OUR “HUB”

Ever wonder what we do behind those beautiful windows as you walk in the front of Missoula Public Library? That is your library’s “hub” ~ the circulation department!

Our main job in circulation is to help keep the books moving (circulating) back to the shelves, for you! As you drop your items into our drop slots, we check them back in to the library for the next patron to check out. Then, our awesome Pages (shelvers) take the items out to the stacks and shelve them for your convenience.

Admittedly, quite often, some of those items don’t make it to the shelves immediately, when I’m checking in. There are so many interesting books, cds, and dvds that I sometimes read the jacket or back of the item and either a) recommend it to you here on our blog or b) tweet about it or c) check it out to me!

Recently, while checking in your returns, I found:

The Beautiful Cigar Girl : Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Rogers, and the Invention of Murder by Daniel Stashower.

On July 28, 1841, the body of a young women was found floating in the Hudson River. Later she was discovered to be a cigar salesgirl who had gone missing three days earlier. New York in the mid-nineteenth century was interested in why her murder could not be solved, when a struggling writer named Edgar Allen Poe decided to take on the case. Thirty-one year old Poe had just published "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." A year later desperate for success, Poe sent his famous detective, C. Auguste Dupin on the case of a lifetime, involving a crime that changed the city.

No, I didn’t check out The Beautiful Cigar Girl (yet) so it is shelved at 813.3 STASHOW

I didn’t check out The Illusionist on DVD either. I’ve watched it and recommend it ~ The Illusionist comes to you from the producers of Sideways and Crash. It is largely a story of mystery, with strong acting, and an interesting story. The interesting story part comes from author Steven Millhauser. The film is based on his short story Eisenheim the Illusionist. (read more about Millhauser here: http://tinyurl.com/ya4cgq9)

And, one of my favorite Kids’ new books: Bats at the Library by Brian Lies. This one has another hold on it, but you should also get in line and place a hold. This is a very popular EASY book! Youngsters (and we young-at-hearts) can join in the fun at the library with these book-loving bats, whose nocturnal celebrations cast library visits in a new light.

If you have a book you’d like to recommend for others to checkout, leave a comment here and we’ll add it to our Staff Picks and Reader’s Recommendations Power Wall and circulate it – that’s what we do!