Computer Q and A

Do you have questions about how to use your computer? Bring your laptops, tablets, and questions to the Library on Thursdays at 5 pm to receive individual help! Library staff will available to answer questions one-on-one, on a first come, first serve basis. Whether it is using email, navigating the internet, or finding information online, Library staff can help!

Let’s Talk About It – Arc of Justice (October 6, 2022)

The third Let’s Talk About It program will be held on Thursday, October 6, 2022, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. in the Library’s meeting room. Several copies of the book are available for checkout. Below is some information about the book and the speaker for September.

About the Book
In 1925, Detroit was a smoky swirl of jazz and speakeasies, assembly lines and fistfights. The advent of automobiles had brought workers from around the globe to compete for manufacturing jobs, and tensions often flared with the KKK in ascendance and violence rising. Ossian Sweet, a proud Negro doctor-grandson of a slave-had made the long climb from the ghetto to a home of his own in a previously all-white neighborhood. Yet just after his arrival, a mob gathered outside his house; suddenly, shots rang out: Sweet, or one of his defenders, had accidentally killed one of the whites threatening their lives and homes. And so it began-a chain of events that brought America’s greatest attorney, Clarence Darrow, into the fray and transformed Sweet into a controversial symbol of equality. Historian Kevin Boyle weaves the police investigation and courtroom drama of Sweet’s murder trial into an unforgettable tapestry of narrative history that documents the volatile America of the 1920s and movingly re-creates the Sweet family’s journey from slavery through the Great Migration to the middle class. Ossian Sweet’s story, so richly and poignantly captured here, is an epic tale of one man trapped by the battles of his era’s changing times. Arc of Justice is the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

(Summary from amazon.com).

About the Speaker
Teaching has been the passion of Professor Lloyd K. Musselman, who, after receiving his Ph.D. degree, came to Oklahoma City University in 1969 and has taught there ever since. An historian by trade, Professor Musselman has inspired students in all majors to seek the full development of their interests. In recognition of his teaching skills, Dr. Musselman was appointed the Darbeth-Whitten Professor of American History in 1978, presented the Sears Roebuck Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence in 1990, and named the school’s Distinguished Teacher of the Year in 2002. As part of a survey Oklahoma City University made of its past graduates, responders consistently named Dr. Musselman as one of the teachers who inspired them, including a former national social studies teacher of the year. Lloyd Musselman has also served as Department Chair, the Director of the Robert A. Taft Institute of Government, and the Acting Dean of the Petree College of Arts and Sciences. He has been notable for enriching the cultural life of the state by his participation in the Oklahoma Humanities Council and the Let’s Talk About It program sponsored by the Oklahoma Libraries Association.

Let’s Talk About It – Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey (September 1, 2022)

The second Let’s Talk About It program will be held on Thursday, September 1, 2022, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. in the Library’s meeting room. Several copies of the book are available for checkout. Below is some information about the book and the speaker for September.

About the Book
Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and former U.S. Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey’s elegiac Native Guard is a deeply personal volume that brings together two legacies of the Deep South.
The title of the collection refers to the Mississippi Native Guards, a black regiment whose role in the Civil War has been largely overlooked by history. As a child in Gulfport, Mississippi, in the 1960s, Trethewey could gaze across the water to the fort on Ship Island where Confederate captives once were guarded by black soldiers serving the Union cause. The racial legacy of the South touched Trethewey’s life on a much more immediate level, too. Many of the poems in Native Guard pay loving tribute to her mother, whose marriage to a white man was illegal in her native Mississippi in the 1960s. Years after her mother’s tragic death, Trethewey reclaims her memory, just as she reclaims the voices of the black soldiers whose service has been all but forgotten. (Summary from amazon.com).

Some questions to think about while reading:

  • Do the themes of historical erasure and amnesia recall Edward Jones’ The Known World? The series theme of civil rights and equality? 
  • Did you like this book? Think of your experience of reading it and reflecting about it. 
  • In any book some subjects or situations must be left out, intentionally or otherwise. Which ones did you find yourself wanting to know about in Native Guard?

About the Speaker
Dr. Harbour Winn was involved with the “Let’s Talk About It” program as the state humanities scholar on the original committee that wrote the grant for the funding to begin the program in Oklahoma. He has been a scholar in more than 330 of these programs across the state of Oklahoma. For seventeen years, Dr. Harbour Winn taught as a Montessori teacher at Westminster School and at Oklahoma City University in the Master of Liberal Arts Program and the Montessori Early Childhood Program. In 2013 he received the Oklahoma Humanities Council’s State Public Humanities Award; was chosen a DaVinci Fellow, DaVinci Institute, in 2012; and received the 2011 Award for Distinguished Service from the Oklahoma Film & Video Studies Society State Film Consortium. 


Genealogy Workshop: Using the Chickasha Newspapers Online

The Chickasha Public Library will be hosting a genealogy workshop at 4:30 pm on Tuesday, September 20, 2022, in the library’s meeting room. The topic for this workshop is Using the Chickasha Newspapers Online.

The library’s microfilm newspaper collection was recently digitized through an Oklahoma Historical Preservation Grant from the Oklahoma Historical Society, along with a contribution from the Friends of the Library. All the Chickasha newspapers from 1892-2019 are now freely accessible on the Gateway to Oklahoma History and can be accessed on any internet-capable device. The library also provides public access computers that can be used for exploring the newspaper collection.

Participants in this workshop will discover how to navigate the Gateway to Oklahoma History, search strategies to help with finding obituaries and articles for family history research, and using keywords and time frames to find information about specific people or events. Participants are welcome to bring their laptops or other devices if they wish so that they can access the collection during the workshop. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and to receive help with individual searches at the end.

