If You Don't Have Time to Build a Tower...

Too many books? Too little time?

If your schedule doesn't permit the construction of an imposing tower or cozy cabin out of all your excess books, you may want to give them to NPL's Friends of the Library instead.

Their next book sale will be held on March 27-28, and they're looking for donations.

If you have books to donate, bring them into NPL during our normal business hours.

If their bulk and number threaten to overtake you, give us a call. There are members of the Friends who will come over to pick them up.

Please don't include textbooks, Reader's Digest condensed books, or books with mold or mildew in your donations. They just don't sell.

The Friends are hard at work, helping to raise funds to keep NPL alive and thriving during some very challenging times.

They're the best of Friends!

Back to Basics, 2009

Lisa. Lucinda. Librarians. Lovely, lively, literate librarians. Lots of library patrons have them confused. Occasionally it can be a tad embarrassing.

I can relate. When I was in high school a perfectly sweet girl called me Chris, even though my name is Lulu Dewey. At some point it became clear to me that there would never be a good time to correct her assumption. I accepted it as an opportunity to be someone else occasionally. Just what was Chris-like about me, anyway?


However, we are blessed with a Lucinda and Lisa, one apiece, who bear their names beautifully and fill them with possibilities that needn't be swapped or shopped around. After yet another instance of mistaken identity, Lucinda tossed me a challenge. "Write a blog on how to tell us apart."

Sometimes this job is a little too much fun, I thought. My first impulse was to employ mugshots. A distinction-maker with all the charm of a Wanted poster. My mind does seem to run in tacky directions, but as the results above indicate, I am sometimes indulged.

Tina Avery, our cataloger, and I tried to put our impressions into words. "Uh... Lisa lives north of here; Lucinda lives south. Lisa has long hair, Lucinda short. Lisa is a blonde. Lucinda's a brunette."

Blah, blah, blah. Dud City. Language has its limits when you're trying to describe these excellent women.

Both are funny, caring, compassionate, kind. They work together beautifully in an atmosphere of mutual enjoyment and respect. Both are Twenty-First Century techies, comfortable with the fast-paced changes that confront librarians in these times.

Should you be in search of an interlibrary loan, Lisa is the goddess of that opportunity. Lisa buys the fiction.

Should you want to discuss the direction of the library or discuss in depth the need for more hours or a smaller budget, Lucinda is your woman. Lucinda buys the non-fiction and the audiobooks.

But what most distinguishes these two is... um... themselves.


Got that? Now we move on to...Pop quiz! Match the librarian with the name below:

On the left:

On the right:

If you placed Lisa on the left, and Lucinda on the right, you're correct!

A's for everyone!

And a happy new year to YOU.

A Friend Indeed

As I write this our catalog system is down. We can't check books out, receive fines, renew materials, tell our patrons what books we do and don't have in, catalog new materials, among many other functions that are a part of running our library.

That is, we can't check them out by computer. We're checking out materials by hand, but we'll need to enter the data into the system, once Randy Witlicki is finished with it.

Also as I write this, I see Randy, one of NPL's best friends, hard at work on restoring this vital part of NPL.

Part of my job is coordinating the services of volunteers. Many of the volunteers predate me, Randy included.

Randy's pretty fascinating. Where did he come from? He reminds me of the Lone Ranger without the mask: appearing out of nowhere to do good for others. He has the habit of popping up when you need him the most, as he has done --yet again-- today.

Randy has a business, I know. He bails out lots of people in a refreshingly nongovernmental way. (Don't run up a billion dollar deficit, though...) He does very well, I am sure, because he's the Real Deal. His skill is enormous, his heart warm, and his humor rich. He's as reliable as June 21 daylight is long.You couldn't do better than to hire this guy to keep your systems healthy and happy.

But for some reason, Randy is the ultimate techie volunteer. We could never afford the many ministrations he gives to us.

I am constantly amazed by the loyalties our volunteers offer to our library. It's about the place the library has --and should have-- in the community. You help the library, you help lots of people by association. That's the thinking. It's certainly what we hope to be all about as a library--to be a great resource to the community.

It didn't take a phone call to bring Randy to us; he just knew to come. He's uncanny that way.

What a guy. What a gift.

Knock-Your-Socks-Off Altered Books

OMG, as the kids would say, but they're beautiful.

I'm talking about the Altered Books contributed by Upper Valley artists that continue to make their way to the library.

It's always interesting to see what an individualistic yet visionary cohort like artists will do when presented with a common challenge, in this case the re-creation of a book that might otherwise end up in a recycling bin.

This creation to the left comes from Mary Danko. A Book Has Heart is a moving tribute, and no small mirror of the warm and expansive heart of the artist. The lucky successful bidder will explore the heart of many of the things we love, and will have an object to treasure and share.

Consider, also, the beautifully crafted Carmina Ma, created by Kathy Cadow Parsonnet. This whimsical figure comes with her genesis, an accordian book wrapped in a little Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia, as gently witty as Carmina herself.

Among the many miracles are this, The Perfect Lady, by Jane Trigere. Remember those manners, morals, and basic skills books of perfect ladyhood? I still have a sister volume, Perfect Womanhood, from my grandmother's library. She, however, is pretty beat up and could use a serious makeover. Jane has done the work on her Perfect Lady, and elegantly formed sausage curls cascade from beneath her elegant chapeau. Better yet, the Lady comes upon her own pedestal the better to be admired by the fortunate lady or gentlemen who offers her a home.

How about the book as furniture? Consider this
nicely crafted effort by Tracy Smith, eloquently titled SIT. It's as attractive as it is witty. (It's currently on display at Helium Shoes, one of our sponsors, in Hanover).

