Rm. A Can a book top the bestseller list, win a Pulitzer Prize, save lives, and still be underrated? If that book is The Grapes of Wrath (1939), the answer is most definitely, yes. For too long, Steinbeck's masterpiece has been taught as social history or dismissed as an "issue novel." It's both these things, of course, but before all that, it's a terrific story. The characters fall in love, go hungry, lose faith, kill, live, and die with an immediacy that makes most contemporary novels look somehow dated by comparison. WOMEN'S BOOK DISCUSSION Thurs., Mar. 15, 6-8 PM, New Palestine This realist novel, published in 1939, won Steinbeck the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for novels. In the story, the Joads, a family of desperate sharecroppers lose their home through drought and collapsing prices; and, on the strength of a false advertisement, make a desperate journey across the continent to find work in California.
When they meet sharecroppers turning back from the West, the Joads begin to realize that all the hardships and humiliations suffered on the journey might bring them nothing. WRITERS READ STORIES Mon., Mar. 19, 7-8:30 PM Library's Greenfield Banking Co. Community Rm. B Writers Helping Writers, a group of authors based in Hancock County, will read original stories inspired by the 1930s era of John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath.
Hear Diane Delois's "Key West during the Depression," Tom Graham's "Hooverville," Melissa Jefferson's "One Bad Day," and John Schaefer's "Where Lingers the Past." Back to Top |
| Thirties Farming: Purdue Extension | |
FARMING & AGRICULTURE:
THEN & NOW
Wed., Mar. 7, 7-8 PM
In the Library's Greenfield Banking Co. Community Rm. B
Roy Ballard will discuss farming techniques of the 1930s and how they compare with those of 2012. Ballard is the agriculture and natural resources educator with Hancock County, Purdue Extension. Also, see slides of photographs taken by J. C. Allen who, in 1913, worked for Purdue University's College of Agriculture and spent nearly 70 years documenting twentieth century American farms.
APRONS & ELBOWS
Wed., Mar. 14, 7-8 PM
The Hancock County Purdue Extension Homemakers will explain how aprons and "elbow grease" got women through the Great Depression during a housewives' retrospective. Women kept their homes together frugally and, in many cases, worked the farm as well. The homemakers will show vintage items used by women for cooking, and they'll provide taste samples of what came out of 1930s kitchens.
(Photo, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum)
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| Big Read Movie Finale |
 Wed., Mar. 28, 6:30-8:45 PM
In the Library's Greenfield Banking Co. Community Rm.
As the grand finale to a month of Big Read events, watch a movie based on John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath. See the film that chronicled the Joad family's migration from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression. Free, including light refreshments.
(Photo, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs)
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CENTRAL LIBRARY900 W. McKenzie Rd., Greenfield, IN 46140-1082 (317) 462-5141, ext. 211. www.hcplibrary.org
SUGAR CREEK BRANCH
5087 W. U.S. 52, New Palestine, IN 46163
(317) 861-6618, ext. 311
TECHMOBILE: (317) 861-6618, ext. 321.
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JOIN IN! | |
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While they last, pick up a free copy of The Grapes of Wrath at either Hancock County Public Library location. |
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Download eBooks on OverDrive | |
Software is required. Click the "Getting Started" link to begin.
(If books are checked out, you may place a hold.) | |
To download these books, click the cover image or title. You'll need your library card number.
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Books on CD |  | |
If audio books are checked out, you may place a hold.
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| Print Fiction | |
Try these stories about places where families, such as the Joads, are assembled by circumstance rather than blood.
Books William Kennedy (F KENNEDY)
Ironweed
Very Old Bones
The Flaming Corsage
Albany Trio
Beloved ranch books by Kent Haruf (F HARUF)
Plainsong
Eventide | |
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| Print Non-fiction |  | |
(646.2044 Y)
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| Federal Student Aid Assistance | |
Tues., Mar. 6,
6-8:30 PM, Greenfield
Computer Lab
Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) has a deadline of March 10.
Never fear! Staff from Vincennes University's Learning Unlimited program will host a FAFSA night to answer questions on how to complete the form. Both parents and students are invited. | |
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| Knit/Crochet | |
Thurs., Mar. 8, 6:30-8:30 PM, in the library's Greenfield Banking Co. Community Rm. A
Register online.
Spend an evening in stitches among this circle, open to congenial people of all skill levels. Beginning and experienced crafters bring their own supplies and give and take advice on each other's work. | |
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| Ask a History Expert | |
Sat., Mar. 17
10 AM-2 PM
Greenfield Local History & Genealogy Room
Ask questions of one of the area's foremost experts on the past. Joe Skvarenina, Hancock County's official historian, will be available for informal conversations on local history. No need to register--just drop by.
Skvarenina is the author and co-author of several books on area history and has amassed a considerable collection of artifacts housed at the library. | |
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| Book Donations | |
Mon., Mar. 19, 9-5 PM
Greenfield
Please drop off your gently used books, DVDs, and music CDs at the side delivery entrance. A volunteer will assist when someone rings the bell. Request your tax receipt at the same time.
Because of limited space, donations can only be made on specified dates.
Look for bargain books and other media for sale on shelves inside the Greenfield entrance, to the left. Hardback books and DVDs are only $2.00.
The branch in New Palestine also has sale items on a marked cart.
Proceeds from sales by the Friends of the Hancock County Public Library, a non-profit volunteer group, fund programs and special equipment. | |
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Yoga Series:
Two Levels | |
5 Saturdays
Mar. 24-Apr. 21
In the library's Greenfield Banking Co. Community Rm. B
- $25 fee for the entire series paid at the first session.
- Adults 60+ get free admission.
EXPERIENCED (adults of all ages familiar with yoga techniques), 1-2 PM. Register online.
BEGINNER (for adults of all ages who have never attended a yoga class),
2-2:45 PM. Register online.
Susan Goodart is a certified personal trainer/fitness counselor.
Yoga increases strength, stamina, and flexibility and has been credited with improving mental health. Those attending may use a chair or the floor depending on their abilities. Bring a mat or towel and a small pillow, and wear loose-fitting clothes.
People with health issues should speak to their physicians before beginning any exercise. | |
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| Basic Computer Classes | |
These free, basic computer classes take place in the Greenfield computer lab.
For an hour of one-on-one help downloading books or music or learning basic computer software, book a librarian.
PUBLISHER
Tues., Mar. 13, 6-7 PM
Register online.
Tough times call for creative ways to get your ideas out to the public. Try creating your own brochure in Microsoft Publisher. Learn how to add pictures or clip art, insert text boxes, and create shadow highlights.
GIMP PHOTOS
Thurs., Mar. 15, 6-7:30 PM Register online.
Use Gimp, free open-source photo software, to repair old pictures.
Make old images look new, and make new images look old with digital tools. Also, learn how to insert people into an existing picture. All images will be provided, so just come and bring a friend or two, keeping in mind that this is an intermediate-level class.
MICROSOFT WORD
Thurs., Mar. 22, 6-7 PM
Register online.
Learn the basics of Microsoft Word, which helps you use a computer to write letters and create documents or simple flyers.
During this free class, create a document, enter and format text, correct mistakes, and save your work.
The library recommends taking Computers 101, first, or booking a librarian for one-on-one help.
For more advanced classes, take a computer tutorial from our online resources page. | |
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