SCPL news & updates
June 2023
Upcoming Events
See what's happening this month.

Click on the Events Calendar to see a detailed listing of programs and events happening at SCPL.
Introducing Kanopy, a new library service available to SCPL residents that offers thousands of documentaries, independent films, and classic movies to stream for free with your library card! Watch on your TV, computer, phone, or tablet.

In the Kanopy Kids section, you'll see only content that's suitable for children, with a focus on ages 2-8. Kids can browse this section freely, and you can set up parental controls to ensure children can't view content outside of Kanopy Kids. Once parental controls are enabled, a PIN is required to exit Kanopy Kids.

Sign up today at https://www.kanopy.com/en/spencercounty or through the Libby app. 
Are you looking for a fun and free way to explore Indiana? Check out the Indiana Library Passport!

Step 1: Get Your Pass
This mobile exclusive passport is a collection of local Indiana libraries offering check-in opportunities to be entered to win prizes!

Step 2: Receive Text
Your passport will be instantly delivered to your phone via text and email and is ready to use immediately! There is no app to download. Your pass can be saved to your phone’s home screen for easy one-tap access.

Step 3: Redeem
When visiting a participating library, simply ensure that your location services are turned on on your mobile device and press the "check-in" button!

The Indiana Library Passport is a great way to learn about different libraries in your state and meet new people. So what are you waiting for? Start exploring today!
Summer Programming
SCPL will be offering a variety of programming this summer. This year's theme is "All Together Now." The program begins May 22nd. To register for the Summer Reading Program please visit any SCPL location and complete a registration form. Visit us online or stop by any SCPL location if you have any questions or to learn more about this exciting summer program.
1000 Books Before Kindergarten
Do you have a baby, toddler or preschooler? If so, join SCPL's 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program to help your child be ready for kindergarten. This program promotes reading to newborns, infants, and toddlers and encourages parent and child bonding through reading. The goal of the program is to establish strong early literacy skills that will allow children to gain the confidence to become strong readers. Contact our Children's Department or Click here for more information.
Enter to Win!
Each month SCPL will feature a new puzzle challenge. For this month's challenge, download or pick up a June sheet at any branch. Return your sheet by email or drop it off at any SCPL location. Each person who solves the puzzle correctly will be entered into a drawing for a $10 local gift card.
Memorial and Honor Donations
Looking For Your Next Read?
Discover this month's most exciting new books in the current issue of BookPage, provided courtesy of Spencer County Public Library.
Selections From the New Shelf
Patron Favorites
SCPL Book Clubs
Rockport Book Club
June 2nd at 1:00 PM at Rockport in the Small Meeting Room

Discussing Today We Go Home by Kelli Estes

Seattle, Washington: Larkin Bennett has always known her place, whether it's surrounded by her loving family in the lush greenery of the Pacific Northwest or conducting a dusty patrol in Afghanistan. But all of that changed the day tragedy struck her unit and took away everything she held dear.

Soon after the disaster, Larkin discovers an unexpected treasure―the diary of Emily Wilson, a young woman who disguised herself as a man to fight for the Union in the Civil War. As Larkin struggles to heal, she finds herself drawn deeply into Emily's life and the secrets she kept.

Indiana, 1861: The only thing more dangerous to Emily Wilson than a rebel soldier is the risk of her own comrades in the Union Army discovering her secret. But, as the war marches on and takes its terrible toll, Emily begins to question everything she thought she was willing to risk her life for.


July 7th at 1:00 PM at Rockport in the Small Meeting Room

Discussing The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers

Maddie Sykes is a burgeoning seamstress who’s just arrived in Bright Leaf, North Carolina—the tobacco capital of the South—where her aunt has a thriving sewing business. After years of war rations and shortages, Bright Leaf is a prosperous wonderland in full technicolor bloom, and Maddie is dazzled by the bustle of the crisply uniformed female factory workers, the palatial homes, and, most of all, her aunt’s glossiest clientele: the wives of the powerful tobacco executives.
But she soon learns that Bright Leaf isn’t quite the carefree paradise that it seems. A trail of misfortune follows many of the women, including substantial health problems, and although Maddie is quick to believe that this is a coincidence, she inadvertently uncovers evidence that suggests otherwise.

