PEEPS
It's our 1st Annual PEEPS® Photo Contest! Preschoolers all the way up to Adults can enter a photo of a PEEPS® diorama they have created. Gift Cards to Target will be given out in six age categories. For full details, rules and guidelines click here! Have fun and celebrate spring!

prom night take 2

In 1997, Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for the senior prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi under one condition: the prom had to be racially integrated. His offer was ignored. In 2008, Freeman offered again. This time the school board accepted, and history was made. Adults and teens (grade 9 and up) are invited to the Downtown Library Multi-Purpose Room for a special screening of the award-winning documentary which chronicles the events leading up to the ground-breaking prom.

Prom Night in Mississippi will be presented on Thursday, March 18 from 6:30-8:30 pm, and will be followed by an audience discussion led by the film's director, Paul Saltzman. This event is co-sponsored by the UM Community Scholars Program.

kimturgeon

Join us Tuesday, March 16th, 7:00 PM at the Malletts Creek Branch and learn more about colorectal cancer prevention and screening tests with presentations by three leading area experts - Danielle Kim Turgeon, M.D., University of Michigan Health System, Jeffrey Barnett, M.D., Huron Gastro, and Michelle Releford, a local resident who cared for her husband before he died of colorectal cancer in 2007. An audience and panel discussion will follow. This event is co-sponsored by the UM Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Colorectal Awareness Network (CRAN) of Washtenaw County.

The American Cancer Society (ACS) estimates that more than 5,150 Michigan residents will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer this year. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths nationally. Screening tests to detect colorectal cancer are effective, yet studies show that most Michigan citizens are not getting these tests.

chess

Stop by the Traverwood branch this Sunday, March 14, 1:00-4:00 pm for some rousing games of Chess. Game boards and snacks will be provided. All levels and all ages are welcome. From World Champion Openings to The Middle Game in Chess and on to Basic Chess Endings check our our collections for supporting your game at any level. See you Sunday.

Bernstein conducting

Join us on Sunday, March 14, when the Ann Arbor District Library and the University Musical Society (UMS) will unveil two new collections as part of an ongoing collaboration to bring UMS archives online. We'll demonstrate how to browse and search thousands of pages of historical programs from the Society's first 100 seasons. We'll also provide a glimpse into our growing collection of over 900 photographs featuring backstage and candid shots of performers throughout UMS's rich history. Following a brief demonstration of each collection, UMS President Ken Fischer will highlight some memorable events and anecdotes from seasons past.

Sunday, March 14, 2-4 p.m. | Downtown Library Multi-Purpose Room

Time Bomb

AXIS Coffeehouse only has three weeks to go before we break for the summer, so we are going to make the most of it!

This Friday, March 12, local rap artist The Chozn Bravesoul will be visiting to talk a little about rap and poetry. And next Friday, March 19, we will host special guest Maggie Hanks of Ann Arbor Word Works, who will surely have some interesting writing ideas herself.

This free event offers snacks and great conversation as well as $5 library fine forgiveness coupons for those who present at the mic. Don't miss out on these awesome opportunities! Mallett's Creek, 6:30-8:00 pm. Be there!

BIBTIF logo

Bring It Back, Take It Forward (BIBTIF), a 3-day conference celebrating 50 years of activism in southeast Michigan, will take place March 12-14, 2010. In this podcast, we talk with two of the conference organizers, Elizabeth Gonzalez and James Toy. Gonzalez, a graduate student in the UM School of Social Work, and Toy, a veteran activist and founding member of the University's Lesbian-Gay Male Programs Office in 1971, reflect on the achievements and challenges of activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as their hopes for the conference and the future of the progressive movement.

demonstrators

What do Michigan alumni Arturo Rodriguez, Dean Baker, Bill Ayers, and Harvey Wasserman have in common? They were all campus activists in the late-1960s and early 1970s--and they're coming back to the University of Michigan March 12-14 for Bring it Back, Take it Forward (BIBTIF), a three-day conference at the Rackham Building. The conference will feature a dozen panel presentations focusing on several topics including the environment, health care, feminism, immigration rights, the underground media, TBLG issues and the progressive movement itself. Speakers will consider the future of progressive activism and reflect on previous milestones, including the 40th anniversary of the Black Action Movement (BAM) and the 45th anniversary of the first teach-in against the Vietnam War here at the University of Michigan.

A full list of presenters and programs is available here. For additional details and background on the presenters, visit the BIBTIF website.

Teens from the Neutral Zone Short Story Workshop will read new stories on the theme of "impostors." The Short Story Workshop brings together young authors from Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti each Friday afternoon to work on the craft of short fiction. Their latest book is The Lizards Are Crawling Back through Your Window. Teens and adults are welcome to this special reading! Friday, March 26, 7:008:30 PM at the Downtown Library Multi-purpose Room.neutral zone

secretGarden

Do you love to write? Join director Jacqueline Corteau for a Scriptwriting Workshop on Sunday, March 7 from 2-4 PM at the Downtown Library and help write a scene for the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre’s Junior Theatre Company spring production of The Secret Garden. Those interested in the workshop should be familiar with the book and have read Chapters 1 – 3. The spring performance will be held in the U-M's Matthaei Botanical Gardens!

Interested in auditioning for the play? Auditions will be held on March 9 and 11 at Ann Arbor Civic Theater. Click here for more information.