Belmont Literary & Historical Society Free Library

Smart Snakes with Chad Edwards (Professor Von Scales) will be presenting on:

Monday August 12th from 1pm to 5pm

Upstairs in the Belmont Library. There will be a host of reptiles and arachnids that you can see and interact with under the expert guidance of Professor Von Scales. His goal is to help educate the public on reptiles and arachnids to help destigmatize the irrational fear surrounding these majestic creatures. Meet Black Widows, Scorpions, Bull Snakes, Mexican Red Knee Tarantulas, Gold Ringed Snakes, Bird Snakes, and more with Professor Von Scales!

August 22nd we will have Tanglewood Nature Center visiting our library from 11 to 12. Come hang out at the Belmont Free Library with their friendly critters.

Thank you so much to Mary K. Worth for her visit and fantastic reading of her stories. Her influence and inspiring presence brought over fifteen visitors to the library. In total we had 30 visitors today! A new record! Thank you to all who help keep our library alive.

~Sincerely, Curtis Decker, Director of the Belmont Free Library

Mary Kay is a native of Portville, NY, and now lives in Lakeland, FL. Following 30+ years in public education, Mary Kay has nine titles: HEY ELEPHANT! WHERE ARE YOU?, Banele – the Girl from Swaziland, Mountains Trees Plant and Flowers of Swaziland, Dear Deer, The Truth About Santa, Three Christmas Stories, Pop Pop’s Train Ride, The Great Train Robbery, and A Lucky Stone Day.

She will be visiting our library on July 12 at 3:30 PM to give a presentation of her works.

Join us for our new summer event across all the 48 libraries in the STLS System! Pick up a packet at any library to get started, with maps, a list of the libraries in each county, and your Starquest Milestone tacker! Visiting libraries gets you a prize! From 5, to 10, to 24, to all 48 libraries! How many can you visit this summer? The event will be on going at all 48 libraries from July 1st to September 30th. Get ready to blast off on your very own Starquest!

In addition, the Belmont Free Library will be holding an art competition. On the map for Starquest, there is a custom designed planet for each library, if you design an alien for one of any of the 48 libraries you can win a free children’s book or stuffed animal! This event is specifically at the Belmont Free Library.

“Time for Kentrosaurus to hatch. Time to plant the millet. Time for the magnolia buds to open. Professor Denison, I’m afraid you persist in thinking of time as numbers. You think of meaningless units of time – weeks, hours, minutes – based on what? Movements of faraway planets? Of what use to us is that? Why not pay attention to the precise 30-year life cycle of the bamboo Guadua trinii or the exactly repeated mitotic cycle of the paramecium? The whole earth has a heartbeat.’
He paused, swung his tail from side to side, and squinted. ‘And some things happen too slowly for you to notice. If you sit quite still, you can hear the grinding down of mountains, the stretching upward of trees, the pushing forward of continents – indeed the wearing down of this very waterfall.”
― James Gurney, Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time

We have a collection of children’s books that are waiting for a new home! Visit the library twice a week and earn a book! This event will be occurring all summer long any time the library is open (Mondays 1 PM to 5 PM, Tuesdays 1 PM to 7 PM, Thursdays 9 AM to 3 PM, and Fridays 1 PM to 5 PM). You can ask at the front desk or the director’s desk to participate. The books available range from early readers up to young adult, from fiction to non fiction, and a variety of authors and styles. We hope to see you for this Summer Book Challenge.

Annie Vandenbosch will be leading a demonstration and craft hour on how to make beautiful homemade Christmas cards. Meet us for Christmas in July, on July 25th at 12 PM to 1 PM here at the Belmont Free Library. Hope to see you there!

Ron Taylor has brought the Allegany County Historical Society from the dust and back into the light. Saving our history from being lost and revamping the whole community. On August 1st, at 1 PM to 2 PM, come by the library to hear Ron Taylor’s fabulous presentation. What better place for a history talk than at a historic library! Hope to see you there.