The Seed Library at Willard Library’s Helen Warner Branch is now open! The seed library exists to provide community members with a variety of free seed samples to promote environmental awareness and sustainability while aiding in the conservation of local and heirloom plant varieties. In addition, according to Deputy Director April Dillinger, “the Seed Library also encourages people to grow their own food and learn about the seed saving process.”  Using the Seed Library is simple, Dillinger explained, “Browse through the collection of seeds and ‘check out’ your selections on the sign out sheet. Plant your seeds and enjoy!” In order to make this resource available to the greatest number of community members, individuals may select up to five seed packets per month. A wide variety of seeds are available, including many vegetables, as well as some herbs, flowers, and fruit.  Dillinger added, “at the end of the growing season, we welcome leftover seeds or mature harvested seeds back to the library. Seed donations ensure that we are able to continue the Seed Library in the future.” Donation forms are available in-person or on the library’s website.  The Seed Library has been in the planning stages for a number of years. Library staff spoke to several other seed libraries in Michigan as well as members of the Michigan Seed Library Network, and visited Portage District Library. Staff took everything they learned and “tailored it to fit our community” said Dillinger.  In addition, the library received donations from several seed companies that focus on providing open pollinated seeds and preserving heirloom varieties.  “I am so happy that our Seed Library is finally open,” Dillinger volunteered, “It felt like we had been in the planning stage forever. It is exciting to see people looking through the seeds and taking them home to plant.” So far, the library has processed nearly 3,000 seed packets, and the addition to library services has been popular among guests.  The Seed Library is located at Willard Library’s Helen Warner Branch, 36 Minges Creek Place. For more information, visit the Seed Library’s information page.

This year’s African American Celebration welcomes Vanessa Ivy Rose, author of “Hall of Fame DNA: The Legacy of Norman ‘Turkey’ Stearns” and host of ABC’s award-winning “Reclaimed: The Forgotten League” podcast. Rose will speak on the Negro Leagues baseball history, the legacy of her grandfather (baseball legend Norman “Turkey” Stearns), Major League Baseball’s inclusion of Negro League stats, the Jim Crow era, and the importance of love, family, unity, empowerment, advocacy, and perseverance. This is a catered event. Free tickets are available at the information desks at both locations, while supplies last.

Image: Color postcard showing the pavilion and roller coaster on the north end of Goguac Lake, c. 1910 Caption on front: Club House and Roller Coaster, Lake Goguac. Postcards emerged in the mid-19th century as an inexpensive way to send a short message — think of them as the Instagram or Facebook of their day. And just as social media revolutionized the way people communicated, the humble postcard became an engine of our modernist culture, and people loved them. Historians estimate that that some 200 billion postcards circulated in the first two decades of the 20th century. The telephone would soon extinguish the “Postcard Craze,” but nostalgia for the medium endures. Postcard collecting, known as “deltiology” remains among the world’s largest collecting hobbies. Thanks to donations from local collectors, most notably the late Stuart Lassen, Willard Library today has more than 5,000 postcards in its digital archive. Browsing the images, you see the city age from its infancy as a mill town through its halcyon days as the Queen City and the birthplace of the cereal industry. This month, you can see the cards up-close in our “Things Worth Remembering” exhibit downtown.