Registration is encouraged as space is limited. To register, call the library at 405-222-6075, email library@chickasha.org, or talk to staff in person at the front desk.

Let’s Talk About It – The Known World by Edward P. Jones (August 4, 2022)

The first Let’s Talk About It program will be held on Thursday, August 4, 2022, from 6:30-8:30 in the Library’s meeting room. Several copies of the book are available for checkout. Below is some information about the book and the speaker for August.

About the Book

From National Book Award-nominated author Edward P. Jones comes a debut novel of stunning emotional depth and unequaled literary power. Henry Townsend, a farmer, boot maker, and former slave, through the surprising twists and unforeseen turns of life in antebellum Virginia, becomes proprietor of his own plantation―as well his own slaves. When he dies, his widow Caldonia succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart at their plantation: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love under the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend household, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave “speculators” sell free black people into slavery, and rumors of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years.

An ambitious, courageous, luminously written masterwork, The Known World seamlessly weaves the lives of the freed and the enslaved―and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery. The Known World not only marks the return of an extraordinarily gifted writer, it heralds the publication of a remarkable contribution to the canon of American classic literature. (Summary from amazon.com)

About the Speaker

Dr. Kalenda Eaton is a humanities scholar whose research interests include studies of the American west; intersections of Black literary and gender studies; Black social and cultural history; and Black Diaspora studies. Recent publications can be found in Gender and the American West, American Studies Journal, Teaching Western American Literature, and Africa Today. She is a Fulbright scholar, experienced administrator, and advocate for the public humanities. (More information from the University of Oklahoma)

Look Up! Step Back in Time with The James Webb Space Telescope on Beanstack!

Explore our universe with the James Webb Space Telescope Challenge. Learn all about the science behind NASA’s newest space telescope mission, the James Webb Space Telescope. Scheduled to launch this winter, JWST is the most advanced infrared space telescope ever launched and will allow us to look deeper into time and space than ever before! Help your library win a collection of programming materials from NASA @ My Library by logging your reading and completing activities. Earn new badges all month long! NASA @ My Library is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under grant No. NNX16AE30A. The work was also assisted and supported by the Space Science Institute, which was the recipient of the grant. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NASA or the Space Science Institute

To join this challenge and more visit https://chickashapl.beanstack.org/reader365

Building Resilience Through Playfulness

Join Virginia Savage, LCSW, Art Therapist, on Saturday, July 23, from 10 AM – 12 PM and continue our conversation about mental health as we engage playfully with art materials. Then, using found objects and our imaginations, we will create a three-dimensional figure that will serve to invite us to be more light hearted and have fun this summer.

We will talk about the importance of self-awareness for improving our feeling state. You may not know it, but what you say to yourself, what’s called our inner dialogue, can make a big difference in how we feel and act in the world. We will look at some common cognitive distortions (thinking errors) that can create unnecessary inner turmoil and then will use a method called re-framing to reword our negative inner dialogue to a more balanced way of thinking. This process promotes peace of mind. 

We will be using some art materials to create visual reminder to be more self-aware of how our thoughts impact our feelings.

This program is free; however, space is limited, so registration is required.

Call (405) 222-6075 or email library@chickasha.org to register for a program. 

This program is funded in part through the Oklahoma Department of Libraries with a federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

CPR Training & First AID

The Chickasha Public Library is excited to announce a free CPR Training, and First Aid, Adult, Child, Infant on April 30, 2022, at 9:30 AM in the library meeting room 527 W Iowa Ave. This training is open to Adults and Teens, and participants will receive an American Heart Association Certification from Canadian Valley Technology Center.

Space is limited, and registration is required—Call 405-222-6075 to enroll today.

This free CPR Training & First AID is made possible through a partnership with CV Tech. It is funded through the Oklahoma Department of Libraries with a federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Staying Active and Independent for Life (SAIL)

A new Staying Active and Independent for Life (SAIL) session presented by the Oklahoma Healthy Aging Initiative (OHAI) will start in April. SAIL is a fitness program for older adults that can be done sitting or standing. Performing exercise that improves strength, balance and fitness is critical for staying active and reducing the risk of falls. The SAIL program was designed with these principles in mind. Each class includes a warm-up, stretching, cardio, balance, and strengthening exercises, as well as a cool down. Registration is now open for this class. 

Are You Ready To:

• Improve balance and posture

• Strengthen muscles

• Improve your quality of sleep

• Enhance stamina

•Increase energy levels

• Relievestress

• Improve cardiovascular functions

• Lower high blood pressure

Classes are Free and will be Mondays and Wednesdays from 1 PM – 2 PM.

To register for a class or for more information, call 405-271-2290 or email tarin-clark@ouhsc.edu. You can also call the Chickasha Public Library at 405-222-6075.

This program is funded in part through the Oklahoma Department of Libraries with a federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Building Resilience using Poetry at the Chickasha Public Library

In celebration of  April as National Poetry Month, we will look for signs of hope and poetry in our everyday lives as a way to develop both our imagination and our resilience. 

Join Virginia Savage, LCSW, Art Therapist, on Wednesday April 13th from 2:30-4:30pm and continue our conversation about mental health and how we can increase our ability to bounce back in these times.

We will talk about how having a well-developed imagination and finding satisfying ways to express ourselves is at the heart of what it means to be human.

Using several methods, we will discover and create our own poetry.  Please bring your imagination and join us!

This program is free, however space is limited, so registration is required.

Call (405) 222-6075 or email library@chickasha.org to register for a program. 

This programs are funded in part through the Oklahoma Department of Libraries with a federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.