Guilderland Library Notes for Friday, June 16, 2017

Dr. David Oshinsky, author of “Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital”, will speak at the Guilderland Public Library as part of the library’s Carol J. Hamblin Notable Author Speakers Series, the evening of Thursday, June 22.

Dr. Oshinsky’s Talk will be at 7 p.m. There will be an author’s reception at 6:15 p.m.; reservations for the reception can be made at www.guilpl.org/oshinsky.

Bellevue Hospital, on New York City’s East Side, occupies a colorful and terrifying place in the public imagination: a den of mangled crime victims, vicious psychopaths, assorted derelicts, lunatics, and exotic-disease sufferers. In its two and a half centuries of service, there was hardly an epidemic, social catastrophe or groundbreaking scientific advance  that did not touch Bellevue.

David Oshinsky, whose last book, “Polio: An American Story”, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, chronicles the history of America’s oldest hospital and in so doing also charts the rise of New York to the nation’s preeminent city, the path of American medicine from butchery and quackery to a professional and scientific endeavor, and the growth of a civic institution.

Copies of both Bellevue and Polio are available for sale now at the Library; they will also be for sale at the talk.  Dr. Oshinsky will be available for autographs.

What In the World Is Facebook?

GPL is excited to host a Facebook 101 program for seniors and other newbies; it’s being held on Friday, June 16 at 2 p.m. The Albany Guardian Society, in collaboration with MicroKnowledge Inc., will teach a 90-minute class that shows you what Facebook's all about. Please bring your device and your login information, including passwords, to this class.