SUMMER HOURS

SUNDAY: CLOSED
MONDAY: 10:30-1:30
TUESDAY: 10:30 - 5:00
WEDNESDAY: 10:30 - 6:00
THURSDAY: 10:30 - 5:00
FRIDAY: 10:30 - 1:30
SATURDAY: 10:30 - 5:00

June 26-August 21

How to log into the new Aspen catalog:
 
When you log into your CLAMS account, you will need to know the last four digits of your phone number in order to log in. Please call 508-645-3360 to confirm your phone number on file. You will also need to know your 13-digit library card id number (located under the barcode on your card.) If you don’t know the number on file call 508-645-3360 and we will give you your id number.

Once you are logged in, you will receive an email verification. If you don’t have an email call 508-645-3360 and we can verify for you. You will be locked out of Libby, Kanopy, and other eResources. Once you are logged back into your CLAMS account you will be able to get back into your eResource accounts. You will not lose your status or any items within the pages.
 
New Adult Programs

Please email [email protected] to sign up, get Zoom invite, and/or ask questions.

Tuesday, August 1, at 4:30PM: Beach Medicine with Jade Alicandro of Milk and Honey Herbs
 
Join us for a virtual class uncovering the abundant medicinal herbs found in the coastal areas of the Northeast. Many beach-loving medicinals can be found in the sandy soils of Cape Cod and the islands. We’ll explore their many unique characteristics and medicinal qualities.
 
Email [email protected] to register and receive the Zoom link.
 
Free. Sponsored by the libraries of MVLA.
 
Thursday, August 3 at 4:00 PM: Deep Roots: Rural Traditions and Agriculture on Martha's Vineyard: A Series of Short Films by Matt Taylor
 
The Chilmark Public Library in association with The Martha's Vineyard Agricultural Society presents Vision Fellowship Awardee Matt Taylor’s fun, informative look at our Up-Island friends and neighbors working the land and practicing generations-old traditions of sustenance and farming. Shot byTaylor in 2006 and 2007.
 
Featuring: David Flanders, Alan Healy, Ozzie Fischer, Simon Athearn, Bob Woodruff, Deborah Silva, Danny Braynt, Daniel Athearn, Mason and Arnie Fischer
 
In person at the Chilmark Library. Email [email protected] for more information.
Free. Sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Library and The Martha's Vineyard Agricultural Society. 508-645-3360
 
Saturday, August 5, 8:30 PM:  The Summer Night Sky: Travel Among the Cosmos with Mark Alan Lovewell and the Libraries of Martha’s Vineyard.
 
Join veteran stargazer Mark Alan Lovewell and discover the wonders of the cosmos in our summer night sky. Meet at the Riverhead Field Disc Golf on Barnes Road.
 
Writer, photographer, and folk singer Mark Alan Lovewell, a Renaissance man of many talents, enjoys sharing his passions for folk singing, journalism, photography, sailing, and stargazing with those interested in a unique, local perspective of all the island has to offer. He has been writing Vineyard Skies, a weekly astronomy column for the Vineyard Gazette for almost 42 years.
 
Email [email protected] or call 508-645-3360 for more information.
Free. Sponsored by the Libraries of Martha’s Vineyard.
 
Wednesday, August 9 at 5:00: The Sacred Depths of Nature, In Prose, Poetry, and Music, with author Ursula Goodenough, soprano Jessica Sanseverino, and pianist Charles Rus.
 
Biologist Ursula Goodenough uses prose, poetry, and musical metaphors to describe our science-based understandings of the natural world and its creatures, and offers non-theistic spiritual responses that celebrate these understandings. At this event, readings of selected passages from the book will be interspersed with performances by soprano Jessica Sanseverino and pianist Charles Rus, who will offer sonatas by Mozart, chants by Hildegard von Bingen.
 
Ursula Goodenough is Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University who retired to Martha’s Vineyard in 2017. She taught cell biology and evolution and engaged in research that focused on the sexual cycle of the green soil alga Chlamydomonas, on ciliary motility, and on algal biofuel precursors. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Microbiology Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and served as president of the American Society for Cell Biology.
 
