Every June, we like to remind our community that now is the ideal time to think about protecting and caring for your family treasures. And if disaster strikes your household, be it a hurricane or a busted water heater, we want you to have immediate and trusted advice on how to salvage your photographs, scrapbooks, and other paper materials.
A few years ago, with the help of an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant, we put together a pathfinder of websites selected to provide reliable information on protecting and salvaging …

The monthly BookNews has just been published and features 3 new titles.

The Key West Maritime Historical Society meets at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 16, in the Library Auditorium. The speaker is Jim Clupper, former manager of the Islamorada library and part-time employee of the Archaeological and Historical Conservancy in Miami. Jim will be discussing using prehistoric tools and techniques to manufacture replicas of South Florida and Keys natives’ artifacts. Jim has been making such replicas for years, using materials including wood, shell, stone, bone, ceramics, leather/rawhide and the teeth of sharks and other fish.

Our online catalog and public internet server is down at the moment. Repairs are underway and a top priority for our County’s IT staff.
In the meantime, we’re using WorldCat to find items in our collection. Our WorldCat profile is updated annually,  in November, so the WorldCat catalog is incomplete, but useful for searching older titles.

We have libraries in Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon, Big Pine Key and Key West.  Please click here to view directions to each library.

Here’s a site that helps you build a personalized summer reading list! Enter your Lexile measure or school grade, select your interests, and find books you’d like to read! Whether you’re reading for school or for pleasure, you can use this site to build a custom reading list on the subjects that interest you the most. Click here to get started: http://www.lexile.com/fab/

In February 1923 Charles Curry who lived at 603 Southard Street hired a man to put a well in his yard. In the pre-pipeline days water for human consumption came from cisterns but most people had fresh water wells for other household uses. A layer of fresh water floats on the saltwater and a shallow well produces fresh water that some still use today to water plants.
Mr. Curry’s man reported he had sunk the pipe to the required depth and installed a pump but could only get oil from the …

View images from the Library Vault taken during the Mariel Boat Lift, April–June, 1980. The Miami Herald has unveiled this Mariel passenger/boat list, compiled in part by Cuban-exile and Key Wester, Arturo Cobo. Here are memories posted by boat name.