A young band director at a rough inner city school, through hard work and inspirational leadership, transforms a run-of-the-mill jazz ensemble into a force-of-nature funk band that storms through all comers at national competitions. Thirty-five years later, the students return to pay tribute to the teacher and mentor who changed their lives. Sounds like a Hollywood heart-warmer, right?.  What if the movie was set right here in Houston?  What if it wasn’t “based on a true story,” but absolutely true?

Annually, on the anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's birth, the Mystery Writers of America announce the nominations for the aptly named Edgar Awards honoring "excellence in mystery." Prize categories include Best Novel, Best First Novel by an American Author and Best Fact Crime, as well as Best Juvenile and Young Adult Mysteries.

The list of past winners is chock full of above-the-title names such as James Lee Burke, Elmore Leonard and S. J. Rozan. So just because you haven't heard of some of this year's nominees, doesn't mean you won't be hearing a lot more about them in the future.

Update @ 2PM - The upgrade is complete and we have a temporary solution in place to help with the socket errors many of you have seen over the past few days.  A permanent solution should be in place by next week.  Thank you for your patience.

Our Digital Media Catalog vendor, OverDrive, will perform an equipment upgrade today (12/29/2011) at 10:30 AM to improve performance. This will cause an interruption of service that could last from 30 minutes to up to two hours.

We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

Beginning December 28, Cy-Fair College Branch Library will host a unique traveling exhibition focusing on President Abraham Lincoln’s struggle to meet the political and constitutional challenges of the most turbulent era in the nation’s history.

Using period photographs, posters, historical documents and artifacts--including the Bible used during Lincoln’s first inauguration, “Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War” explores how the president used the Constitution to confront three intertwined crises of the war—the secession of Southern states, slavery, and wartime civil liberties.