In person. Email [email protected] for more information.
Free. Sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Library. 508-645-3360
 
Saturday, August 12, 5:00 PM: Missis Biskis.: Patio Music at the Chilmark Library
 
From Hank to Hendrix, Loretta to Lucinda, Missis Biskis hits all stops along the way on the Americana Highway. Sit back on our patio and enjoy the ride!
 
Email [email protected] for more information.
Free. Sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Library. 508-645-3360.
 
Wednesday, August 16 at 5:00: Washed Ashore with Bill Eville.

In Washed Ashore, Eville’s life changes when his wife Cathlin takes a job as the first female pastor of a 350-year-old church on Martha’s Vineyard, the island that was once home to generations of his ancestors. With their two small children in tow, the couple begins a new life eight miles out at sea.

Readers follow Eville’s journey from stay-at-home-dad to newspaper editor as he discovers what it means to be a writer, a father, and—after his wife’s devasting breast cancer diagnosis—what it truly means to be a minister’s husband. Washed Ashore, told in a series of linked essays, is poignant and funny, filled with faith, struggle, and light.
 
In person. Email [email protected] for more information.
Free. Sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Library. 508-645-3360

Wednesday, August 23 at 5:00: The Prehistoric Secret of Magritte’s Boulders: The Hand-axe Paintings with Prehistorian Duncan Caldwell.
 
It is astonishing that nobody has pointed out that most of the huge isolated boulders which appear in René Magritte’s paintings between 1951 and 1964 are depictions of prehistoric hand-axes. The portrayals are so accurate that several, including ones shown in such iconic works as The Sense of Reality and The Castle of the Pyrenees could be used as illustrations in a book on ancient tool typology.

In Duncan Caldwell’s new book, The Prehistoric Secret of Magritte’s Boulders: The Hand-axe Paintings (late 2023, Peabody Museum at Harvard and the University of Chicago Press) he explores the implications of Magritte's choices, which relate both to prehistory and the World Wars - making the hand-axe/boulders stand both as a testament to Magritte’s fascination with prehistoric forms and in mute challenge, making us feel as uneasy as if we were encountering ghosts or prophets. Although it may be hard to appreciate the degree to which loss, horror, and doom hung over Magritte’s world when he created this series, its looming stones still bear witness and concentrate the strangeness of our universe into archetypal forms. Magritte seems to be saying that the implications of man’s first breakthrough now haunt our entire existence, as dense and light as consciousness or the mystery underlying reality, which we have all had to live with since the mind and its first highly designed (and lethal) product - the hand-axe - were born.
 
Email [email protected]  for more information.
Free. Sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Library. 508-645-3360
 
Saturday, August 26 at 4:00: The Language of Trees: Author Talk with Katie Holten.

Inspired by forests, trees, leaves, roots, and seeds, The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape invites readers to discover an unexpected and imaginative language to better read and write the natural world around us and reclaim our relationship with it. In this gorgeously illustrated and deeply thoughtful collection, Katie Holten gifts readers her tree alphabet and uses it to masterfully translate and illuminate beloved lost and new, original writing in praise of the natural world. With an introduction from Ross Gay, and featuring writings from over fifty contributors including Ursula K. Le Guin, Ada Limón, Robert Macfarlane, Zadie Smith, Radiohead, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, James Gleick, Elizabeth Kolbert, Plato, and Robin Wall Kimmerer, Holten guides readers on a journey from creation myths and cave paintings to the death of a 3,500-year-old cypress tree, from Tree Clocks in Mongolia and forest fragments in the Amazon to the language of fossil poetry, unearthing a new way to see the natural beauty all around us and an urgent reminder of what could happen if we allow it to slip away.

Katie Holten is an artist and activist, whose drawings investigate the entangled relationships between humans and the natural world. Her book The Language of Trees was published in April 2023. In 2003, Katie represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale. She has had solo exhibitions at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Nevada Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and Dublin City Gallery. She has created Tree Alphabets, a Stone Alphabet, and a Wildflower Alphabet to share the joy she finds in her love of the more-than-human world. If she could be a tree, she would be an Oak.
 
