Book club to meet

Book club to meet

VILLA MARIA, Pa. — Villa Maria Community Center will continue its monthly book club with a meeting from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesdayin the Mother Madeline Room. The novel for this month is “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini. Sister Barbara Lenarcic will facilitate the sessions. The program is free; however advanced registration is required. Call call (724) 964-8920 ext. 3223 or e-mail blenarcic@humilityofmary.org. Books can be purchased at a discount at The Villa Shoppe. Refreshments will be served.

At Ursuline Center

CANFIELD — Dr. Paul Wright, author of “Mother Teresa’s Prescription: Finding Happiness and Peace in Service,” will discuss his friendship with Mother Teresa of Calcutta in a program at 7 p.m. Oct. 12 at the Ursuline Center, 4300 Shields Road. Signed copies of his book will be sold; proceeds will benefit the Missionaries of Charity, who continue Mother Teresa’s work. For information, call (330) 799-4941.

Aldrin working on memoir

NEW YORK — Seventy-eight-year-old former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, is working on a memoir about his triumphs in space and the hard times back on Earth.

“Magnificent Desolation: The Long Road Home from the Moon” will be published next year by Harmony Books in time for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing.

Neil Armstrong and Aldrin, then 39, were on Apollo 11’s lunar module, which landed on the moon July 20, 1969.

Good news for libraries

CHICAGO — As Americans deal with a slumping economy, U.S. libraries are experiencing a dramatic increase in library card registration. According to a new Harris Poll from Harris Interactive, released in September (Library Card Sign-up Month), 68 percent of Americans have a library card, up 5 percent since 2006 and the greatest since the American Library Association (ALA) started to measure library card usage in 1990.

Seventy-six percent of Americans visited their local public library in the past year, compared with 65.7 percent two years ago. Online visits are up even more substantially — with 41 percent of library card holders visiting their library Web sites in the past year, compared with 23.6 percent in 2006.

The poll found certain groups are more likely to have a library card than others — women over men (73 percent to 62 percent); and Midwesterners (72 percent) and Westerners (71 percent) over Easterners (65 percent) and Southerners (63 percent).

The poll also found that 39 percent of card holders visit the library to borrow books; 12 percent take out CDs, videos or computer software; 9 percent to use reference materials; and 8 percent for Internet access.

A full methodology is available at www.harrisinteractive.com.

Vindicator staff/wire reports