La Salle Library offers Robotics course, presentations from art historian and author in January

“Project Next Generation: Discover, Design, Create – Rolling with Robotics 2.0”

Thanks to a generous grant from Project Next Generation, an opportunity offered by the Illinois Secretary of State, Jesse White, the LaSalle Public Library will offer “Rolling with Robotics 2.0,” a distance-learning, self-paced, app-based program, especially for youth, ages 11 through 14. 

Structured especially for the flexibility of independent learning and individual schedules, participants, working through the Sphero Edu app will connect with Library mentors to complete weekly activities that connect the fun of robotics with code instruction from Beginner Block through JavaScript. Each weekly activity will include two projects, with an optional third project. The activities will build successive skills culminating in a workable knowledge of beginning JavaScript coding. 

Registration for the program begins on Tuesday, January 18th, and will conclude on Monday, January 31st. The program begins on Monday, February 7th, and will conclude on Saturday, March 19th.  Registered participants will be lent a complete Sphero Robotics Kit for the duration of the program.

“Rolling with Robotics 2.0,” is free and open to the public.  The program requires Internet to complete the weekly projects. Participation is limited to 28 youth.  To register, please email remotelearning@lasalle.lib.il.us or call the Library at 815-223-2341.  The LaSalle Public Library is located at 305 Marquette Street, LaSalle, and is ADA compliant and welcoming.

Funding for Project Next Generation “Rolling with Robotics 2.0,” was made possible by the Illinois State Library, a Department of the Office of the Secretary of State, Jesse White, using funds provided by the U.S. Institute of Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). 

“Depicting the Divine with Laura Mueller”

On Tuesday, January 25th at 6:00 p.m. central, the LaSalle Public Library will virtually host Laura Mueller, Artist and Art Historian, when she presents, “Depicting the Divine.”

From a solitary hand to multiple arms, from a nimbus of light surrounding a figure to blue skin, a pelican, a waterfall; all these have been used by artists to distinguish the divine. Religious institutions and texts often stipulated the ways in which God, gods and goddesses were to be shown. Laura Mueller from the Art Institute of Chicago will explore and compare examples from Eastern and Western traditions, both the ancient and the new in this virtual program.

Laura Mueller worked for the Art Institute’s Department of Museum Education from 1987 to 2017.  She has taught courses in literature and art history at local colleges.  Laura has been an Art Institute study leader on several of their trips to Europe, including Adriatic Odyssey, Holland and Belgium, the prehistoric caves of southwest France, and Normandy and Paris in the north of France.  She holds a B.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an M.A. from the University of Chicago in Comparative Literature; she has also studied art with NYU in Venice, Italy.

This program is free and open to all.  It will be presented virtually through Zoom.  To attend this program, register by going to - https://bit.ly/3J6Lxgt. For more information, please contact the LaSalle Public Library at 815-223-2341 or email Rachael Blomquist at rblomquist@lasalle.lib.il.us. 

“An Evening with Silvia Morena-Garcia”

On Wednesday, January 26th at 7:00 p.m. central, the LaSalle Public Library, in partnership with Illinois Libraries Presents, will virtually host bestselling and award-winning author, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, when she discusses, in conversation with author, Gus Moreno, her newest novel, Velvet Was the Night.  Moreno-Garcia will also talk about her genre-defying mashups of cultural noir and Lovecraftian horror.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Certain Dark Things, Gods of Jade and Shadow, and Mexican Gothic. Mexican by birth, Canadian by inclination, Moreno-Garcia has also edited several anthologies and is a columnist for The Washington Post.  Her newest book, Velvet Was the Night, was included on The New York Times’ list of 100 notable books of 2021. Taking place in 1970s Mexico City, the book revolves around a daydreaming secretary, a lonesome enforcer, and the mystery of a missing woman they’re both desperate to find.

The program is free and open to the public, and made possible by Illinois Libraries Present, a statewide collaboration between public libraries. It will be presented virtually through Zoom.  To attend this program, register by going to: https://bit.ly/ILP_SilviaMoreno-Garcia.  For more information, please contact the LaSalle Public Library at 815-223-2341.