This month is Cancer Awareness Month. The Todd Library features a display containing supportive and informational resources including books, videos, and a display board depicting the hazards of smoking. The materials are available for checkout.

1959 was a memorable year for the United States of America. On January 3 and August 21, respectively, Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states to join the Union. This month the Todd Library is proud to highlight its eclectic collection of pictoral and informational materials celebrating these historic events.

The story of the development of Chicago’s lakefront is as vast as the lake on which the city was founded. As history records, in the 1640s the Miami Indians, a branch of the Illiwek Tribe, settled in a village on the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. The village, Che-cau-gou, was named for a small river whose source was close to the Illinois River and ran into Lake Michigan. Legend records the name as deriving from the odor of the abundantly growing wild onion.

This fall the Todd Library is featuring a captivating display on the history of Chicago including articles, archival materials, books, photographs, and memorabilia. Geology buffs may find the prominent Shaping the Chicago Shoreline poster, depicting its geological development, especially interesting. Come visit the library and learn more about “Our Kind of Town”.

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, the annual event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stress the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.

Come visit the Todd Library during the twenty-third anniversary of Banned Books Week September 25 – October 2 and receive your celebratory pin and bookmark!

This month Todd Library reflects on that unmistakable day in American history, 9/11. Our library display features memorable quotes and reflections by firefighters, policemen and professionals who were firsthand witnesses to the tragedy and assisted at the rubble recovery site. Also available on the display are titles which can be checked out that deal with the subject of terrorism.