You might have heard about the total solar eclipse that has been reported for Monday, August 21, 2017 in North America. According to USA Today, the “path of totality” will occur in 12 states, beginning in parts of Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and ending in South Carolina. Any given part of the eclipse will last about two or three minutes, but the entire path of the moon across the sun will take about an hour and a half to reach from one end of the country to the other. You will not see any part of the eclipse unless you are in path or close to it, so make sure you plan accordingly!

Here’s how the Aurora Public Library District can help:

Plan your trip across the country with the help from our Online Resources; more specifically, plan your trip with “A to Z the USA,” which you can access through the Online Resources page. All you’ll need to have handy is your library card and pin number. You can find information by state to state to plan your trip across the United States for the best viewing of the eclipse. You can also check out a copy or peruse a road atlas from one of our branches, or even log onto one of our public computers to print directions.

You can also check out the book Eclipses by Nick Hunter to learn more about solar eclipses. Impress your friends with facts as you’re waiting to see the phenomenon yourself. You can find out more information by reading the entry on eclipses in one of our reference encyclopedias. Or if you’d rather, you can go the Online Resources on the website and visit either the Britannica or the World Book websites for free to find out more information. You’ll just need your library card number to log on.

If all this eclipse talk has peaked your interest in all things outer space, check out our collection of non-fiction books beginning in section 520. We also have astronaut memoirs and true accounts of space missions beginning in section 629. We also have non-fiction DVD’s about space, like Cosmos. And don’t forget to check out the online Indiana Digital Download Center for more titles. If there’s a title you want that we don’t have, we’ll also be happy to get it for you via Interlibrary Loan.