The Sumter County Public Library is hosting the 2015 Local Author Fair on Saturday, January 21, 2015 from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and is seeking local authors to participate. Applications may be picked up at any Sumter County Library location, and must be completed and turned in by December 17, 2014. This is a chance for local writers to display, sign and sell their works.

Do you take your State Library Talking Books on trips?  If so, send us a photo of yourself with your talking books and send it to us to post to our website! We love hearing from our Talking Book Services patrons and especially like to know where you take your books to enjoy.  You can send your photos and a brief description to crogers@statelibrary.sc.gov and it'll get posted at our Talking Book Services website and on our Facebook page.

Through The School Foundation, which promotes educational excellence in Florence’s SC School District 1, the Start 2 Read program can send a certified early childhood teacher to a business to distribute books to the parents/guardians of 1, 2 and 3-year-old children.

According to Debbie Hyler, SC State Library board chair and The School Foundation Executive Director, “many people don’t understand how critical it is to read to very young children. This program exposes parents to the joy of reading with their young child.”

Millions of Americans across the country observe Veterans Day every Nov. 11. Armistice Day, now Veterans Day in the United States, is a commemoration dedicated to all veterans – a way to remember and thank them for their bravery and sacrifice. People choose to mark the day in a variety of ways. However, the Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP) has one suggestion that I’d like to pass on to you: make Veterans Day meaningful. View the full blog post from the Library of Congress.

The South Carolina Digital State Documents Depository provides access to publications produced by state agencies and state-supported academic institutions. These publications provide citizens with crucial information about state government, including statistics, annual accountability reports, and data on a wide variety of topics related to the state.

The South Carolina State Library is pleased to announce that it now offers the Mango Languages online language-learning system to its patrons and to public libraries across the state.

The South Carolina State Library is pleased to announce the launch of its newly redesigned website StudySC.org. The new site has an easy-to-navigate menu bar and provides keyword searching of its website pages.

StudySC is a website that provides online content to support South Carolina-specific curriculum standards. StudySC makes available a student-friendly environment arranged by grade level and by subject area where students can find the information they need fast.

The 2011-2013 American Community Survey has annual demographic, socio-economic and housing characteristics for congressional districts and geographic areas of 20,000 or more residents.  These new surveys also allow for “comparison tables” to show previous three-year data for the geographic area.

Lion selfies were a fun part of this year's South Carolina Library Association annual conference held in Columbia.  This year's theme was "Unbound: Unconventional Services in South Carolina Libraries".

Register today for our webinars that highlight South Carolina county level statistical information on education, health, and employment.

• Thursday, Nov 20, 11:00 a.m. – noon, South Carolina State Government Bit by Bit: Education Statistics. This webinar will delve into South Carolina state agency websites to find statistics at the district and school levels for poverty, dropouts, achievement scores, libraries, and much more. Register.