Email [email protected] for more information.
Free. Sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Library. 508-645-3360.
 
Wednesday, August 30 at 5:00: The Hidden Life of Aster Kelly—author talk with Katherine Sherbrooke.
 
It’s 1948, and Aster Kelly leaves New York City modeling behind for Hollywood, determined to realize her dream of designing clothes. Desperate for work, she takes on a job as a stand-in model for Lauren Bacall. Told in two timelines, sweeping from New York to Los Angeles, and from San Francisco to Martha’s Vineyard, THE HIDDEN LIFE OF ASTER KELLY uses historic Hollywood and Broadway to explore timely themes: the freedom to love who you want; the challenges and triumphs of leaving behind manufactured conformity in favor of your authentic self; the power of deep, essential friendship; and the question of what the “truth” actually means. It’s a joyful celebration of chosen family and of enduring love—with plenty of juicy details and resonant issues to discuss long after the last page is turned.
 
Katherine A. Sherbrooke is the author of a family memoir called Finding Home and three novels: the New York Times notable Leaving Coy’s Hill, which was selected for 2022 MA Book Award’s Honors in Fiction prize, Fill the Sky, the winner of a 2017 Independent Press Award and finalist for the Mary Sarton Award for Contemporary Fiction, and her newest novel, The Hidden Life of Aster Kelly. She served for the past nine years as Chair of the Board of GrubStreet, the nation’s largest creative writing center and Boston’s first public arts space dedicated to the written word,
 
Email [email protected] for more info.
Free. Sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Library. 508-645-3360
 
Youth Services

Art Shows

The Chilmark Free Public Library is pleased to offer individuals, groups, or organizations the opportunity to display their art exhibits.
 
Goals of the exhibits in the library include:

 - Supporting community cultural and artistic activities

 - Encouraging individuals to contribute to the appreciation of the arts

 - Broadening horizons by presenting a wide range of art, collections, or displays

 - Nourishing intellectual, aesthetic, and creative growth

 - Reaching non-traditional library patrons

Exhibitions typically run for 3 weeks in the summer and 1 month during the rest of the year. The summer is defined as June, July, and August.

Email [email protected] for the application and rules. or call 508-645-3360 for more information.
 
Virtual Resources

Libby: https://www.overdrive.com/apps/libby
Libby is an Overdrive app designed to make borrowing and enjoying eBooks and audiobooks easier than ever. Try it out on your smartphone or tablet! Download it for free from your app store, and log in using your library card number and PIN.

Kanopy: chilmark.kanopy.com
Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video service for Chilmark Library cardholders.  Download the free app from the app store or log in through your browser.  Kanopy allows you 20 borrows per month. Enjoy critically-acclaimed movies, inspiring documentaries, award-winning foreign films, and more! Log in with your library card number and PIN.

Visit https://www.chilmarkma.gov/referenceeresources/read for free access to the NY Times and the Washington Post.

Complimentary access to NYTimes.com and WashingtonPost.com is sponsored by the Martha's Vineyard Library Association.

The Martha’s Vineyard Library Association has partnered with Brainfuse, a national online education company, to provide free online tutoring and homework help to all Martha's Vineyard library cardholders. The program is available seven days a week to anyone with a library card issued by any of the six Martha's Vineyard libraries. Click here to learn more about Brainfuse and get started!

Martha's Vineyard Library Association presents Creativebug! This online service provides access to thousands of award-winning art and craft video classes taught by recognized design experts and artists! Click here to get started, log in with your library card number, and get crafting!

Introducing a new digital database for children and kids: ComicsPlus! Read comics on your digital device wherever or whenever. No holds, no waitlists, no borrowing limits. Read ALL the comics and graphic novels! Patrons must have a Chilmark library card to register (a library card that begins with 1600000) for ComicsPlus. Click here to register today!