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Cold and snow mean skating and sledding soon available in Naperville; city library named best in country by Library Journal – Chicago Tribune

With cold and snow in the forecast, the Naperville Park District’s sled hills will open for sledding and snowboarding and ice rinks should be ready soon for use.

Hills can be used when the ground is frozen, there is more than two inches of snow and no grass can be seen, officials said.

Rotary Hill at 443 Aurora Ave. is open until 10 pm and other sled hills close at dusk. They include: Arrowhead Park, 711 Iroquois Ave., Brook Crossings, 1015 95th St., Country Lakes Park, 1835 N. Aurora Road, Gartner Park, 524 W. Gartner Road, May Watts Park, 804 S. Whispering Hills Dr., Weigand Riverfront Park, 2436 S. Washington St., and Wolf’s Crossing Community Park, 3252 Wolf’s Crossing Road.

The park district also offers outdoor skating areas that will be marked with a green flag when they are open.

Ice skaters should not use the ice rinks if they are marked closed on the district’s website, www.napervilleparks.org/cancellations, or if there is a red flag flying at the rink, district officials said.

Three ice skating rinks are lighted and open until 10 p.m. They are: Centennial Park, 500 W. Jackson Ave., Nike Sports Complex, 288 W. Diehl Road, and Wolf’s Crossing Community Park, 3252 Wolf’s Crossing Road.

The ice rinks at Meadow Glens Park, 1303 Muirhead Ave., and Gartner Park, 524 W. Gartner Road, are not lighted and close one hour past sunset.

Ice skating is not safe on retention ponds in parks and neighborhoods because there may be dangerous thin or weak spots on the surface, officials said.

Naperville Public Library was named a 2022 five-star library by Library Journal and ranked best in the country in its expenditure range for the year.

The library has earned the five-star library honor 14 times since the award’s inception in 2009.

Library Journal rates US public libraries on their per capita physical circulation, e-material circulation, library visits, program attendance, public computer users, Wi-Fi sessions, electronic retrievals and website visits, according to a news release from the Naperville Public Library.

More than 5,350 public libraries were reviewed for the 2022 award.

“This year’s award is particularly meaningful because it is based off data from the 2020 calendar year,” the library’s executive director Dave Della Terza said in a news release. “During the struggles of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, library staff worked hard to ensure we were still able to safely provide services to the community.”

During the start of the pandemic, the library brought many services online and encouraged customers to use its digital resources, check out e-materials and attend virtual programs. It also developed a curbside pickup service.

The Arlington Heights Memorial Library and Skokie Public Library in Illinois were also named five-star libraries in the same expenditure category as Naperville.

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