The Michigan Humanities Council is proud to feature Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age as the 2011-12 Great Michigan Read. Written by Detroit native Kevin Boyle, Arc of Justice tells the story of African American Dr. Ossian Sweet and the chain of events that occurred after he purchased a home for his family in an all-white Detroit neighborhood in 1925.

Are you concerned about the potential ramifications of your employees and social media? Aaron Graves, a labor and employment attorney, will discuss the ins and outs of your rights and your employee's rights when it comes to social networking. This Strategies of Success (SOS) seminar takes place on Tuesday, May 17th from 7:30-9:30AM in the Summit on the Park Banquet Center. Space is limited so please reserve your spot by calling the Canton Chamber of Commerce at (734) 453-4040.

Moonwalking with Einstein: the art and science of remembering everything by Joshua Foer

Jeannie out of the bottle by Barbara Eden with Wendy Leigh

All your base are belong to us: how 50 years of videogames conquered pop culture by Harold Goldberg

Since 1963, May has been declared Older Americans Month by the Agency on Aging. The theme of this year's celebration — Older Americans: Connecting the Community — pays homage to the many ways in which older adults bring inspiration and continuity to the fabric of our communities. It also highlights the many ways technology is helping older Americans live longer, healthier and more engaged lives.

Journalist Eugene Robinson, former managing editor of the Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize winner and University of Michigan's first African-American co-editor of The Michigan Daily will speak on Friday, April 29 at Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library from 1:00-2:30PM. Robinson appears frequently on MSNBC as a political analyst, on shows such as Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Morning Joe, The Rachel Maddow Show and Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Eugene Robinson will receive an Honorary Degree from the University of Michigan at Saturday's graduation ceremony.

(Photo: University of Michigan Library)

Thousands of Medicare beneficiaries will receive an invitation in May to be part of a special study looking at the impact of age-related changes on functional ability. The National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) will be seeking some 9,000 people aged 65 and older to participate in this long-term study, funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health. NHATS will examine how the daily lives of older adults change as they age. Participants will be randomly chosen from across the country.

For the first time in 27 years, clinical diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer’s disease dementia have been revised, and research guidelines for earlier stages of the disease have been characterized to reflect a deeper understanding of the disorder. The National Institute on Aging/Alzheimer’s Association Diagnostic Guidelines for Alzheimer’s Disease outline some new approaches for clinicians and provide scientists with more advanced guidelines for moving forward with research on diagnosis and treatments.
(Photo credit: PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images/elibrary)

Effective April 1, 2011 the Social Security Administration has suspended annual statements to all workers. At present, this mailing cost the government $70 million dollars. SSA estimates they will save $30 million this year and $60 million dollars next year when they resume mailing, but only to those 60 years and older. An online Social Security benefits estimator is available as well other retirement planning information.

The results of the 2010 Census require that Michigan's congressional districts be redrawn. This process which occurs every 10 years has already begun in the Michigan legislature. This time around, lawmakers face many challenges including the loss of one congressional seat and the dramatic population losses in the city of Detroit. The Michigan Redistricting Collaborative is a coalition of non-profits from all segments of the community, including business, labor and public interest, dedicated to making the redistricting process more transparent and open, while encouraging involvement from the public. Their website Michigan — Draw the Line has been designed to inform the public on all aspects of the redistricting process.

The Center for Michigan is providing opportunities for citizens to speak out.  "Talk Back to Lansing" forums are scheduled in Wixom (April 20), Grand Rapids (April 25) and Lansing (April 27).  Register today.

Let your voice help shape Michigan's 2012 Budget.

Canton Public Library connects your community.

The year 2010 at Canton Public Library can best be characterized as a year of partnerships. As we faced further budget cuts and increased usage, we looked for partners in our community to help us stretch every dollar. By teaming up with our schools, community groups, other nonprofit and service organizations, arts consortia, and businesses, we were able to maximize our offerings and fulfill our mission of connecting your community.

Grants

Our staff searched tirelessly for grants to help fill gaps in our funding. This year, we were the recepient of several grants, including an Action for Earth Grant, a partnership project between the library, the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, and Project S.N.A.P. that allowed us to train 20 families in environmental stewardship and helped us create and install the mosiac mural just outside the Children's Library. This grant was supplied by the Erb Family Foundation Grant.

Additionally, we qualified for our second ARC grant to create a small rain garden at the back of the library, reducing the area of our grounds that needs mowing, watering and pesticide application, and adding native plants to help filter ground water and runoff.

The Giving Hope Women's Giving Circle Grant we received was used to start a book group for girls ages 5-12 and their mothers or another significant woman in their life. This grant, along with the Target Family Reading Grant, and the ALA Great Stories Grant made it possible to host book discussions for both young readers and their families as well as teens at the Starkweather Center, an alternative high school.

The Ford Road Meijer Store entered us into the Pepsi Refresh project and surprised us with a check for $400, which we were happy to accept.

News

Our proactive attempts to streamline efficiency and find other funding resulted in a few new iniatives. In June, we replaced our old hand sorting method with a new RFID system that both checks in and sorts materials to the proper bin for staff to place back on the shelves. Not only does this get materials back into circulation faster, it also saves hundreds of staff hours sorting and checking in materials and reduces the errors that come with handling 6,000 pieces daily. This project also saw the debut of another of our firsts — our patron education video series. We produced several videos to help educate patrons about library services, for example, how to use the self checkout.

In November, we teamed up with the Northville Barnes and Noble for our first-ever book fair. Purchases from the store or online during our fair benefitted the library.

