Sojourner Truth Library celebrates National Library Week with free events: Includes screening of award winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth"

NEW PALTZ — The State University of New York at New Paltz’s Sojourner Truth Library will celebrate National Library Week, April 16 – 21, with a series of free events. This year’s theme is, “Celebration of Our Nation’s Libraries, and the People Who Use Them.”

Library Weeks begins on Monday, April 16, with a noon concert featuring the American Musical Theatre in the library lobby. Stephen Kitsakos, department of Theatre Arts, and his American Musical Theatre students will present a lunchtime concert.

That evening beginning at 5 p.m., Trudy Lieberman, the James H. Ottaway Sr. Professor of Journalism and well known consumer reporter, will give a lecture, titled "Can Health Care Be Reformed?," in Lecture Center 102. She will discuss what real health care might mean, what the roadblocks to changes are in America’s health care system, and what the press could do to help the reform process.

Lieberman is considered one of America’s best consumer reporters. She is an expert on the issue of health care reform, with a focus especially on health issues as they relate to the poor and the elderly. For many years, she was the chief health care analyst and investigative reporter for Consumer Reports magazine.

This lecture is sponsored by the Sojourner Truth Library and the Department of Communication & Media. Light refreshments will be served after the lecture.

On Tuesday, April 17, at 11 a.m., the library will host Story Hour for Kids in the library lobby. Punch and cookies will be served.

Story hour will be followed by an afternoon gallery talk at 4:30 p.m., which will feature highlights from the Sojourner Truth Library Special Collections. William B. Rhoads, professor emeritus of Art History, will conduct an informal lecture on the materials contained in the library’s special collections.

On Wednesday, April 18, at noon in the library lobby, there will be a theatre preview of scenes from the Department of Theatre Arts production of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Frank Trezza, director, and cast members will present scenes from the play.

That afternoon, beginning at 5 p.m., there will be a lecture, titled “Prospects for an Endangered Planet,” in the Coykendall Science Building Auditorium. Professor David Clark, director of Environmental Studies and associate dean of Science and Engineering, will offer a uniform perspective for understanding varied aspects of today’s environmental issues: the problems themselves, their underlying causes and a plan for solving them and moving toward an environmentally sustainable world.

The lecture will be followed by a 7:30 p.m. film screening of Al Gore’s award winning documentary about global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” in Lecture Center 100. The film screening is sponsored by the Environmental Task Force, Synthesis, and the Sojourner Truth Library.

On Thursday, April 19, there will be a book discussion of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” at 2 p.m. in the library lobby. Join a discussion on the book that some say started the modern environmental movement. In her most famous work, published in 1962, Carson discusses pesticides and the dangerous effects they have on humans, wildlife and the environment.

Finally, on Friday, April 20, the library will host a concert of the New Paltz Chamber Singers at noon in the library lobby. Hear selections of music directed by Ed Lundergan of the college’s music department.

Also, throughout April there will be a series of exhibits from the Sojourner Truth Library Special Collections on display in the library lobby and library gallery. A special focus will be on books by nature writer John Burroughs from April 3-19. Then, English graduate students present a display on Shakespeare’s King Lear from April 20-May 5. There will be a collection of posters created by members of the college community on display with the theme, “Focus on the Environment.”

All events take place on the SUNY New Paltz campus. Directions to the campus can be found at www.newpaltz.edu/about/directions.html. For more information, contact 845-257-3677.