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The Great Outdoors

by Content Coordinator Hannah

What began as just a week back in 1998 has grown into Great Outdoors Month, officially recognized by the U.S. Senate on June 5, 2019. It’s a national celebration meant to encourage people (you’re invited!) to explore and appreciate nature—for all its benefits: mental well-being, stronger communities, economic value, and of course, physical health.

Let me ask you something: What’s your favorite outdoor experience?
Maybe it was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure—or just a small, peaceful moment under the trees. Here are a few of my own, paired with books that stir up something similar.

Walking the shoreline of Lake Michigan just after a rain shower—chilly sand between my toes and a remarkably calm feeling in the air. It was a moment of peace, even though all my senses were activated. 📚 Book pairing: Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr | A mystery set in the wilderness, this first Anna Pigeon novel weaves suspense with the rugged beauty of the outdoors—a fitting match for stormy skies and shifting sands. I’ve yet to physically visit the western U.S., but this book made me feel like I already have been baked in the sun.

Following the meandering boardwalk at my favorite nature preserve, no agenda, just the simple joy of seeing how the seasons shape this place. It’s a gentle kind of magic.
📚 Book pairing: Campfire stories. Volume II: Tales from America’s National Parks and Trails | A collection of essays, stories, and poems sharing unique perspectives on our national parks and trails. Revel in each park’s distinct landscape and allow yourself to be transported to the warm edge of the campfire ring.

Many a late summer evening in my parents’ backyard, and now also in my own, taking silly “artistic” photos of the plants and whispering to them how lovely they are.
📚 Book pairing: Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation by Tiya Miles | An inspiring, thoughtful exploration of how nature shaped the lives and minds of groundbreaking women. Quiet, curious moments count, too.

If you’re looking for something to take with you into your own time outdoors, check out Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It’s part science, part story, and part reminder that the land has always had something to say—we just need to slow down and listen.

But this month isn’t just about appreciating the outdoors—it’s also a time to reflect on access: who gets to enjoy outdoor spaces, who feels welcome, and how we can do better.
📚 For a deeper, more critical look: Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks by Mark David Spence. | This important work explores how Indigenous peoples were displaced during the creation of national parks—an essential reminder that our natural spaces carry complex histories.

So, whether you’re headed for a big adventure or just stepping outside for a few minutes of quiet, take a moment to appreciate the outdoors in whatever way works for you. And maybe let me know what your favorite outdoor moment has been. I’d love to hear it.

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Recommendations

Walks with Mondo: A Book Lover’s Guide to Exercise

by Public Service Associate Juliana

Mondo among the violets

I wish I loved exercise as much as I love reading. Maybe even half as much as I love reading. I have no problem showing up for the current chapter I’m on. But lately I can’t get myself to exercise. For a while, I showed up for yoga, but now my mat gathers dust. When I started watching Scandinavian murder mysteries while on the stationary bike, I thought I’d solved my exercise problem once and for all. That felt like something I would and could do a couple times a week.

But here I am again, no mystery interesting enough to keep my feet on the pedals, inconsistent with everything I try. That is, everything except for walking. 

I can get myself to walk because going on walks is something I do for my dog. For some reason, I get too up in my head when it comes to taking the time to do any kind of exercise for myself, but for him – it helps that he’s bossy about it and stands at the door with a demanding look on his face – I don’t think twice. He waits (almost) patiently while I grab shoes, sunglasses, and his leash, and off we go. 

While I absolutely reap the benefits of these walks, I know I would talk myself out of it every time if I was to walk solo, for myself only rather than for Mondo. Any excuse will do. Most of the time my excuses to not exercise have to do with time and to-do lists. I’m sure that sounds familiar.

It’s ironic that exercise gives me anxiety because exercise happens to be great for combatting anxiety. So, therefore I’m grateful for Mondo’s help. Recently, upon our return from the park, I unhooked his leash and whispered, “Thank you.” 

