By Abigail Hardison

Rowan Public Library

Once a year, the American Library Association and libraries across the country make a concerted effort to encourage everyone to visit his or her local library and get a card.

The benefits and joys of a library card are innumerable:

Access to freely enjoy the latest bestselling book all your friends are talking about? Awesome!

How about those free online classes in PowerPoint that could get you the skills to impress your boss and get a raise? Amazing!

The possibility of bringing multiple generations of a family into one place and everybody finding something they are interested in? Unbelievable!

September is Library Card Sign-Up time month, a time when Rowan Public Library celebrates all the libraries have to offer, and the patrons who make it all worthwhile. This year we are celebrating the hero in all of us.

RPL is providing entertainment for all ages at each branch (headquarters in Salisbury, East Branch in Rockwell, and South Rowan Regional in China Grove) showcasing Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and more. Our super month will culminate Saturday, Sept. 30, at headquarters, where we will show a double feature of “Batman vs. Superman” and the newly released “Wonder Woman.”

We will also host a superhero costume contest that day — homemade, store-bought, little kids, big kids and adults who are kids at heart, capes, no capes, DC, Marvel – we want to see you get super.

Library Card Sign-Up month also features a contest to win a Kindle Fire. RPL, in conjunction with the Friends of Rowan Pubic Library, will be giving out 10 – that’s right, 10 – Kindle Fire tablets.

At each of our three branches, we will hold separate drawings for new adult library card holders, new teen library card holders and existing patrons in good standing. We will also award a Kindle Fire to an outreach patron. Each winner receives a free session with a librarian to set up the Kindle to access RPL’s digital resources. To enter, all you have to do is check out an item sometime during September. That’s it.

For more information about RPL’s Library Card Sign-Up month celebrations, visit www.RowanPublicLibrary.org.

Programs for children and teens on hiatus in August.

Solar eclipse storytime: Headquarters, East and South branches, Aug. 21, 10:30 p.m., a special storytime in honor of the eclipse. Then stay and see the eclipse. Special glasses will be given out while supplies last.

Solar eclipse: Aug. 15, 6 p.m. Kaylan Petrie of Discovery Place will do a presentation for all ages about the solar eclipse on Aug. 21.

Join us and view the solar eclipse at 1 p.m. on Aug. 21. Partial eclipse starts at 1:13 p.m.; total eclipse starts at 2:42 p.m. Free solar glasses will be given while supplies last.

Book Bites club: South, Aug. 29, 6 p.m. Free and open to the public. We discuss a different book each month and serve refreshments loosely related to the theme. This month is “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Need more information? Call 704-216-7731.

Friends of RPL and Cheerwine Concert Series: Logie Meachum, Aug. 29, 7 p.m., headquarters. Lorenzo “Logie” Meachum, a native of Greensboro and pioneer of the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society, will perform. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Free, open to the public; all ages welcome.

Displays: Headquarters, Communities in Schools and Anime Club; gallery, Waterworks Visual Arts; East, Glenda Hunsucker photography; South, golden bobbins textile display.

Literacy: Call the Rowan County Literacy Council at 704-216-8266 for more information on teaching or receiving literacy tutoring for English speakers or for those for whom English is a second language.