What's New!

Take a look at these quick, great videos of local teens and adults talking about some of their favorite banned or challenged books.

Teens around the country voted for the top ten books of the year! Check out the results here!

PPLD's staff sure are a talented bunch. Take a look at the 2014 Artistic Expression Contest winners. Staff members submitted their creative endeavors and their peers voted on the top three:

Russ Stamp: "Sunrise Cranes"

sunrise cranes

Lisa Steck-Gillen: "Untitled"

untitled

Sara Sharples: "Keyhole"

keyhole

The Manitou Springs Library recently received an old book (copyright 1897) with a typed letter explaining where the book has been the past few years. It is a touching story of a book that affected a patron many years ago, traveled the world, and returned.

Dear Manitou Springs Public Library,

As a kid, many years before Manitou Springs became a redeveloped historic community, I spent hours and hours as a latchkey child with a single mother discovering classic books in your library. I remember the Manitou Springs Public Library as a mystical place of knowledge; an historic building whose contents fueled a desire for learning. Based on a desire for knowledge, I kept up my grades throughout school, eventually earned a scholarship to University, and graduated with a bachelor degree.

One of the numerous books I checked out from your library was a 19th century picture book with delightful poems, photographs and stories about ancient Greco-Roman mythology. I had intended to return the book; however it was inadvertently packed in a box of belongings and moved from the area when my family suddenly relocated. Unfortunately, this was in the days before the Internet. I do not recall seeing the Manitou Public Library’s address anywhere within the volume, and could not return it.

Eventually, after numerous relocations throughout the world, the book was finally lost … perhaps in a box that was not delivered … perhaps in a truck … or perhaps some divine deity from our mythological past decided enough was enough. Wherever that volume disappeared to, it was gone from the bookshelves that had temporarily lent it a place to rest during its global travels.

Recently, I happened to remember the name of that volume and searched for it online and was delighted to learn it was neither an expensive nor a rare book, and there were numerous copies of it available so I ordered a volume to replace the missing book. That volume turned out to be a second edition; apparently this may have been quite a popular book for several generations of school children. Then I searched again, and found a first edition; printed in the 19th century, as I had remembered.

Enclosed in this package is that first edition of Round the Year in Myth and Song to replace the inspirational book of my childhood, to which I had become attached throughout the years before it was lost, so that it may return to your historic shelves, where I first found it many, many years ago. I hope you will accept my apologies for not returning the original book before it mysteriously vanished, and also my thanks for the gifts of knowledge and desire for learning that I received so long ago, as an elementary school kid who discovered a world of adventure within a small building in Manitou Springs.

Yours truly,
“Anon”

Picture this: You're lounging at a remote beach in the Caribbean. Suddenly you realize you have holds available at the library. Oh, the humanity!

Luckily, you can suspend holds that are not available yet. You still rise up the hold queue when the hold is suspended, but it doesn’t become available until the “unsuspend” date.

Here's how you do it:

  • Log in to My Account.
  • Click on the Holds tab.
  • Select the title you'd like to suspend and click the "Suspend Hold(s)" button at the bottom of the list.
  • Enter the start and end dates for the suspension.
  • To cancel your hold suspension, select the title you'd like to unsuspend and click the "Cancel Hold Suspension(s)" button at the bottom of the list.

Awesome!

A PPLD staff member was at the Walmart across the street this afternoon when a cashier approached her and said (with tears in her eyes).

“I just wanted to thank you for being so kind to me. It’s because of you that I got this job here. I was at the library some time ago and you let me use the computer, even though my card was blocked. I needed to fill out the application for this job, and I did, and I got it! I was on the verge of homelessness and hopelessness when I came into your library, and because of you my life is better. Thank you so much!”

Lois Beebe Hayna was honored at the recent Colorado Authors' League (CAL) Banquet with the first ever CAL Lifetime Achievement Award. Congratulations Lois!

Some winners of the 35th Annual Telly Awards have been announced and Pikes Peak Library District’s Jamey Hastings and Heather Jordan have been awarded a Silver Telly (highest honor) for their film In Our Own Backyard: Reflections on the Waldo Canyon Fire. The film features the stories of families and individuals affected by the Waldo Canyon Fire and the first responders who valiantly battled the blaze in the neighborhoods of northwest Colorado Springs. Based on extensive interviews conducted by PPLD archivist Jordan, the film is a moving portrait of a community persevering hard times and coming together to rebuild.

