■Richard C. Carnes, chairman of the Northampton Conservation Commission, announced today that the commission has discussed using railroad rights-of-way as bike paths in the city. Carnes said a meeting would be scheduled soon with the mayor, conservation commission, board of public works, and recreation commission to discuss obtaining railroad path rights from Look Park to State Street for a bike path.
■The “Coffee House” at Threshold will be open on Market Street this Saturday from 8 p.m. to midnight. The coffee house has been organized by local teenagers to provide bimonthly and possibly weekly evenings of live entertainment for young people. Local musicians are encouraged to play at any time during the night in addition to the scheduled performers.
■Horses at the Three County Fair in Northampton never made it to the track Friday as steady rain washed out the racing schedule. The schedule now calls for ten races Saturday, eleven races Sunday, and nine races Monday.
■A crew from C-SPAN visited the Calvin Coolidge collection at the Forbes Library on Thursday as part of its ongoing television series on the lives of U.S. presidents, according to library Director Blaise Bisaillon. The crew spent about six hours filming in the collection’s second-floor room.
■Fast-moving plans to design and build two new community playgrounds on opposite sides of the city by the end of the year were unveiled at a public meeting Thursday. One playground is planned for a portion of Lampron Park next to Bridge Street School, while the other will be built at the new recreation fields complex in Florence.
■Prompted mainly by the need for more space at the University of Massachusetts and Smith College libraries, the Five College Consortium expects to begin construction next spring of a 2.5-million volume annex to hold lesser-used books and materials. The consortium plans to buy land for the project this fall.