October 2010 was the 30th anniversary of the library, which we celebrated all month with blog posts, historical photos and videos, and online contests. It was amazing to see the growth of Canton from a small farming community to the vibrant, thriving population of 90,000 that we have today. As a result of that growth, we also suffered through an eight-month long road construction project that widened Canton Center Road, making it easier and safer for our patrons to get to the library.

Some other notable news from 2010:

• Our Living Book program debuted, sharing the knowledge and experiences of living, breathing people with interested patrons
• We teamed with area business and Canton Economic Development to develop Check Out Canton, a unique offering of special savings from Canton businesses available for checkout from the library
• Our well-received Summer School for Small Business series kicked off with seven one-hour sessions created just for the needs small business owners and entrepreneurs
• We introduced Text A Librarian, a service that allows patrons to text message librarians for reference question or to request materials
• Storytime sessions were added in the Tamil language
• Our teen librarian, Anna Slaughter, received the Frances H. Pletz award from the Michigan Library Association, recognizing her outstanding service to teens
• We created two items to help patrons understand the library's budget constraints and how we were dealing with them. A budget overview video was created and we also posted a value calculator to help patrons figure out how much replacing CPL services would cost

Partnerships

As we stated, 2010 was a year of partnerships. We made use of many partnerships to expand our services and offerings and offset budget reductions. Here are some of those partners:

• Detroit Area Diaper Bank
• College Night
• Michigan Military Moms Partnership
• H&R Block Recovery Act Program
• Canton Township Economic Development Strategies of Success
• MLK Partnership with artist Byron Reed
• Canton Township Leisure Services Partnerships
• Museum Adventure Pass Program
• Park and Read Program

Statistics

Vital 2010 Statistics

Metric	Total
Museum Adventure Passes Checked Out	1,631
Park and Read Passes Checked Out	186
Check Out Canton Passes Issued	108
Wi-Fi log ins	30,745
Jobs printed	81,017
Reference Questions Received	86,592
Adult Computer Class Attendance	1,836
Summer Reading Participants	4,576
Total Circulation for 2010	1,951,445
Total Library Visits	594,492
Total Library Cardholders	90,516
New Library Cards Issued	7,952
Items Loaned Through MeL Interloan	19,706
Items Borrowed Through MeL Interloan	12,281
Items Added to CPL Collection	21,540
Total CPL Employees	103

When people hear the words "long-term care," they often think only of nursing homes, but long-term care includes much more. Personal care, home health care, transportation services and adult day care are all long-term care services, and they can be critical to an older person's health care. Find information on the range of long-term care services available and suggestions about planning for future needs on NIHSeniorHealth, the health and wellness website for older adults from the National Institute on Aging.

Sarah's choice [Large print] by Wanda E.

Free Tax Counseling for Canton's Senior taxpayers with low to moderate income is available at the Canton Senior Center in The Summit. Morning and afternoon appointments are available, however joint returns scheduled for the afternoon must have both taxpayers available. Please call the Canton Senior Center at (734) 394-5485 to schedule an appointment.

Each year the Michigan Office of Services to the Aging and the Michigan Commission on Services to the Aging join to honor outstanding contributions by Michigan's older citizens. The Senior Citizen of the Year Award highlights the contributions to civic and social life made by persons aged 60 years and older. Awards are given in two categories:

• Leadership in the community
• Service provided to others

Below are guidelines and nomination forms for the 2011 award. Nominations must be submitted by organizations and signed by the presiding officer, e.g., the executive director, CEO, or board president. Nominations must be postmarked by Monday, May 2, 2011 and sent to:

2011 Everyone's Reading The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly is now showing at a theater near you. Matthew McConaughey plays a believable 'Mick' Haller (shortened from Mickey in the books) and Marisa Tomei plays Maggie McPherson, Haller's first wife.

The Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency and the Wayne County Asset Building Coalition are offering free tax preparation services for families with incomes under $48,300. Call (734) 284-6999 for a list of participating locations or to schedule an appointment.

Governor Snyder released his budget proposal last week, and as expected, the news is grim. The cuts to public, school, and university libraries across the state are significant, and will affect the services that CPL will be able to provide to our community — namely, interlibrary loan and research databases.

The Governor has proposed cutting state aid to libraries to $3 million. The statutorily-required funding is $15 million. The current funding level of $5 million automatically qualifies the state to receive a federal matching grant of $5 million, which pays for MeLCat (statewide interlibrary loan) and the Michigan eLibrary (MeL — statewide research databases). Cutting state aid results in a cut to, and possibly a loss of, the matching grant, which puts MeL and MeLCat in jeopardy.

MeL and MeLCat exemplify the resource-sharing, aggregation of services, eliminating duplication of effort, and economies of scale that the Governor has emphasized over and over. More than 300 libraries — public libraries, K-12 libraries, and university libraries — pool this funding to provide services to Michigan residents. The $5 million investment by the state nets a $5 million matching grant, and saves taxpayers nearly $72 million annually, when you consider the cost to each library if they had to purchase these same resources on their own.

Here's what you need to know if you pay someone to do your tax return:

• Steer clear of anyone who won't discuss fees in advance
• Avoid big talkers
• Check credentials
• Don't be afraid to ask for references
• Look for stability

For more information visit irs.gov.

The IRS announced today that it is now ready to accept all income tax returns. "The IRS is now accepting all the 1040 forms," IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said. "We worked hard to update our systems and get the changes in place as quickly as possible. We appreciate the patience of those impacted by the delay. We urge taxpayers to use e-file with direct deposit, and they can get their refunds within days." In late December 2010, the IRS announced it would delay processing of some tax returns in order to update processing systems to accommodate the late tax law changes.