Founded in 1979, the Telly Awards is the premier award honoring outstanding local, regional, and cable TV commercials and programs, the finest video and film productions, and web commercials, videos and films. Winners represent the best work of the most respected advertising agencies, production companies, television stations, cable operators, and corporate video departments in the world.

A prestigious judging panel of over 500 accomplished industry professionals, each a past Winner of a Silver Telly and a member of The Silver Telly Council, judged the competition, upholding the historical standard of excellence that Telly represents.

Past poets laureate Aaron Anstett, Price Strobridge and Jim Ciletti and State Poet Laureate David Mason with Janice and her granddaughter

Koyoonk’auwi (Concow) poet Janice Gould was the Pike’s Peak Poet Laureate for 2014-2016. Her poetry has been published in over sixty publications, and has won awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Astraea Foundation for Lesbian Writers, the Pikes Peak Arts Council, and from the online publication Native Literatures: Generations. Her books of poetry include Beneath My Heart, Alphabet, Earthquake Weather, and most recently, Doubters and Dreamers, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award for 2012, and for the 2012 Binghamton University Milton Kessler Poetry Book Award. She is the co-editor, with Dean Rader, of Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry. In March 2012 Janice completed a Residency for Indigenous Writers at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A musician as well as a poet, Janice plays guitar and accordion, and helped found and performed with Trio Pan Dulce in Portland, Oregon. She earned her Ph.D. in English at the University of New Mexico, and more recently a Master’s in Library Science from the University of Arizona. Janice is an Associate Professor in Women’s and Ethnic Studies (WEST), where she developed and directs the concentration in Native American Studies.

Here are some poems:

The Crags

Lavanda

From 1910 until it closed in 1970, Pathé News was one of the world's best-known news agencies. Based in Britain, and indeed originally known as British Pathé, it produced tens of thousands of filmed news reports, covering major stories and events all over the world.

Last week, its entire archive of 85,000 videos was put online, on a dedicated YouTube channel that you can browse and view at https://www.youtube.com/user/britishpathe entirely free of charge. So whether you're interested in coverage of the Hindenburg airship disaster from 1937, Arnold Schwarzenegger winning Mr Universe in 1969, or baby chickens hatching in a frying pan, you'll find it all here.

And yes, the chickens in the frying pan is real. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7li6AK5QuU for the full report.

PPLD recently conducted a video contest in which entrants were asked to create a video of 60 seconds or less letting us know why PPLD Rocks. Here are the winners:

First Place:

Second Place:

Third Place:

Judging was very difficult because we received so many other wonderful entries:

kid punches dinosaur

cool science festivalPPLD's Video Center hosted another fantastic green screen experience on Saturday, April 12, 2014 at the Big Cool Science Festival at Colorado College. This time, budding scientists and engineers had an opportunity to visit Mars, hang out in Tesla's lab, or stand on a strand of DNA. Need proof? Take a look at the evidence in our flickr set.

The Teen Art Contest is for teens and by teens. Teens create the art. Teens determine the winners.

Every story, adventure and journey starts from square one. The theme for our 2014 Teen Art Show & Contest was: Art2. Art Squared allowed the artist to choose the content and the medium. Our only request? The artwork must be square.

All of the artwork will be displayed at either Penrose and East Library during the month of April.


Best of Show - High School

Best of Show - High School:
Kodi’s Midnight Trek - Becka Jackson

Best of Show - Middle School

Best of Show - Middle School:
Spiral – Meera Bhatia

First Place - High School

First Place - High School:
Adrift - Kendra Baucom

First Place - Middle School

First Place - Middle School:
Goal - Raven Henriquez

Second Place - High School

Second Place - High School:
I Eat Numbers - Moriah Gilbert

Second Place - Middle School

Second Place - Middle School:
Rose - Alysia Jiminez

Coordinator's Choice - High School

Coordinator's Choice - High School:
Silent Night - Eloro Lobosco

Coordinator's Choice - Middle School

Coordinator's Choice - Middle School:
Day of the Dead - Raelynn Gross

Special Collections at Pikes Peak Library District has just published online the Waldo Canyon Fire Digital Collection, consisting of reports, press releases, maps, photographs, videos and oral history interviews relating to the fire that devastated Colorado Springs in 2012. The collection contains materials created by local, state and federal agencies, interviews with affected residents and first responders conducted by Pikes Peak Library District, as well as powerful photographs, made by Colorado Springs residents and donated to PPLD, of the fire and its aftermath. It is intended to provide a comprehensive collection of documents for researchers today and long into the future.

