Ask any early childhood advocate and they will share with you the important role play has in the classroom or child care setting. The role of play is a hot topic with the push to make education at all levels more rigorous. Kindergarten classrooms are being required to remove center time from their schedules. Recess… View more
The Cedar Rapids Public Library, along with the Hiawatha Public Library and the Marion Public Library, are officially fine free. Overdue fines have been removed from patrons account. “The mission of our libraries is to provide equal and universal access to information for all of our citizens,” said Dara Schmidt, Cedar Rapids Public Library Director…. View more
The Cedar Rapids Public Library invites you to a new reading challenge: Read Woke. Provided in partnership with Beanstack, the online platform we use for all our reading programs, and activist librarian Cicely Lewis, Read Woke is designed to challenge people to educate themselves about others through deliberate, thoughtful reading. Started in 2017 as a way to… View more
The Summer Dare is on and we want everyone to keep reading and logging their minutes throughout the month of July. So far our community has logged more than 380,000 minutes so far – that’s almost 6,300 hours of reading time since June 6! Register for the Summer Dare and use our no-contact curbside holds… View more
LGBTQ+ Pride Month occurs in June in the United States to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969. We have gathered together some selected titles available for download through the OverDrive or Libby app using just your library card.
The Cedar Rapids Public Library holds equity as one of our guiding principles and inclusion as a strategy for growth. We stand with our staff, patrons, trustees, and community in the refusal to accept racism in our country, and are committed to educating ourselves and providing resources for all who would like to learn to be better… View more
The Cedar Rapids Public Library holds equity as one of our guiding principles and inclusion as a strategy for growth. Throughout history, institutions like public libraries have striven to be open for all, while at the same time continuing long-standing modes of institutional racism. The Cedar Rapids Public Library has made steps forward in the… View more
Materials can now be returned to Metro Library book drops, including those at the Downtown Library and Ladd Library, as well as the book drops at metro area HyVee stores. Items returned to the Library will be quarantined for 72 hours as a safety precaution after being returned to the Cedar Rapids Public Library. There… View more
The Metro Library Network, comprised of the Cedar Rapids, Hiawatha, and Marion Public Libraries, will begin offering low or no-contact curbside hold pickup of library materials beginning Friday, May 22. All metro libraries are currently closed to the public to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our communities. All library programs and events, both… View more
To Our Community, We have missed seeing you in person over the past several weeks. We hope you are staying safe and healthy and have been able to use our Library-at-Home resources including our ebooks, audiobooks, and virtual programs. As the state begins a reopening process, your library staff is working hard on a… View more