What’s New at PPLD!

Do you think you have what it takes to be the champ? This is your last chance during PPLD’s Summer Tour to show us your mad skills at DDR and Guitar Hero competitions.

Prizes include:

• Zen V Plus photo/video/radio
• $25 Best Buy card
• Applebees coupon for each contestant

When: Wednesday, July 16, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Where: Old Colorado City Branch, 2418 W Pikes Peak Ave.

Refreshments will be provided. Contact the Old Colorado City Branch if you have questions.

See the world from your own backyard!

The World Music Series at Pikes Peak Library District is opening exciting new cultural windows for the residents of the Pikes Peak region.

Caji & Salomé

Friday, July 18, 7 p.m.

This duo combines passion for acoustic music with fascination for Brazilian sounds and grooves. Caji & Salomé’s repertoire includes not only Brazilian music (including songs by such composers as Tom Jobim, Caetano Veloso, Dorival Caymmi and Gilberto Gil) but also a mix of songs from Portugal, Cuba, South America, Cabo Verde, and France.

• Caji & Salomé on YouTube
• Caji & Salomé’s MySpace

Presented by Pikes Peak Library District in partnership with Colorado College and the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado.

Vagabond Opera

Saturday, August 9, 7 p.m.

Weaving elements of Kurt Weil, Duke Ellington and Edith Piaf with absurdist flair, theatrics and an old world mood, Vagabond Opera presents the new wave of opera–lusty voices singing in 11 languages and presenting a cabaret of rich musical phrasing, sparkling lyrics and indomitable stage presence, all played with exuberance, skill and a gritty Vagabond edge. This is Opera liberated and reinvented for everyone.

General Information

All 2008 World Music Series concerts are held at the following venue:

Armstrong Quad, CC Campus
Bad weather venue:
Armstrong Theater
14 E. Cache La Poudre St.

TICKET & PARKING INFO: These concerts are FREE and no tickets are required. Armstrong Quad is near the corner of Cascade Ave. and Cache La Poudre St. Nearby parking lots are located off Uintah Street and Cache La Poudre Street.

ABOUT THE WORLD MUSIC SERIES: The World Music Series features visual and performing artists from around the world, offering library patrons and the community as a whole the opportunity to experience the sights and sounds of other cultures. The series is in its 4th year, having engaged thousands with world-class performances and exhibitions.

PARTNERSHIPS: The 2008 series is presented in partnership with Colorado College, KRCC, and the CC Summer Music Festival.

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck Although it follows the movement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, who are driven off their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California.

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan The dust storms that terrorized America’s High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since, and the stories of the people that held on have never been fully told. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist and author Timothy Egan follows a half-dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, going from sod homes to new framed houses to huddling in basements with the windows sealed by damp sheets in a futile effort to keep the dust out. He follows their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black blizzards, crop failure, and the deaths of loved ones. Drawing on the voices of those who stayed and survived - those who, now in their eighties and nineties, will soon carry their memories to the grave - Egan tells a story of endurance and heroism against the backdrop of the Great Depression.

Middle School Selection

Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo’s life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can’t talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better - playing the piano - is impossible with her wounded hands. To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby.

Upper Elementary Selection

Children of the Dust Bowl: The true story of the school at Weedpatch Camp, by Jerry Stanley This true story took place at the emergency farm-labor camp immortalized in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Ostracized as “dumb Okies,” the children of Dust Bowl migrant laborers went without school–until Superintendent Leo Hart and 50 Okie kids built their own school in a nearby field.

Early Elementary Selection

Dust for Dinner, by Ann Turner Jake narrates the story of his family’s life in the Oklahoma dust bowl and the journey from their ravaged farm to California during the Great Depression.

Community Programs & Activities

• Journey From the Dust: A Story of the Great Depression, presented by Living Voices
• Contest for multi-genre museum exhibits (based on a guide from ReadWriteThink.org)
• Film screenings and scholarly presentations at Pikes Peak Library District, Pikes Peak Community College, Colorado College, and various community centers.
• UCCS THEATREWORKS production of The Grapes of Wrath
• Manitou Art Theater production of Kids in the Dust Bowl: True Colorado Perspectives

Want to learn the basics about Word Processing, Spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and Publisher? Old Colorado City Branch is offering sessions on selected Thursday nights for those with computer skills but wanting to learn more about these software programs. Registration is required. Upcoming sessions are listed below. Check the PPLD Events Calendar for future sessions and to register.

Beginning Excel: Thursday, June 26, 7:00 p.m.
Beginning PowerPoint: Thursday, July 17, 7:00 p.m.
Beginning Publisher: Thursday, July 31, 7:00 p.m.

Help Sand Creek Branch raise money at a summer cookout
event organized by “Serena Software Gives Back”.

Join “Serena Software Gives Back” and Pikes Peak Library District for a summer cookout to raise money for the expansion and renovation of the Sand Creek Branch.

When: Wed., June 25 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Where: 1975 Research Parkway

Money raised at the cookout will help the Sand Creek Branch with renovations and improvements to the library’s children’s area and services. The cookout menu will include hamburgers, hot dogs, chips and soft drinks. The cookout, sponsored by Serena Software, is the library’s first fundraiser for its expansion project.

The Sand Creek Branch, located at 1821 S. Academy Blvd., opened in 1988 and has been in its present location since 1994.

Serena Software, with offices in Colorado Springs, is a privately owned company with 29 offices in 14 countries and almost 1,000 employees.

Click on the following links for information about the expansion project or to make a donation, or call 531-6333, x2205.

Farmers State Bank announces a new campaign to aid Pikes Peak Library District in its effort to raise money for its new library branch being built in Falcon. The new branch will be a 6,000 square foot full service, state of the art facility that will serve eastern El Paso County and the surrounding area. To help support this addition to our community please stop by any Farmers State Bank location to make a donation of $3 or more and receive your FSB window cling.

Donors are also eligible for our weekly drawings. Once your window cling is in place and is noticed by a FSB employee your license plate number will be placed in a drawing and posted in the FSB lobbies and on the FSB website. Prizes are $25 gift cards to participating merchants.

Thank you for making PPLD’s newest branch happen!

On February 17, 2009 all full-power broadcast television stations in the United States will stop broadcasting on analog airwaves and begin broadcasting only in digital. Digital broadcasting will allow stations to offer improved picture and sound quality and additional channels. If you do not subscribe to cable or satelite you will likely be affected. Find out more about whether or not you will be impacted by the digital TV (DTV) transition click here.

To get your discount coupon to buy a converter box so can still receive analog signals click here.

Click here for a listing of exceptional performances to be presented by UCCS TheatreWorks. Included is the production of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath in conjuction with All Pikes Peak Reads to premiere September 25.