With more than 400 items in the collection currently, it is expected to grow significantly in the coming months as more materials are added. Explore the Waldo Canyon Fire Digital Collection on Pikes Peak Library District’s Digital Collections site at http://ppld.org/digital-collections.

A great time was had by all at 'A Novel Evening: The Great Gatsby', a special event benefiting the Manitou Springs Library.

Check out our photos!

We are looking to fill in gaps in our Pikes Peak region high school yearbooks collection. After several years of contacting high school yearbook offices and alumni groups, we have added several hundred more volumes, but we still have holes to fill. We are the main repository in the area for these yearbooks and perhaps the only place where they are easily accessible. They are used extensively by our genealogy patrons, high school students, and those recently graduated from high school.

To serve our patrons better, we would like to have as complete a collection as possible. Therefore, we would like to appeal to our patrons to complete this task. Click here to see which yearbooks we are missing. If you have any yearbooks on this list that you are willing to donate to us, please contact the Library at (719) 531-6333, x1253.

Old Colorado City Library is pleased to announce the winners of our essay contest, My Westside--Our Voice. Our generous Friends of the Library supported this programming with a $100 prize for first place. The winner, Sarah Pottenger, is also published in the November 21, 2013 edition of the Westside Pioneer. Enjoy reading her essay along with our runners-up, Andrea Corley and Victor Shepard.

Your Westside is My Westside Now, by Sarah Pottenger - Winner

I’m a third-generation Colorado Springs native, and I’ve never wanted to live anywhere else. I grew up near Academy Boulevard, but some of my best memories are of visits to the Westside, whether to visit my parents’ old haunts, see the house where my grandmother was born, or just to take the car to the mechanic. Driving to the Westside was an event, taking half an hour.

I lived in that same house off Academy for twenty years. Then my family downsized from our house to a duplex just north of Old Colorado City. We moved here in 2010, and though it was a terrible move, we were here. For my parents, returning to the Westside was like coming home. For me, it was a dream come true. Every week one of us remarks that we still can’t believe we get to live here, even after nearly four years.

As a lifelong reader, I love the Old Colorado City Library. We can drive there in just a few minutes, or walk in half an hour. I probably visit three times a week, and it’s the prettiest, friendliest library in town. We’re also just minutes away from Fire Station #5, housing the wonderful firefighters who not only came to our rescue when my bedroom flooded during the September 12 storm, but also arrived within moments when my dad suffered a heart attack right before Christmas last year.

When we were children, my brother and I loved to come to the Westside. The Creamery was (and still is) our favorite ice cream shop. We liked to visit souvenir stores, dipping our hands into wooden bins brimming with polished rocks. My parents pointed out houses belonging to friends and relatives. My mom told stories about running downhill from school and spending nights with her grandparents, one set on Chestnut and one set on Uintah.

I have always loved it here. I pinch myself every day, hardly believing that I get to live here, that every time the car heads west, I’m going home.

The Circle in the Square, by Victor Shepard - Runner-Up

It’s funny how memories work. The passing of fifty five or so years doesn't diminish the desire to somehow recapture the beauty and love that were experienced so long ago. I know the ice cream was much sweeter and creamier then. The flowers my grandma raised were much more fragrant than flowers are today. And most definitely people were so much kinder then. People didn't have the apprehension and distance that is so prevalent today. At least that’s the way I choose to remember it.

Every child looks forward to summer and my summers always included visiting my grandmother in the “burg” of Colorado City. This was the main highlight of every summer and a time that I remember fondly. Grandma’s house was only a block away from the library where I read the adventures of the places I was going to visit one day when I was “old.” In close proximity were the drug stores with real fountains like Cooper-Lidke and the Rexall, a good place to get a chocolate or cherry Coke. Then I’d buy a fifteen cent wooden plane at the Duckwalls, which would last about ten minutes. In the center of this playground neighborhood was a park to play in with a central square and the treasure of the town, the first capitol of Colorado. This park was a hub where the entire neighborhood was welcomed and encouraged to come to.

