Library Blog

As National Women's History Month draws to a close this week, our spotlight is on Mae Durell Frazar (1852-1919) an accomplished writer, editor, world traveler, and entrepreneur who lived most of her life on or near Prospect Hill.

Frazar is chiefly known as Somerville’s first female publisher. In 1887 she created a 16-sheet paper called The Home Life, which was printed by the Somerville Journal, and "crammed with original matter, illustrated stories, prizes, premiums, music and book... Read Post

Would you believe that word-puzzle contests were so popular in the mid-20th century that many libraries had to put their dictionaries under lock and key? Puzzle-solvers devoured dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference works in pursuit of cash prizes, and deluged library staff with requests for answers to puzzle questions. They ripped pages from dictionaries and hid reference books to thwart other contestants’ chances.

In a recent browse of our local history room, we... Read Post

Are you interested in learning more about the history of Somerville or reading books that take place in Somerville? We've got you covered with this reading list. This list was compiled with the help of library staff at all locations and across all departments. Thanks to everyone who contributed ideas!

1. Beyond the Neck : the Architecture and Development of Somerville, Massachusetts by Carole Zellie

We're kicking our list off with a few books that provide some... Read Post

Have you ever bought a product online because of great reviews and customer ratings but ended up disappointed with it? You're not alone: the problem is common enough to warrant news coverage. Many of the rave reviews on retail websites are fakes: written by paid reviewers who've never used the product or service in question. In some cases the reviews aren't even written by actual people.

Fakespot.com can help you identify dishonest reveiws: simply paste the url of a product (for... Read Post

This year we have compiled our top 10 fiction checkouts for adults, young adults (teens), and children's books.

Gail Honeyman took the number one adult fiction spot this year with Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.  Paulette Jiles was a close second with News of the World.  In third place, The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve. Somerville adult readers also showed a penchant for a good mystery in 2017.

Not surprisingly, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale from our YA... Read Post

In This Book, Craftsmanship Is a Matter of Life or Death

In the underground city of Caverna, the setting of Frances Hardinge’s novel A Face Like Glass, a sip of wine can rewrite memories, a bite of cheese can spark visions, and certain perfumes make the wearer literally irresistible.  Its citizens’ facial expressions, too, are carefully and expensively crafted and taught by experts, and the ability to display the perfect Face for any occasion is more than just a mark of status: it’s... Read Post

This past weekend we set our clocks back one hour as we do every year. Ideally when we get up in the morning it will be a little lighter, and, not so ideally, after we work we'll all be stumbling home in the dark.  But why do we do this? Supposedly Benjmain Franklin first proposed daylight saving time (DST) as a way to save candles, but he also suggested waking the public by firing cannons at sunrise, so it's difficult to say how serious he was. The idea in its modern systematized form was... Read Post