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Looking for some basic computer or mobile device guidance? Want help using an online resource? Need someone to read your resume and support navigating online job applications? Join us for our drop-in help hours between 3:30pm-5:30pm for 20 minute help sessions. No registration required. If you have any questions, please contact library@cambridgema.gov The City of Cambridge does not discriminate, including on the basis of disability. We may provide auxiliary aids and services, written materials in alternative formats, and reasonable modifications in policies and procedures to people with disabilities. For more information contact us at library@cambridgema.gov, 617-349-4032 (voice), or via relay at 711.

Join us on Thursday July 16th at 6:30pm to celebrate the 2 year anniversary of the launch of the CARE (Community Assistance Response and Engagement)Team! We will be screening Beyond The Call, a powerful documentary highlighting how the City of Cambridge created and implemented the CARE Team, a community-centered alternative response program designed to support people experiencing mental health and behavioral health crises. This documentary will offer an inside look at the challenges, breakthroughs, and real-life impact of building a public safety model rooted in care instead of criminalization. There will be food, swag, and an opportunity to connect directly with those doing the work!

Looking for some basic computer or mobile device guidance? Want help using an online resource? Need someone to read your resume and support navigating online job applications? Join us for our drop-in help hours between 3:30pm-5:30pm for 20 minute help sessions. No registration required. If you have any questions, please contact library@cambridgema.gov The City of Cambridge does not discriminate, including on the basis of disability. We may provide auxiliary aids and services, written materials in alternative formats, and reasonable modifications in policies and procedures to people with disabilities. For more information contact us at library@cambridgema.gov, 617-349-4032 (voice), or via relay at 711.

Looking for some basic computer or mobile device guidance? Want help using an online resource? Need someone to read your resume and support navigating online job applications? Join us for our drop-in help hours between 3:30pm-5:30pm for 20 minute help sessions. No registration required. If you have any questions, please contact library@cambridgema.gov The City of Cambridge does not discriminate, including on the basis of disability. We may provide auxiliary aids and services, written materials in alternative formats, and reasonable modifications in policies and procedures to people with disabilities. For more information contact us at library@cambridgema.gov, 617-349-4032 (voice), or via relay at 711.

Join the Cambridge Public Library in celebrating Pride Month by welcoming Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things, With Teeth, and—published just this past March—STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE. After a reading from her work, Arnett will be joined in conversation by Jill McDonough, author of five books of poetry including American Treasure and Here All Night. Called "a perversely funny novel about family, ambition, and desire" (Shelf Awareness), STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE follows a professional clown, Cherry Hendricks, as she tries to stay true to her needs as a person as well as an artist. This is a hybrid event and registration is required. This event is cosponsored by the Cambridge Public Library Foundation.

Join us for a conversation about community, resilience, and activism in the Latinx community with Gladys Vega, the Executive Director of La Collaborativa in Chelsea. Gladys Vega is a groundbreaking community organizer and advocate, working relentlessly and fearlessly to ensure the Latinx immigrant community has a voice in determining how it’s needs and concerns are addressed. She believes that empowerment of the individual leads to empowerment of the community and that social action is the vehicle an empowered community can use to achieve its goals. Gladys is the architect of nearly all of La Colaborativa’s programs, initiatives, and community organizing campaigns. Her leadership has resulted in expanded rights for immigrants, low-income families, tenants, workers, youths, and people of color across Massachusetts.

Join the Cambridge Public Library in welcoming Rachel Slade, author of Making It in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the U.S.A. (And How It Got That Way)—as well as the national bestseller, Into the Raging Sea—for the latest installment of the Our Path Forward Lecture Series. Slade's book, which follows a young couple in Maine trying to kickstart a lost industry, was named a Publishers Weekly "Top 10 Pick in Business and Economics." Cosmopolitan called Making It in America an "enlightening look at the history of manufacturing in America and how we got to where we are today." After the lecture, Slade will sit in conversation with Janelle Nanos, a business enterprise reporter at The Boston Globe and a finalist for a 2023 Pulitzer Prize, after which she will answer questions from the audience. Registration is required.

The past year featured the launch of several strategic initiatives, the unveiling of critical new resources, and the achievement of many critical milestones across the City. In this newsletter, we look back at some of the highlights and milestones that may have gone under-the-radar in 2024. Highlights include the launch of a new alternative 9-11 response team, a new outreach van for individuals who are unhoused, new programming for older adults and expanded offerings for families, the most checked out library books over the past year, and much more. Finally, meet some of the people behind the scenes leading this important work.

To mark the 250th anniversaries of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States, a coalition of local non-profits and government agencies will present Washington in American Memory, a seven-part speaker series. Explore how Americans have remembered and forgotten Washington’s involvement with slavery over the past 250 years. Three historians who work at the intersection of scholarship and public history will shed new light on our founding contradictions: Kelli Racine Barnes, ACE Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow and historian of 18th- and 19th-century U.S. history John Garrison Marks, author of Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory (forthcoming April 7, 2026) and Vice President of Research and Engagement at the American Association for State and Local History Kyera Singleton, Executive Director of the Royall House & Slave Quarters and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Tufts University Center for the Humanities This event will conclude with a book signing by John Garrison Marks. Copies of Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory will be available to purchase.

Using 30 languages represented in Cambridge, the new Welcome poster states, “You are welcome here,” and was woven together in a quilt-like design to represent the City’s rich cultural diversity. It also contains text to remind community members of their right to receive services and information in their preferred language, regardless of their immigration status. We encourage you to display this poster in a public-facing area of your department, like a reception desk. The poster is intended to convey solidarity with our immigrant community members visually. It can also be used as a tool for visitors to indicate the language they prefer to communicate in, which will help City staff coordinate appropriate interpretation or translation follow up.