Maddie wants to report what she knows, but in a town where everyone depends on Big Tobacco to survive, she doesn’t know who she can trust—and fears that exposing the truth may destroy the lives of the proud, strong women with whom she has forged strong bonds.

Shedding light on the hidden history of women’s activism during the post-war period, at its heart, The Tobacco Wives is a deeply human, emotionally satisfying, and dramatic novel about the power of female connection and the importance of seeking truth.


-Excerpt from Barnes & Noble.
Hatfield Book Club
June 14th at 1:30 PM at Hatfield Branch
*Schedule change

Discussing Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.  

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. 

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . . 

The only way to survive is to open your heart.  

-Excerpt from Amazon
July 12th at 3:30 PM at Hatfield Branch

Discussing Summer of 69 by Elin Hilderbrand

Welcome to the most tumultuous summer of the twentieth century. It's 1969, and for the Levin family, the times they are a-changing. Every year the children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic home in downtown Nantucket. But like so much else in America, nothing is the same: Blair, the oldest sister, is marooned in Boston, pregnant with twins and unable to travel. Middle sister Kirby, caught up in the thrilling vortex of civil rights protests and determined to be independent, takes a summer job on Martha's Vineyard. Only-son Tiger is an infantry soldier, recently deployed to Vietnam. And thirteen-year-old Jessie suddenly feels like an only child, marooned in the house with her out-of-touch grandmother and her worried mother, while each of them hides a troubling secret.

As the summer heats up, Ted Kennedy sinks a car in Chappaquiddick, man flies to the moon, and Jessie and her family experience their own dramatic upheavals along with the rest of the country. In her first historical novel, rich with the details of an era that shaped both a nation and an island thirty miles out to sea, Elin Hilderbrand once again earns her title as queen of the summer novel.

-Excerpt from Barnes & Noble.
Richland Book Club
June 12th at 1:30 PM at Richland

Discussing The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict

In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.

But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle’s complexion isn’t dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as White—her complexion is dark because she is African American.
-Excerpt from Amazon.
July 10th at 1:30 PM at Richland

Discussing The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis

Eight months since losing her mother in the Spanish flu outbreak of 1919, twenty-one-year-old Lillian Carter's life has completely fallen apart. For the past six years, under the moniker Angelica, Lillian was one of the most sought-after artists' models in New York City, with statues based on her figure gracing landmarks from the Plaza Hotel to the Brooklyn Bridge. But with her mother gone, a grieving Lillian is rudderless and desperate—the work has dried up and a looming scandal has left her entirely without a safe haven. So when she stumbles upon an employment opportunity at the Frick mansion—a building that, ironically, bears her own visage—Lillian jumps at the chance. But the longer she works as a private secretary to the imperious and demanding Helen Frick, the daughter and heiress of industrialist and art patron Henry Clay Frick, the more deeply her life gets intertwined with that of the family—pulling her into a tangled web of romantic trysts, stolen jewels, and family drama that runs so deep, the stakes just may be life or death.

Nearly fifty years later, mod English model Veronica Weber has her own chance to make her career—and with it, earn the money she needs to support her family back home—within the walls of the former Frick residence, now converted into one of New York City's most impressive museums. But when she—along with a charming intern/budding art curator named Joshua—is dismissed from the Vogue shoot taking place at the Frick Collection, she chances upon a series of hidden messages in the museum: messages that will lead her and Joshua on a hunt that could not only solve Veronica's financial woes, but could finally reveal the truth behind a decades-old murder in the infamous Frick family.
-Excerpt from Barnes & Noble.
Fun For the Whole Family
SCPL Virtual Recipe Swap
Spring has sprung! Join SCPL's Virtual Recipe Swap page on Facebook to share fresh and tasty recipes. Click here to request to join. This group allows members to share tips, tricks, and recipes with each other. Join today!