Financial literacy series at library

Sev­eral months ago, the Boards of Trustees of the Delaware County Dis­trict Library, Com­mu­nity Library of Sun­bury, and the Worn­staff Memo­r­ial Library of Ash­ley met to dis­cuss ways in which the three libraries could col­lab­o­rate to serve all of our cus­tomers more cost effec­tively and effi­ciently. One out­come of that meet­ing was to plan a series of pro­grams on per­sonal finan­cial lit­er­acy, to be offered at all library loca­tions. I am very pleased to announce that “Mak­ing Cents: A Finan­cial Lit­er­acy Series for All Ages” will kick off at 7 p.m. Thurs­day, Sept. 8, at the Delaware (Main) Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware.

The kick-off pro­gram in the series is “Invest­ments 101” with speak­ers from Ray­mond James, an inde­pen­dent finan­cial advis­ing com­pany who will help you learn how, where and when to invest to increase your future finan­cial health. The pro­gram will be repeated at 7 p.m. Thurs­day, Sept. 15, at DCDL’s Orange Branch, 7171 Good­ing Blvd., and at 7 p.m. Tues­day, Sept. 27, at Sun­bury Library, 44 Bur­rer Ave.

Other pro­grams in the series are “Shop­ping on a Shoe­string” pre­sented by OSU Extension’s Fam­ily Nutri­tion Pro­gram; “Credit Reports” with speak­ers from Con­sumer Credit Coun­sel­ing of Ohio; “Credit Cards: Do’s and Dont’s;” and, “Fraud: Pro­tect­ing Your­self” with speak­ers from the Delaware County Bank and the Sheriff’s department.

To help your kids learn about all things money, plan to attend “Right on the Money,” a fam­ily pro­gram fea­tur­ing infor­ma­tion, coin tricks, and origami along with other fun activ­i­ties. This pro­gram will be offered through­out all Delaware County libraries. A spe­cial pro­gram just for teens, “Wall Street Wiz­ards” will be offered at the Sun­bury Library.

A com­plete list of all pro­grams, dates, times and loca­tions is avail­able at all libraries, as well as on our web sites, and you can always call the Delaware, Sun­bury or Ash­ley libraries for more information.

Hope to see you at sev­eral of these inter­est­ing and help­ful programs!

Is there such a thing as a blue lobster?

Unlike these days, lob­ster has not always been a del­i­cacy. In colo­nial Amer­ica, in fact, it was so cheap and plen­ti­ful, it was a sta­ple for pris­on­ers and ser­vants. Accord­ing to The New York Times Seafood Cook­book : 250 Recipes for more than 70 Kinds of Fish and Shell­fish, lob­sters are brown, and they turn red when they are cooked. How­ever, there are a few notable excep­tions. About one in every 4 mil­lion lob­sters is born with a rare genetic defect that turns it blue, but they rarely sur­vive to adult­hood. Yel­low lob­sters are even more uncom­mon, mak­ing up only one in every 30 million.

What is a redsmith?

I checked in the World Book Ency­clo­pe­dia for a def­i­n­i­tion of a “red­smith.” Unlike black­smiths who worked with iron, red­smiths worked with cop­per. Gold­smiths and sil­ver­smiths worked with gold and sil­ver, respectively.

Why is ele­va­tor music called “Muzak?”

Dur­ing World War I, and in the early 1920s, Major Gen­eral George O. Squier served as the Army’s Chief Sig­nal Offi­cer, and he per­fected a method for trans­mit­ting music across elec­tri­cal wires. As explained in Inven­tors and Inven­tions, at the time, radio was still find­ing its foot­ing, so the notion of send­ing busi­nesses and res­i­dences music via wires was appeal­ing. In 1934, Squier for­mally founded a com­pany to develop his inven­tion. Since he liked the sound of the name “Kodak” he bor­rowed from it to name his own com­pany Muzak.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call us at 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing the library’s web­site at delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked.