Upcoming Events at Forbes Library

Closed: Thanksgiving Holiday
The library will close early at 2pm on Wednesday, November 23 and remain closed on Thursday and Friday, November 24-25. We will reopen with usual hours on Saturday, November 26 at 10 am. 

Help Build Our Next Strategic Plan!
Thursday, December 8, 2022, 6:30 pm
Forbes Library is developing a new strategic plan that will guide the library’s decisions in crafting a plan for a better Forbes Library. We invite you, our community, to help us shape this plan by sharing your thoughts and insights in this open public brainstorming session. Kristi Chadwick, library consultant with the Massachusetts Library System will lead the group through a structured activity called SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results).
Join us on Zoom!
Meeting ID: 885 8149 8932
Passcode: 45969
Dial by your location:
+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)

Museum Pass Spotlight:
Pioneer Valley Symphony 
Use our museum pass for free admission for up to 4 adults. Children under 6 are free. 
Check availability.  If available, passes can be reserved for up to four hours by calling 413-587-1011, extension 2.

Library Programs

Visit our online calendar to see a complete list of library events. Filter using the category "VIRTUAL" to find events that can be attended remotely.

Kevin Locke, a Life Well Lived
Saturday, November 19, 2022, 10:30 am

The gathering will honor the life of Kevin Locke (Tokaheya Inajin), Lakota world renown Hoop Dancer, award winning Native American Flutist and loving friend and brother of all of humanity who passed away in late September of this year. The program will include a brief introduction to the Baha'i Faith, of which Kevin was a member. A couple of short videos will also be shown featuring Kevin's many talents and wisdom, followed by discussion, refreshments, and socializing. This free event is sponsored by The Baha'i Faith of Northampton. All are welcome.

Western Mass WriMos Unite
Saturday, November 19, 2022, 3:30 pm

Are you doing NaNoWriMo? Are you stuck in the mid-month slump? Are you looking for some companionship and inspiration? Join us for some writing and camaraderie! Open to all writers of any age.

Teen Author Weekly Write-in
Tuesdays in November, 4 pm

Are you a teen writer? Join us for an hour of writing and socializing every Tuesday in November! Novels, short stories, fanfiction, poetry--it's all welcome at the Weekly Write-In, and you never have to share your work with the group if you don't want to! We'll have books and tools to help you come up with ideas and make your writing shine!

This program is for teens ages 12+. Please email [email protected] with any questions.

VIRTUAL Middle Grade Book Club
Tuesday, November 22, 2022, 4 pm

Join us on Zoom to discuss this month's book, The List of Things that Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead. For ages 10-14.
Email [email protected] to register and receive the Zoom meeting link!

Monthly Family Game Time with Northampton Public School's Early Childhood Center
Tuesday, November 29, 2022, 3:30 pm

Drop in to play games and meet other families! Enjoy collaborative games like Snug as a Bug and Busy Town, as well as turn-taking games like Spot It!, Hiss, and Zingo. 
This Monthly Family Game Time is geared toward families with children ages 3-8 years old.
This event is hosted by the NPS's Early Childhood Center. Questions?: email Ashley Miller at [email protected]

Calvin Coolidge in 100 Objects
Tuesday, November 29, 2022, 6 pm

Join us for an illustrated talk by J.R. Greene of his book Calvin Coolidge in 100 Objects. 

Q&A and book sales and signing will follow the talk.  

J.R. will also have his Quabbin Reservoir photo calendars for sale.  

J.R. Greene is the author of over 20  books on historical subjects, including three on MA railroads, and many of Metro Boston's major water supply, the Quabbin Reservoir. Besides writing many articles in periodicals about the 30th presidents, he is the author of "Calvin Coolidge:  A Biography in Picture Postcards'' (1987), "A Bibliography of Pamphlets Relating to Calvin Coolidge" (1989), and "Calvin Coolidge's Plymouth Vermont" (1997).  Greene, a lifelong resident of Athol, MA, has served on the Coolidge Committee at Forbes Library since 1990.

Community Action Survey

Your ideas matter!
Community Action wants to know about the services your family and community need. Take their survey for a chance to win a $50 gift card. Use your voice and tell the agencies what you need.  

In the Hosmer Gallery

Paintings by Nayana LaFond
Photographs by Christopher Curtis

November 2-30, 2022

Christopher Curtis
Luminous Places

My exhibit includes images from wild places around the world. Many of these places are vanishing forever, just in the time that I have been on the planet. With these photographs, I hope to convey the sense and experience of place in each landscape, along with the extraordinary beauty and fragility of our planet.
My photographs are large format color landscape images, some panoramas, beautifully printed on cotton rag paper. I have travelled the world in search of landscapes that are wild, spiritual and ancient, and that speak to me in an ineffable and timeless voice. With their compelling beauty, deep silence, sweet scents, light and shadow, these places connect me to a sense that god and nature are one, and that nature is a powerful and enduring force. My photographs include images of rare ecosystems on top of Mount Kenya, dreamtime rock art in remote Cape York, Australia, sunrise on the islands of the Sea of Cortez, shamanic petroglyphs in Wyoming, mists in the Hoh Rainforest of Washington, rainstorms over Canyonlands, Masai villages in Tanzania, and ancient granaries and waterfalls in the Grand Canyon. 

Nayana Lafond
Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Painting Project

Nayana LaFond is a painter and multi disciplinary artist based in Western Massachusetts.
Her work tackles deeply personal subjects related to trauma and life experience. Her recent series, “Portraits in RED, Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Painting project”, has garnered national acclaim. Nayana has multiple solo and touring exhibitions of the ongoing series scheduled for the next several years. In addition to being a professional full time artist and mother, Nayana also serves on the Board of Directors for Artist Organized Art out of Brooklyn NY, and several other organizations and boards in Massachusetts. She has written articles on art and culture and regularly lectures on topics related to Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, processing trauma through art and Artivist. Nayana has also been a curator for 20 years and was the chief curator for the Whitney center for the arts and a serial entrepreneur having owned and operated both a cafe, independent record label and several art galleries, and is a founding member of the Liberal Arts Pop Up Gallery in Northampton MA.