The South Carolina State Library is OPEN on 1/30 at 10:30 a.m. For more information about government agency closings, please visit http://www.scemd.org/closings.

Did you know that the Union prisoners of the Civil War played baseball?

The South Carolina Academy of Authors is pleased to announce Jo Angela Edwins as the 2014 winner of the 5th Annual Carrie McCray Nickens Fellowship in Poetry. Edwins teaches composition, American literature and creative writing at Francis Marion University in Florence.

Bestselling author Pat Conroy's My Reading Life has been selected as the 2014 One Book, One Columbia title for the month-long, city-wide reading initiative that kicks off in February 2014.

My Reading Life acknowledges how books have shaped Conroy's life, and celebrates the profound effect that books and reading have had on his journey through an array of anecdotes interlaced with personal stories, wisdom and undeniable honesty.

Are you an avid reader who is in an active book club? The South Carolina Book Festival invites you to register your South Carolina book club to get early updates about featured authors and special events, to receive special invitations and opportunities, and to be entered for giveaways. The SCBook Festival is happy to announce that Book Club Registration is now open for the 2014 SCBook Festival, May 17 - 18, 2014.

South Carolina public libraries enrich the lives of all South Carolinians. They provide information that helps people make critical and day-to-day decisions. They lead young people to the joy of reading and the excitement of using new technologies. They enrich our understanding of our history and help us chart our future. They provide materials that lift our spirits and help us understand the difficulties that we encounter.

The January 2014 issue of More - the Newsletter for South Carolina Libraries, is now available online. Please visit http://1.usa.gov/Lppzb0 to download the PDF. If you would like to submit articles, information, news or events, please contact Curtis Rogers at crogers@statelibrary.sc.gov.

The South Carolina State Library is pleased to offer two popular grants research and proposal writing classes:

Did you know that many public libraries across the state are connection points for the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce? Connection points include free public access to computers and tools to guide unemployment insurance claimants through the online filing process.