I said it out loud and have since made it part of our walks, like saying Namaste at the end of a yoga class. It gives closure to our walk and feels like an opportunity to honor both of our minds, bodies, and spirits, Mondo’s and mine. I thank him for getting me outside and on the move. I tell him, “Thank you for helping me get fresh air and vitamin D and for helping me notice the violets and the honey suckle. Thank you for helping me clear my head. Thank you for getting me the exercise I can’t seem to give myself.”

I don’t ruin all this gratitude by following it up with an apology, but sometimes I want to tell him I’m sorry I rely on him so much. But right now, this is what I need – his help, this help from a friend. And let’s be honest, he doesn’t mind. If he could respond he’d probably say, “Put your sorries in a sack. If this is what you need, let’s go on more walks!”

Mondo posing by Blacklick Creek

He thinks I’m walking him. But he’s the one pulling me out the door, down the sidewalk, along the creek, all the way to the park and back.

Occasionally I listen to a podcast or an audiobook or music. A lot of times I call my mom. Sometimes I pay attention to nature, to the wildflowers and the birds. Sometimes I simply pay attention to him, to how the sun highlights the blonde in his brindle pattern, to how adorable his pointy-eared shadow is, to the musical sound his dog tags make. I inevitably end up singing Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” in my head. “In the jingle jangle mornin’ I’ll come followin’ you” plays right in tune with the jingle jangle of Mondo’s tags as I follow him down the path.

It might be the best advice I’ve ever received or could ever give: Go take a walk. If that also means, go get a dog to take you on walks, if you’re at a place to take on that responsibility, I recommend that as well. In my experience, dogs are good for us, especially when it comes to consistency and accountability. Mondo helps me keep showing up.

Walking Inspiration for Book Lovers

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BPL News & Information

Summer Community Read (SCR) Is for Adults, Too!

By Associate Librarian Leah

At BPL, patrons of all-ages are invited to sign up for our SCR (Summer Community Read) program. Maybe, like me, you have vivid childhood memories of getting your summer reading prize, stamp, or coupon, at your local library. I remember the excitement of going to the library and walking up to the desk with my reading tracker in hand. While I have not been inside my childhood library for many years, I can still visualize the space in my head. Maybe your library memories are being made now, in adulthood and/or retirement. Don’t worry, there’s still the chance for you to make memories around summer reading! 

Last Summer, my mom sent me an Instagram post from Books of Brilliance. The post contained a quote from writer Hillary Kelly: “Cruel that an adult can spend her whole summer reading but not have a library sheet to fill in with stickers to document her progress.”

Well, the good news is that you CAN get a library sheet to document your summer reading progress, even as an adult! We have a variety of water bottle/laptop stickers that you can earn, along with the chance to win door prizes, $100 Easton gift card, $50 Kroger gift card, gardening basket, coffee & tea basket, and more! This year’s theme is Color Our World. Make your summer more colorful with reading, fun, and prizes! Register on our website or in person at Bexley Public Library starting Friday, May 30th.We hope you join us!

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Online Resources Recommendations

Celebrate World Collage Day with Help from Your Library!

By Public Service Associate Juliana

image by Juliana Farrington

Over the weekend, Saturday May 10, 2025, I honored World Collage Day by spending time at the table with various papers, scissors and a glue stick. Creativebug, the app available for free with your library card, recently released a new series of videos called “Collage Homage: 15 Women Artists to Know,” and I’ve been working through the tutorials with great joy.

Each episode features an introduction to a woman artist and their particular collage style and follows with a tutorial to imitate that style. I have found the videos both engaging and inspiring and have stretched my artistic boundaries in directions I would not have gone in otherwise.

image by Juliana Farrington

When it comes to art making, I am a person who works well with prompts. I like just enough good orderly direction to get me started. A prompt gives my brain a place to go, to find a focus, to take that first step with some sense of where I’m going. Often the hardest part with creative endeavors is getting started. I like to use Creativebug to help me begin, to set myself up for the desired goal of entering a flow state, where I’m just in it, absorbed enough to lose track of time.

