Celebrate National Library Week April 9-15

Crowell Public Library joins libraries in schools, campuses and communities nationwide in celebrating the many ways libraries are transforming their communities every day through the services and invaluable expertise they offer.  April 9-15 is National Library Week, a time to highlight the changing role of libraries, librarians and library workers.  Libraries aren’t only a place of quiet study, but also creative and engaging community centers.  And libraries offer something unique to their communities, the expertise of individual librarians. Librarians assist patrons in using increasingly complex technology and sorting through the potentially overwhelming mass of information bombarding today’s digital society. This is especially crucial when access to reliable and trustworthy data is more important than ever.

Crowell Public Library is celebrating National Library Week with a plethora of activities for all ages.  What can be more transforming than clothing?  Adults coming to Crowell Library on Tuesday evening, April 11 at will learn about the history of costume, when librarian Alex Kosztowny from FIDM presents, Fashion: From Concept to Consumer and Beyond in the Library’s Barth Community Room at 7:00 p.m.  Adults will also have an opportunity to transform a book by entering the Crowell Library BookArt contest, which actually begins April 4, giving entrants ample time to let their creativity run wild.  Patrons of all ages will have fun in the Library’s photo booth, taking selfies and sharing them on Instagram.  The photo booth will offer a giant passport and library card prop as well as a view from a “reference desk.”  For the young and young at heart, there will be a magic show from Illusions by Allen on Saturday, April 8^th at 2:00 p.m.  Allen Oshiro won First Place at the “Magic Corner Battle of the Magicians.”  All week long, if kids are caught reading a book in the library, they can earn surprise prize tickets, and they can also participate in a “Libraries Transform” Scavenger Hunt.

First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association and libraries across the country each April.  Don’t miss this week of fun and creativity at Crowell Public Library!

Reunification: a special film screening

Wednesday, March 29 - 6:30 pm

The recipient of a Special Jury Prize at the San Diego Asian Film Festival last year, Reunification documents the legacy of a family's immigration to Los Angeles from Hong Kong.  This feature-length documentary gives an insider view on the contemporary Asian American immigrant experience, divorce and family psychology.  Alvin Tsang turns the camera on his own family, cautiously prodding for answers, but fully acknowledging that the only closure he can get will be from deciding for himself how to move on.  Reunification will be screened on Wednesday, March 29 at 6:30 p.m. in Crowell Public Library’s Barth Community Room. 

The film presents a personal narrative that not only investigates the financial and emotional struggles of contemporary migration, but also offers deep insight into divorce and its effects on children, parent-child relationships, communication gaps, and the children's need for a healing narrative "after the storm."  It is an exploration of many unresolved years that moves across different channels and modes, bending into labor histories and Hong Kong’s colonial trajectories. Engaging post-screening discussions have allowed audiences from all backgrounds to share their own personal stories surrounding immigration, divorce and family relationships, mental health, and filmmaking as a way of healing. 

Alvin Tsang is a graduate of University of California, San Diego’s Visual Arts department where he also began his career as a film editor. He served as co-producer and post-supervisor for Ermena Vinluan’s award-winning documentary, Tea & Justice, about the first female Asian-American NYPD officers on the force.  Tsang filmed and edited a documentary short profiling legendary independent film director John Sayles’s making of his film Amigo (2010) about the Philippine-American War. He serves as a video documentarian for the pioneering artist Meredith Monk and The Guggenheim Museum NYC, and has created promos for several of Michael Kors’s fashion collections. Tsang’s other films include the shorts Fish (2010) and Preservation (2011).  Reunification is his first feature. 

Come to Crowell Library on Wednesday, March 29 for an enlightening, cinematic experience with Alvin Tsang.  Light refreshments will be served.

Meet the Author: Edan Epstein

Wednesday March 15th   7:00 p.m.

The Friends of Crowell Public Library’s Meet the Author! series continues on Wednesday, March 15 at 7:00 pm with Edan Epstein who will speak about his most recent book, Afternoon of the Faun.  In this tale of descent, survival, and redemption, a man’s journey perversely parallels his father’s childhood struggle for survival in the forests of Europe at the end of World War II.

Edan Benn Epstein works full time in health care and lives in South Pasadena. In the wee small hours he has completed five novels and is currently working on his sixth.

The event is free and will take place in the Barth Community Room of the Crowell Library.  Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.