“I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.” Eleanor Roosevelt

Library cards are your passport to the world, a first step toward lifelong learning, as I tell every new patron when issuing a card. Library Card Sign-up Month happens nationwide every September, and I hope you’ll be inspired to visit the Port Townsend Public Library (PTPL) or Jefferson County Library (JCL) this season. JCL and PTPL will soon have new library cards with updated information, including our new consortium name, Cooperative Libraries of the Eastern Olympics, and a new logo—CLEO the otter!” Get a new card or use your existing card to check out something new—examples of which I describe here—that piques your curiosity.

Just in time for a new school year, the Port Townsend Public Library now has Britannica Library online, an award-winning resource for children and adults. Easy and fun to use, it puts the world at your fingertips. Access it through the library’s website through our “Databases” page under “E-Resources.” Try looking up the Library of Alexandria using the children’s search and then the adults’ search to see the difference in results for various age groups. Truly, educational entertainment for the whole family.

PTPL is also featuring a new world of self-discovery and creativity for 20 lucky adult participants this fall in Create Your Own Autogeography, a six-week workshop led by Dr. Rob Sullivan, a retired UCLA geography professor. Typically, stories of the self (autobiographies) are told by means of a narrative through time. Instead, in this workshop, attendees will learn how to create a story of self through a series of meaningful places. Whether a home, a riverbank, a car, a city corner, or a high mountain meadow, participants will use their most significant places—and any mode of expression—to compose their own autogeographies. These can be essays, poems, songs, films, or paintings. The goal is for participants to dig deep into their personal relationships with places and translate them into any medium. The workshop begins on Thursday, Oct. 11, at 6 p.m. and continues for six consecutive weeks. Register through the library’s online calendar at http://www.ptpubliclibrary.org/.

Finally, what library would be complete without a globe? Nearly 105 years ago when the library first opened, a globe sat in the Carnegie Reading Room, and now a contemporary, scientifically accurate one—in Victorian-era sepia tones—is displayed there once more. Joe Roubal, master computer cartographer whose globe making is a synergetic blend of art and science, has generously donated a gorgeous 30-inch globe that he created specifically for the PTPL. The globe can be spun and touched, and we hope that its beauty inspires a world of discovery, curiosity, and quest for knowledge in all who behold it. We will celebrate the new globe during our Art in the Library Opening on Oct. 26, at 6 p.m. in the Carnegie Reading Room.