Mercer County Library Blog

BookCon, a two-day event held at the Javits Center in New York City, is a convention that focuses on bringing the reading community together. Readers, publishers, and authors come together and eat, sleep, and breathe all things books. The first BookCon was in 2014, and the previous BookCon event was back in 2019. There were plans for one in 2020, but it was cancelled because of the pandemic. However, it was announced in late 2025 that the Con was back in action and would once again be held at the Javits Center in April 2026. My coworker, Alyssa, and I agreed we HAD to go! And somehow (pure luck) we were able to buy tickets on the first day they went on sale. It’s good that we did, because about 30 minutes later, both Saturday and Sunday tickets were sold out. Once those tickets were secured? Game. On. We mapped out the day to ensure we’d be able to visit author signings, panels, and booths. We even created bookmarks and keychains with book quotes on them during our spare time at hom...

Do you have your digital photos printed? Use an actual print camera to take pictures that need to be developed? Do you develop and process your own film? In the digital age, it can be all too simple to just tap the button on our smart phone. We take pictures that linger in the digital ether and never get printed in a physical format. Sometimes they never even get looked at again. When you have thousands of pictures on your phone—family, pets, vacations, that beautiful flower, or your daughter’s very first bike ride—it’s easy to just let them melt into the background of your mind. All the experiences of our lives that we deem worthy of remembering are so quick to forget. During my undergraduate days, I focused on art and attended several photography courses. I loved it. I would bring my Canon Rebel G with me everywhere, taking a picture of whatever struck me as interesting at that moment. I learned to develop my own film and spent hours in the photography lab in the darkroom. When I st...

Ever since I started hiking, I have thought about what it might be like to do a thru-hike of the entire Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia through Maine and is the world’s longest hiking path. I have hiked sections in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, but like many people, I’ve never had the time to hike the entire trail. Several times when I have hiked a part of the Appalachian Trail in Vermont, I’ve met thru-hikers at the trailhead who had nearly finished their journey hitch-hiking a ride to town. They had usually started on the trail in the southern Appalachians in March and were looking forward to finishing their hike in Maine. It sounded like a wonderful adventure. But a several month trek across nearly 2,200 miles on foot is not something to be undertaken lightly. So, it’s worth doing some research. If you are interested in trying a thru-hike sometime in the future, or if you just want to find out some more about the Appalachian Trail and the best ...

The TrashedArt Contest has grown quite a bit over the past 17 years! Each year, member of the Mercer County community remake, reuse and renew items that would otherwise be recycled or trashed into unique and beautiful art. Here are some highlights from the past decade. TrashedArt Contest 2016:   In 2016, we had 3 adult and 3 high school student winners in first, second and third place. Helene Plank, a participant of the TrashedArt Contest since the Contest’s third year in 2012, won third place for “Iris Fantasia” (window ledge). To read more about Helene’s button art, check out the TrashedArt Contest interview from 2020: TrashedArt at the Lawrence Headquarters Branch – Part 1 Michele Ben-Asher won first place for the adult category in 2016 for “Jersey Birds.” She crocheted plastic bags into the unique design at the center of the table. To find out more about Ben-Asher’s art, visit: TrashedArt at the Lawrence Headquarters Branch – Part 2 Gene Dombroski won second place in the ad...

When I was about 13, during a family holiday gathering, my uncle Jim played an album by an Australian group I had never heard of: INXS (pronounced “in excess”). From that day on, I started noticing their videos on MTV, and was soon collecting their records myself. INXS was active from 1977 to 2017 and, to date, they have sold over 50 million records worldwide, making them one of Australia's best-selling musical acts of all time. I was surprised to read that, although they had many number one hits in their native Australia and other countries, they never reached number one in the United States, although most of their hits reached at least top-ten status. They did receive many awards and nominations in the US, including several Grammys, along with similar recognition in other countries. The band was formed in Sydney in 1977, by several upper-middle-class teenagers. Some of the members were still in high school, and a couple were only slightly older. All had previous experience in oth...

With 2025 coming to an end, it’s time to look toward the future of the silver screen. In anticipation of the new year in film, the following is a list of 10 movies releasing in 2026: 1. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (April 3rd, 2026) The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) “is an animated film based on the world of Super Mario Bros., and follows The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which was released in 2023 and earned more than $1.3 billion worldwide. Both the 2023 film and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie are produced by Chris Meledandri of Illumination and Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo.” Moviegoers should expect to see Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and Toad embark on a new adventure across the galaxy in a loose adaptation of the 2007 video game Super Mario Galaxy . [ Synopsis . (n.d.). The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Retrieved December 15 th , 2025, from  https://www.thesupermariogalaxymovie.com/synopsis/ ] 2. Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (May 22 nd , 2026) “The evil Em...

The weather has taken a turn for the worse of late. It’s getting colder. There are plenty of days with some pretty strong wind. And there has even been a hint of snow. So this seems like the perfect time to be thinking about…..baseball. Baseball is generally thought of as a sport for three seasons. We’ve got Spring Training, the Dog Days of Summer, and of course, the Fall Classic. But winter and baseball? I think the closest we get are meetings. And only hard-core fans get into the winter meetings. But here at the Mercer County Library System you can think about baseball all year long - even in the winter. And that’s because we’ve got baseball books and plenty of them. If you type baseball into the search bar of the library’s online catalog, there are over 3,000 choices that pop up. As part of the MCLS collection, there are over 2,500 books available, as well as 262 videos that have a connection to baseball. There are also ebooks and audiobooks. And the material is for all ages, w...