I’m Vanessa, the Information Services Librarian in the Customer Experiences Department. I provide Customer Experiences staff with the training and support that they need to assist customers. This includes reading, listening and viewing suggestions from the various download and stream services that you can use free with your library card number.
Just as the Library features regular themed book displays throughout the year, Hoopla Digital and Kanopy (two of our streaming services) also feature themed content. For all of February, Black History Month, Hoopla spotlights Black lives in eBooks, comics, movies and music.
Hoopla offers selections of great Black music artists such as Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, Bob Marley, Mary J. Blige, Miles Davis, Prince, The Supremes and Tupac Shakur; more current artists include Lizzo and The Weeknd. Under the comics section, is the National Book Award winning March co-authored by the late civil rights activist and US congressman John Lewis. March tells Lewis’ life story up to and including the climactic voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama with flash forwards to the day of President Obama’s first inauguration in January 2009.
Count on Kanopy to carry some of the best films and TV documentaries. New and recently-added selections include the classic 1991 film Daughters of the Dust, the incendiary 2016 documentary I am Not Your Negro, the critically acclaimed PBS miniseries Jazz and the newly-added drama Night Catches Us.
Stream all of these and more during Black History Month on Hoopla and Kanopy, both available to residents of Coquitlam with library cards. For additional information about our streaming services, email ask@coqlibrary.ca.