history

Study anything for free with the Great Courses & your library card

By admin|2023-11-04T09:02:31-04:00June 29, 2020|

Whatever you want to learn, there’s a Great Courses series about it. And there’s a great chance that you can enjoy that Great Courses series for free with your library card.

Have you heard of The Great Courses?

They’re a collection of phenomenal lectures series created by esteemed college professors for the general public on fascinating topics like Decisive Battles in World History, Writing Great Fiction, and Physics & our Universe.

They’re engaging, enlightening, and understandable. The only downside? They can be a touch expensive to buy.

Fortunately, your Mentor Public Library offers three ways that you can enjoy more The Great Courses for free.

1. Borrow them from us

We have several DVD sets of Great Courses series that you can borrow from our collection, including:

Browse from the dozens of sets in our collection.

2. Stream them using Kanopy

If you’re not familiar with Kanopy, it’s a streaming service that lets you watch some of the world’s greatest films and documentaries. And it’s free with your library card!

It also has dozens of Great Courses series that you can stream onto your computer, phone, tablet, or Smart TV.

Learn as much as you want to about history, skills, hobbies, humanities and science.

3. Stream audio versions of the Great Courses for free with Hoopla

By the way, if you prefer streaming audio, you can stream more than 100 Great Courses in their entirety as audiobooks using Hoopla. Once again, Hoopla is free to use with your Mentor Public Library card. You can borrow up to 20 items per month from its collection, which also includes audiobooks, movies, music, and comics.

So what do you want to learn first?

Library History in Photos: On the Move

By admin|2019-04-02T06:00:45-04:00April 2, 2019|

Mentor Library’s first building of its own is taken on the road in 1960. Courtesy of David Gartner.

As part of our bicentennial, we asked for your historical photos from Mentor Public Library. And, wow, did we get a doozy this week.

Local photographer David Gartner snapped some gorgeous photos on the day our original library building moved down the street.

A little history is helpful here:

For nearly the first century of our existence, Mentor Library didn’t have a home of its own. Our books were housed in private residences or, later, in Mentor Village Hall.

We finally moved up and out at the beginning of the 20th century when a Mr. Addison Goodall offered $1,500 to $2,000 toward a library building if our Board President James R. Garfield and the rest of the board could raise the remainder.

(To keep your Garfields straight, James R. Garfield is the son of President James A. Garfield.)

Abram Garfield, a famous architect and another son of President Garfield, designed our new building. It opened on May 31, 1903, at the corner of Center Street and Mentor Avenue.

Now, this building may look familiar. It still exists and currently houses the Confectionary Cupboard.

So you may be wondering (1.) why isn’t it a library anymore and (2.) how did a building move from Mentor Avenue to the intersection of Center and Nowlen Streets.

The answer to your first question: we outgrew our first home and moved to what we then called our Garfield Unit in 1960. You now know it as our Main Branch. It’s been expanded and renovated in the last 60 years, but it’s been one of our homes ever since. (Well, not counting the two years we needed to relocate to Tyler Road.)

As per the second question: the credit for saving that historical building goes to one heroic woman, Lila Moore Schaefer. Ms. Schaefer recognized the value of the building, purchased it and had it moved to its present location in 1960. She lived in the building and also used it to house her real-estate business until she passed away in 1964.

Then, insurance brokers Don and Marguerite Krueger purchased it. In 1979, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this trip down memory lane. Thanks to David Gartner for making it possible!

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