Greening of Red Feather Lakes starts 10 a.m. Dec. 5 at the library

We hope you join us for Greening of Red Feather activities held at the library starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 5. We’ll have do-it-yourself (or, with assistance) children’s craft stations in the Stenzel Room, 12 to 4 p.m., and a guesstimate jar (closest guess to number of contents) wins a $5 Starbucks gift card. And, of course, Santa will be at the library from 12 to 2 p.m. for children’s holiday wishes and requests. Bring your own camera for photos, or we’ll be happy to take and print photos of the youngsters on Santa’s knee. No charge for photos on 8.5 x 11 inch better-quality inkjet paper.

We’ll close at noon Christmas Eve through Christmas Day. Otherwise, our seven-day-a-week schedule continues: open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily — you’re encouraged to stop by. We’re open regular hours New Year’s Eve but will be closed Friday, Jan. 1. During extreme snow days or periods of hazardous travel we may close – both for your safety and for that of staff and library volunteers. We’ll keep you informed of unexpected closures by means of our announcement e-mail list (contact [email protected] to signup), the local NextDoor social network and by postings on the library webpage at redfeatherlibrary.org. However, we will make every effort to remain open during expected hours.

Many library services remain available outside of library regular hours, the weather, road conditions or (on good roads) a drive to the library. You are probably familiar with our 24/7 parking lot wireless internet. There’s much more. Download a library e-Book to your Android, iOS, PC, Mac or other device any time of the day or night. Free of charge – only a library card required. You can do a one-time registration and download a title in a matter of minutes at coloradodc.lib.overdrive.com/ for OverDrive downloadables, or ebook.3m.com/library/AspenCat/ for 3M Cloud Library titles. Need assistance? Bring your portable device to the library.

While both services provide titles for younger and beginning readers we offer an exclusive service for these important folk: Tumblebooks, an online junior library available through the library’s website at redfeatherlibrary.org. (Select the ‘Tumblebooks’ button to the left below the home page slider). Offering hundreds of story, chapter and nonfiction books, there’s also educational puzzles, games, a learning-a-second-language feature — and more. Available also on mobile devices with a browser, Tumblebooks offers reading enhanced by animation, music, spoken-narration — all which can be customized to the preference of the user.

Finally, by the time we chat again here we should have a new online catalog in place both for searching local titles as well as those of our AspenCat sister libraries. All are easy to borrow. There’s a sneak preview at redfeather.catalog.aspenat.info. We think you’ll like the new interface with new titles upfront, easier searching and easier access to your account. Stay tuned.