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NEIGHBORS
A N NI V E R Y R SA
Brevard Mobile Library drives technology, art, reading activities
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BY BRENDA EGGERT BRADER
More than a display container for shelves of books, the Brevard Mobile Library has evolved as a source of STEAM.
“We provide programs on computer classes, and STEAM programs. That is STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) with the A since we include art,” said Laura Eastman Hawthorne, the Brevard County Mobile Library supervisor.
“We have computer classes and theme programs with summer camps and schools. A class of children and teens works on a coding program that helps them learn to color code as in programming computers and learning about technology. I have four workstations in the handicap access van so they can use tablets and iPads. During summer camps, I bring in groups of five to seven at a time to learn.
SENIOR LIFE Courtesy of Laura Eastman Hawthorne
Children learn computer programming.
SENIOR LIFE Courtesy of the Brevard Library System
Laura Eastman Hawthorne, the Brevard County Mobile Library supervisor, drives her mobile van to teach STEAM courses (science, technology, engineering, art and math).
“I do the driving all over Brevard and have been to places (such) as Satellite Beach, Palm Bay, Cocoa Beach, just all over. It is an extension of the main Cocoa Library creative lab. There was a bookmobile a few years back. When COVID hit, the mobile was parked. Getting a new vehicle, we decided to have more technology than books.”
Hawthorne also has created family entertainment such as an escape room for families and their children.
“They must solve three puzzles to get the combination lock to get out of the mobile library.”
Aging Matters seniors are helped with their androids and smartphones through a program called Askatech, Hawthorne said. Another advantage of the mobile library is whenever Hawthorne is out with the mobile library she also finds herself regularly signing up residents for library cards.
Story walks in the parks are very popular and are scheduled usually a couple hours of time during the afternoons and many times in coordination with other youth events going on around the county sponsored by organizations or schools.
“The community events are on a weekend or at night at parks or at a school. A lot of times, I do my own program like story walks at the park and set up a schedule to do this.
“I put children’s book pages on signs and put the signs all around the park so while they are walking on a path they can read a book,” Hawthorne said. “At the end of the walk, they have a craft and activity sheet after reading the book.”
The Brevard Mobile Library schedules can be found on the library website on the Brevard County online site under libraries and on Facebook Brevard Libraries. SL
CHESS
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hard-fought chess game makes you feel proud of yourself for hanging in there, finding the right moves, and for all of the work you’ve put in over time to get to your current level of chess knowledge.”
Brevard County offers newcomers to chess a lot of opportunities to learn the game at no cost. Instructional, friendly games are available at a variety of venues including from 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays at the Central Brevard Library at 308 Forrest Ave. in Cocoa.
Renowned chess coach Owen Grant, who has taught chess for 50 years in Brevard County, was asked by the Space Coast Chess Foundation to host the Sunday chess at the Library. He is at the Library on Sunday to teach and mentor folks interested in the game. A resident of Cape Canaveral, Grant said he does so because he loves the game and wants to pass along his knowledge and skills to the next generation.
In November, Grant mentored a father and his seven-year-old son who showed up at the Library.
Nicholas Warren of Rockledge said he had seen a flier about the chess lessons on Sunday at the Library and decided to bring his son, Conrad, along.
“My son started taking an interest in chess this year online. He also likes it because his uncle plays chess very well.”
Conrad, who attends Lake Fern Elementary Montessori School in Titusville, was very attentive as Grant showed him some strategies on how to maneuver chess pieces into the best position early to gain traction on your opponent.
Grant said he was about Conrad’s age when he learned to play chess at the YMCA where he lived in Syracuse, N.Y.
Grant is famous for having won a chess match against grandmaster Bobby Fischer in 1964 at a tournament that took place in the Kodak Building in Rochester, N.Y.
“I was only 17 years old at the time and I must say I was a bit nervous and in awe of Bobby Fischer,” Grant said. But then I sat down with him and remembered what my father had always said to me ‘on a given day you can beat anybody.’”
Grant then became an even greater fan of Fischer, who became the World Chess championin 1972 by winning the title match against Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. The match, played in Reykjavik, Iceland, was billed as a cold war confrontation between the U.S. and the USSR. It attracted more worldwide attention and interest than any chess championship ever played. SL
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