Hear ye, hear ye! There is a total solar eclipse happening on April 8th, 2024, the last total eclipse for 20 years. According to timeanddate.com, Jackson, Mississippi, will experience approximately 90% totality at 1:52 p.m. In celebration of this momentous occasion, I wanted to share what MLC has done to help public libraries, and therefore all Mississippians, enjoy this event.
First, there are the glasses. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the desperate search for glasses as eclipses approach, so MLC was proactive! We requested glasses from the StarNET Solar Eclipse Activities for Libraries (SEAL), which distributed five million glasses to 10,000 libraries across the country. We supplemented our offerings by buying additional viewing cards so we could give libraries as many glasses as possible. We also received four solar activities kits from SEAL, two for younger audiences and two for all ages. The kits contain a variety of tools that libraries can use to study the sun, not just during eclipses, but all the time. There are books, solar telescopes, binoculars, activities that explain how eclipses and shadows work, and even inflatable space suits! If you are a part of the Meridian-Lauderdale Public Library System or the Mid-Mississippi Regional Library System, you may have attended a program where you got to experience these tools firsthand. In addition to the glasses and the kits, SEAL organized an in-person training hosted at MLC that showed librarians from across the state how to use the tools included in these kits.
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| In-person SEAL training at MLC |
MLC also requested LightSound devices from Harvard’s Astrolab. These devices emit a tone that corresponds to the amount of light given off by the sun; the tone changes as the moon covers it. If Jackson did experience totality, the tone would change to clicks as the sun was totally covered by the moon. LightSounds allow folks who are blind or have low vision experience an eclipse. MLC has offered the devices to public libraries with high numbers of Talking Books Services patrons so they can incorporate them into their eclipse programming.
If you’re still looking for eclipse resources, you can find them on a variety of topics, including programming ideas, on SEAL’s website. For additional programming ideas, Creativebug has a variety of eclipse-related classes like astro origami and creating embroidered constellations (hello, MLC’s embroidery kits!) WebJunction also put together a list of resources and inspiration. I am so excited to see what fun things everyone does for this eclipse!
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