No matter how many collages I make I turn to Creativebug again and again to help get my mind situated into art mode, to get settled in with intention. Log in with your library card and see what Creativebug might help you create. For even more inspiration, see the list of books below. Happy crafting 🙂

Contemporary Collage Inspiration

  • Collage: Contemporary Artists Hunt and Gather, Cut and Paste, Mash Up and Transform by Danielle Krysa |A showcase of cutting-edge contemporary art from across the globe features galleries of collage by 30 practitioners, from the surreal landscapes of Beth Hoeckel to Fabien Souche’s humorous appropriations of pop culture. Each artist has also created a new piece especially for this book — all using the same original image, but with results as wildly diverse as the medium of collage itself.
  • Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art | Organized in an A-Z sequence by artist, the book features both well-known collagists including Njideka Akunyili Crosby; Ellen Gallagher; Peter Kennard; Linder, Christian Marclay; Wangechi Mutu; Deborah Roberts; Martha Rosler; and Mickalene Thomas, and a plethora of lesser-known names deserving of greater attention. Vitamin C+ showcases 108 living artists who employ collage as a central part of their visual-art practice, as selected by 69 leading experts, including museum directors, curators, critics, and collectors. 

Prompts & Techniques

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Video Games

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Gaming and the Illusion of “Ownership”

By Public Service Associate Paul

Picture yourself as a child in the 5th generation of home video game consoles–a time when the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Sega Saturn stood like titans, engaged in a fiery battle for your imagination. You are buckled into the backseat of the family car, clutching your new GameStop gift card like it’s a golden ticket, your mind already drifting to the aisles that await. You can already see them in your head: rows of game cases lined like soldiers with their glossy covers bursting with heroes, villains, and far off lands calling to you. You push past your parents and feel the cool air as the automatic doors whoosh open. Your eyes adjust to the fluorescent lights, and you see the shelves stretching endlessly, glowing like a treasure trove of pixelated promises. You wander, starry eyed through the electric wonderland, your hands dragging along the spines of cases, each one whispering a new adventure to your imagination.

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Reading Life

What’s Your Reader Personality Type?

by Associate Librarian Leah

You may have taken various tests/quizzes to figure out your personality type/s (Enneagram, Myers Briggs, etc). Have you ever considered what your reader personality type is? I recently found this list of reader personality types from Author Janie Crouch’s Facebook page.

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Recommendations

Permission to Watch the Movie First: To the Lighthouse

by Public Service Associate Juliana

When it comes to “Page to Screen” movies, like many people, I almost always prefer to read the book before seeing the film. Occasionally I’ve done the opposite – watched the movie first and then decided to read the book it’s based on. When I’ve done this in the past, I’ve found myself bored out of my mind because I knew too much. But what I’d like to present today is an argument for when it is very much OK to watch the movie first. 

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Recommendations

Celebrating Women’s History Month: Reflections, Stories, and Empowerment

By Public Service Associate & Content Coordinator Hannah

I knew I wanted to write a Women’s History Month post, but I didn’t know how to go about it. After all, this month is an opportunity to celebrate the vast accomplishments of women throughout history and the ongoing contributions we make. It’s a time to acknowledge the resilience, creativity, and courage of individual women and the communities that empower them. It’s also a moment to honor and encourage women to support one another on our journeys whether on a grand scale or in quieter, more personal ways. So, with all that in mind, I turned to the library, a natural source of inspiration, and it came through.

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Programs Youth Services

Celebrating Stories that are “Bigger Than Me” at the Bexley Public Library

by Youth Services Manager Julie

The Bexley Public Library and the Ohio State University are celebrating the accomplishments of our pilot partnership Bigger Than Me: My Story, My Culture. We want to invite you to see the amazing results and honor our young authors and their work on their first self-published books at our showcase celebration on Sunday March 23rd at 3 p.m. in the Bexley Public Library auditorium. 

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Recommendations

Make February a Month of Movie Mania: Oscar Homework with BPL

by Public Service Associate Juliana

Image from Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail

I adore this time of year. The release of Oscar nominations makes it completely appropriate to stay home cuddled on the couch night after night watching movies. The 97th Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled for March 2, so for the month of February, I consider movies my homework.