What title comes next in a series of books?
Ransom Book Discussion
Free Electronics Recycling @ Ransom
Ransom Writers
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Keep Your ArtsAlive! Fundraising Events
A $25 donation will put your personal message on the marquee in front of the library. This is great if you have a loved one with an upcoming birthday or anniversary (or maybe a marriage proposal?)
Donate $50 and we will turn your everyday library card into a “platinum card”— you will pay zero library fines for a full year! (Sorry, this does not cover lost items, just late ones.)
Family FeudRemember: all donations are tax deductible.
All proceeds will go to the Keep Your Arts Alive! Initiative, and those earmarked for Ransom will come back to your library! Be sure to fill out an envelope when you donate so you get the acknowledgement for your tax return.
Students will start with computer terms and concepts, followed by an introduction to the Internet. We will help you sign up for a FREE Participant Account at Yahoo.com, learn about messages and attachments, and how to read and save an email. The course will conclude with basic computer maintenance.
Students will learn basic functions and features of Word including managing files and using letters, numbers, symbols, the tool bar features, and other options. When you're finished you'll be able to customize, save, edit, and print documents of all kinds! Basic keyboarding skills are required.
Friends of Ransom Library Upcoming Book Sales
Miss the local movie rental store? Remember: Ransom has free DVD rental with no limits!
Keep Your ArtsAlive! Vote for Ransom
Allegan County Community Foundation Arts & Culture Competition
Keep Your Arts Alive this summer by getting the vote out and supporting Ransom Library with your dollars. Ransom is one of seventeen non-profit arts and cultural organizations competing for votes and funding in a competition sponsored by the Allegan County Community Foundation. The Foundation describes the contest as follows:
“ArtsAlive! is a competition that will increase visibility for those non-profits that enrich our lives through music, dance, visual arts, cultural and historic education and so much more. In addition to increasing visibility, ArtsAlive! is meant to encourage the public to vote with their dollars for organizations they are not willing to lose. Every vote costs one dollar and each dollar will go back to the organization receiving the vote. A Fundraising Event [the ArtsAlive! Bash] will be held September 24, 2010 to reveal the top 5 vote getters and to split the remaining proceeds among those five.
If you value your local library, your historical society, the theaters and museums throughout the county, or the painting/dance/music classes you or your family have participated in, please consider sponsoring the ArtsAlive! competition. For the arts and culture community, the situation is dire. Donations and grants to the arts/culture community have gone down by as much as 80%. Simply to keep the doors open, a number of these organizations have laid off staff, stopped paying staff, or are cutting back on hours and services. Many are just shy of closing their doors for good.
Without your support, and that of the community, corporate and individual sponsors, and grants to underwrite this event, there will be no ArtsAlive!. $30,000 is needed to underwrite ArtsAlive! 2010. Your commitment to keep the arts alive in Allegan County is 100% tax-deductible. No amount is too small.”
How can you help? You can spread the word among your friends, family and neighbors. You can vote for us. You can attend the Bash on September 24. You can participate in one or more of our ArtsAlive! events. We need your support and votes!
Votes will be accepted until September 5, 2010. Votes can be made online via PayPal at http://www.artsaliveallegancounty.org/ or at Ransom using an ArtsAlive! donation envelope. All donations are tax deductible.
Lost on the Lady Elgin presented by Valerie van Heest
September 16th @ 7PM
On September 8, 1860 the unlit schooner Augusta collided with the steamer the Lady Elgin, which was heading toward Chicago through the Great Lakes, piercing a gaping and fatal wound in the steamer's port side and resulting in over four hundred deaths. The Lady Elgin still holds the dubious title of the second worst disaster on the open waters of the Great Lakes and on September 16th at 7 PM patrons are invited to learn about the unlucky steamer's history when award winning author Valerie van Heest discusses her latest book Lost on the Lady Elgin at Ransom Library.
Valerie van Heest intially conducted a survey of the ship's wreckage for the state of Illinois after a protracted legal battle followed the streamer's discovery in 1989. Drawing on an extensive collection of primary materials amassed during and after the survey work on the Lady Elgin, Van Heest provides a copiously researched historical narrative that recounts the golden age of passenger travel on the Great Lakes on the eve of a pivotal presidential electionand describes in detail the terrifying loss of the Lady Elgin. The 150th anniversary of the Lady Elgin's loss is commemorated by this comprehensive account of the disaster.
Van Heest is a recent inductee to the Women Divers Hall of Fame, and a 2007 recipient of a Michigan History Award for her work preserving and promoting Michigan's maritime heritage. Van Heest has researched and dived some of the most significant shipwrecks in the Great Lakes over the past 20 years. She has written and directed more than a dozen documentary films and appeared on the major television networks discussing these projects. Valerie's work has appeared in numerous print publications and news media outlets, she has been a major contributor to many books, newspaper features, and featured in several books.She is an author of the award-winning children's book, Icebound! The Adventures of Young George Sheldon and the SS Michigan, and co-author of Buckets and Belts. In one of many expeditions, Valerie and the MSRA team are working with Clive Cussler's team in search of Northwest Flight 2501, a DC-4 that crashed into Lake Michigan in 1950.
Van Heest's programs feature spectacular underwater images and video, and are filled with excitement, adventure, surprises and ultimately offer a “deeper” look at the roots of Michigan's maritime tradition.Getting Canned: Preserving Your Garden
Wednesday, August 18 @ 7 PM
Presented by Sara Roman
Whether you want to go green, increase your family's nutrition, save on your grocery bill or have a surplus of tomatoes, this is the program for you. Home canning allows you to preserve that fresh, home grown flavor from your garden for use all year long, and it's not as hard as you might think. Patrons will learn the basics of canning along with simple recipes for beginners. Presenter Sara Roman will discuss safe ways to can produce and fruit. Sample recipes will cover basic jams, jelly, salsa, pickles and even ketchup!
Registration is required for this FREE program.
Park and Read comes to Ransom
Check out a one-day pass to a state park!
NOW AVAILABLE!Michigan's Department of Natural Resources has partnered with the Library of Michigan, Macy's and the Hammock Company to announce the "Park & Read" program, and Ransom is participating this year!