Wednesday nights in the “burg” were the most special because that was the night when there was square dancing in the park. Although I was only six or seven, it was a weekly ritual that included special food and more importantly, staying up late. I’d get to wear my little cowboy boots and western shirt and get pinches from my grandma’s friends. Watching the big people in their fancy clothes, swiftly moving through difficult dance maneuvers, was quite a sight. But they all seemed happy and certainly appeared to be having a good time. Eventually, the inevitable happened, grandma wanted me to ask a very apprehensive little girl to dance. I was not a completely willing participant in the process but the coaxing finally compelled us wee ones to join in the confusing mob moving to an old man’s call on a screechy microphone. We were both confused and afraid of being trampled by the big people as they sashayed and promenaded around in close order. Somehow we devised our own rhythm and moves and somehow managed to avoid serious contact and injury. The more time we spent dancing the more fun it became. The dance seemed to last late into the night, and I must have been especially tired, as my grandma was forced to carry me home.

Yes, memories can cause us to smile and dancing can still wear me out but I wouldn't trade a moment I've experienced for half a dollar. I still love the park, the band shell and the fistful of valuable and memorable experiences that Bancroft Park has given me throughout many happy years.

Lower Gold Camp Road Today "Ties", by Andrea Corley - Runner-Up

I am a transplant, not a native Westsider. I came here to college and really never left. I have lived in the same place on the Westside for 46 years. I married a local man with Westside ties – railroad ties. His grandfather bought one of the railroads that traveled through the Westside to Cripple Creek a century ago, tore it up, sold the rolling stock and made a toll road for automobiles on the CS&CCDRY bed. It is now called the Gold Camp Road.

Yesterday, driving with a friend on Lower Gold Camp Road, we passed the ground-breaking for a new facility east of my friend’s home at The Village at Skyline. She did not know what is to be built there, but reading the current Westside Pioneer I learned it is to be a memory facility called Morning Star at Bear Creek. I thought” how fitting” in an area full of my family’s memories. The road we were traveling on next to this new facility was once-upon-a-time the initial part of what was called the Corley Mountain Highway. It was gently graded for train traffic first, as the route west out of Colorado Springs to the foothills for the railroad nicknamed ( because it was) the Short Line to Cripple Creek. Now a city street, Lower Gold Camp Road has become, according to Bill Vogrin in the Gazette, a race track for prospective buyers testing their new cars.

Next time you are there, testing or not, imagine the trains going and coming on that very roadway, loaded with freight or gold ore depending on the direction of travel, plains or mountains up ahead, tracks and ties, not tires, underneath you. Then, remember the clickety-clack rhythm of any train ride you have taken, and this becomes Time Travel for the Twenty-first Century with memories of your own. For me, a transplant in my adopted neighborhood, it becomes ties to my family members in their own time and place.

In a recent lecture, celebrated author Neil Gaiman discussed among other things why libraries are so important to the future, how important it is to read for pleasure, and how there is no such thing as a bad children's book.

"... Libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education (which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or university), about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information."

Read the transcript in its entirety here. Search for Neil Gaiman in the Catalog

Tom Clancy (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was an American author best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science story lines that are set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War 1.

Clancy's books were made into several successful films, including The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear and Present Danger.

Click here for a list of titles by Tom Clancy in the Catalog.

The Pikes Peak Poet Laureate recently joined forces with the Pikes Peak Library District Lobby Stop Van to visit various senior centers throughout Colorado Springs.

"Two residents approached as we were leaving and said, 'thank you so much for bringing poetry to us!'"

The love that soars out from you,
Returns on the arms of the singing wind
       Price Strobridge - Boomerang

Pikes Peak Library District wants to preserve the record of the historic Black Forest Fire and its effects on our community. We are doing this in a couple of ways:

  • We are collecting images for an online photo gallery, which you can send to photos@ppld.org. Feel free to include any personal accounts associated with the image, which we will use as a caption. Please note that we cannot receive email attachments larger than 8 megabytes at a time. If you have multiple images, please send them individually. Please limit your submission to five photos total.
  • In addition, we are seeking video and high-resolution photos for our Special Collections archives for the use of future researchers. If you have video or high-res pictures you would like to donate to our collection, please email us at photos@ppld.org with “Archives” in the subject line so that we can arrange acquisition of your photo or video. Do not email your high-resolution images, but you can send samples. Keep in mind we have an 8 megabyte attachment limit. Please do not email video files, but links to online streaming (YouTube, etc.) of your video footage are okay.

PPLD would like to thank Major General Mike and Elinor Ingelido, Carnegie Society Members, for their gift to the children of Cheyenne Mountain Library.

Thank You