These are just a few of the more than 30 offerings for auction on November 20. Do stop by the display cases at NPL's entrance for a preview, as well as at participating sponsors Canoe Club, Helium, and the Norwich Book Store. Then if finances and circumstances permit, join us at what should be a delightful gala for a one-of-a-kind purchase, either just in time for the holidays, or for your personal collection of creative celebrations.

Celebrating Beth Reynolds

That Beth.

I arrived one recent Saturday morning to find the remnants of her Friday night Read-a-thon-Sleepover... children in their jammies who'd stayed up all night to read a designated number of pages in exchange for some pledges, the better to help purchase more books for the Children's Room.

Beth Reynolds, NPL's amazing children's librarian, had been up all night with them, literate little maniacs that they are, steaming through a hot release, Brinsingr, by Christopher Paolini (no, that title isn't misspelled, but it sure looks funny). It's one of those huge hardcovers that looks as if it's for the big kids, but there they were, some of them close to polishing it off in a night. Her sidekick and assistant Peggy Ramel was right there with her, cheering the children on, helping to serve the treats, vacuuming the room once everybody had gone home.

This morning as I tapped away at my paperwork, I could hear Beth with much younger children (infants to 3 years) singing away at Wordplay, her weekly story time for them. I couldn't stop thinking about how very fortunate they were, and how lucky the rest of us are, for her ability to bring children together of all ages to create communities of young readers who can share the excitement of good books with one another.

A nanny who was new to the area came in to inquire about our story times today. "Are they structured?" she asked. Apparently she'd been to another library where all the kids did was to color.

I thought of Beth's storytimes, which are rich in oral language--songs, poems, finger plays. Good picture books read aloud with interpretation and enthusiasm. Friday's Lunch at the Library, for slightly older children (ages 3-6), a time of stories and crafts, each activity as lovingly prepared as a lesson plan, only without the pop quiz.

I nearly forgot the Friday afternoon group, Knit Happens (used to be Chicks with Sticks), a merry band of girls and women from the community turning out comfort dolls for children in Darfur, warm hats for kids in Afghanistan, and now tiny clothes for premature babies for the March of Dimes. Beth doesn't miss a trick.

NPL is blessed indeed to have this talented young woman, all hard work and inspiration, showing our community's children just how exciting a good book and good effort can be.

The Hang-Glide of Inter-library Loan

It's a system patrons used more than 500 times at NPL in the last year, and demand is on the rise.

That is, NPL patrons borrowed books from other libraries through Interlibrary Loan. Correspondingly, more than 500 patrons from other libraries borrowed books from NPL. The system, librarians from here and elsewhere, makes the relevance of the small, local library possible.

At NPL the process starts with a patron request. We scour our own catalog first, just to make sure that the book is indeed not a part of our collection, and then ask whether the patron would like for us to find it through ILL.

"Us" is actually Lisa Milchman, our ILL goddess (my term, not hers), and she performs this job masterfully. Lisa double-checks our collection, gathers more request information from a couple of data bases, which include entries from all registered public, school, and college libraries, and begins the process of tracking the book down. She then takes to the telephone or email to make her request and gets information on the book's availability.

"About 90 per cent of our requests can be filled from somewhere in the state of Vermont," says Lisa. The other 10 per cent will either come from out of state (recently from as far as Kansas and California) or ultimately be unavailable. It's the rare book that's unavailable.

Timing does play a key role, however. Books that have been in a library's collection for only three to six months can be in such demand at the home library as to be unavailable for interlibrary loan. In that case, some waiting is advised.

Once books are located and permission for the loan is granted by the sending library, the U.S. Postal Service steps into the picture. A book of average size costs about $2.25 to mail at the library/media rate. Books circulate for two weeks, with renewal possible, though not always. Renewal depends on the demand, or lack of it, at the home library. If a patron has requested it there, home it must go. It's best to call or email Lisa a couple of days in advance of the due date to request renewal so that she has time to contact the sending library. Fines for overdue ILL books are comparatively high, 50 cent a day, to underscore the importance that NPL places on holding up its end of the borrowing bargain.

There have been some recent bumps on the road to interlibrary loan efficiency. One is an increasing number of overdue books. "Interlibrary loans operate on a basis of good faith," Lisa explains. "We're trying to get back a book right now that was lent to us months ago, an older, somewhat rare book. We can't even contact the patron anymore. It's probably going to cost us about $50 to replace, and there's the feeling that we've let the sending library down."

Another of Lisa's druthers is that patrons who have found alternate means of getting a book they've requested would let her know by phone or email that they no longer need the interlibrary loan. "We don't mind the actual cost of a book that someone's going to use, but we'd rather not lay out the cost for something that nobody will pick up."

Altered Books: What to Make of a Diminished Thing

As we pursue sustainability in its many forms, there's something comforting about the development of the altered book art form.

Books, after all, deserve long lives. A friend of mine who has authored several major non fiction titles, told me about the fate of many remaindered books whose publishers haven't the space to store them: the dreaded shredder.

I am reassured, therefore, by the emergence of the altered book.

Taking books that might otherwise be consigned to the landfill, artists are creating new art objects from old titles, sometimes commenting artistically upon their subjects or themes. Take this artist's re-make of Whitman's Leaves of Grass; its blades are the lush lines of the poem, sprouting anew from the volume.

This emerging art form is the stuff of NPL's fall fund raiser, Uncovered. An impressive array of Vermont artists and writers have undertaken book alterations of their own. In November, amid glittery celebrations, they will be auctioned off.

Approaches to the alterations of books are as varied as the artists and the books themselves.

This is a form that is in the process of taking off. Go here to see the work of artists who work in this medium.

It's going to be fun to see what our local artists come up with.