Observations from the front line

Thu, 03 Jul 2003 18:57:33 GMT

What’s up: Our electronic records came today. Now we can actually look up books on the computer. We don’t have library cards to sign folks up yet but they should be coming soon. We have a training day in a week and a half. Come in and try out the new online catalog.

Online link of the day: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/index.cfm the best travel site online

Recommended book: Eva Moves the Furniture by Margot Livesey is the poignant tale of a girl who is visited by benign spirits who guide her through her life. It is a quirky and touching read.

Coming events at the library: Humungous book sale July 4^th in the park.

Wed, 25 Jun 2003 17:13:17 GMT

What’s up: We have created a display of chilly books for hot summer reading. All of the books, both fiction and nonfiction, take place in cold climates. Perfect reading for a hot summer day!

Online link of the day: Forteantimes A website devoted to strange and inexplicable phenomenon.

Recommended book: Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks is a novel that takes place in 1666 England. Residents of a small village decide to quarantine themselves against the plague. A young woman in the village tells the story of a town united against danger that finally succumbs to fear. It is fascinating story based on a true incident.

Coming events at the library: 4^th of July book sale 8:00-4:00 on the green in Bristol.

Fri, 13 Jun 2003 18:11:49 GMT

What's up: This week I have been busy with computer installation, loading programs and troubleshooting four new, two old, and two old revitalized computers. We have two new computers at our circulation desks upstairs and down and two new public access computers. Two of the old computers are in the “shop” being erased and getting Windows installed on them so that they can be used as catalog computers. We will give the other computers away. But I spent an inordinate amount of time reloading programs and reinstalling hardware. The worst thing that happened was that our accounting program was wiped out so all of the work I had done since the last back up, on May 7^th, was gone. I had to reenter the information. It didn’t take so long, though. Next week the computer guy will be back and finish installing everything. People have been very patient with the glitches we have encountered.

Online link of the day: How Stuff Works is a cool site that tells all about how stuff works.

Recommended book: No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod is a wonderful rousing book about Scottish immigrants in Cape Breton. The family MacDonald is close knit and a little wild. I found the story extremely interesting because my grandmother’s mother was a MacDonald from Antigonish, Nova Scotia. I read the book a few years after we visited Cape Breton and it brought back that majestic landscape beautifully.

Coming events at the library: Sing-up for the summer reading program begins June 16^th.

Fri, 30 May 2003 19:04:53 GMT

Nowhere Else on Earth by Josephine Humphreys is a great book for anyone who likes historical fiction that is not run of the mill. Nowhere Else on Earth is about the Lumbee River community of Scuffleton in North Carolina in 1864. This community of Indians and inter-married black folks is ravaged by the civil war. The story is told through the eyes of Rhoda Strong, who has a Lumbee mother and a Scottish father. She is in love with a young man who is fiercely loyal to the Lumbee tribe and the community. The book is a fascinating story based more than a little in truth.

One of my favorite sites is Rotten Tomatoes. The site takes reviews of movies from hundreds of sources, gives each review a grade from 0-100%, averages all the grades, and comes up with a “freshness” meter. Movies with low scoring (bad) reviews get a rotten tomato, movies with good reviews get a fresh tomato. The greatest thing about the site is that you can search by tomato rating and other characteristics. For example, if you only want to see foreign films with a PG rating and a tomato meter rating of more than 90% you can get a list. The link to rating sites for parents is a great feature as well.

Thu, 29 May 2003 17:42:14 GMT

Happy (rainy) spring! It is good weather for our new gardens and our winter weary lawns as well as good reading weather. We have many new books purchased with our wonderful grant from the Walters Family Foundation. Some of the fiction titles added in the last few weeks include Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, The Pearl of Kuwait by Tom Paine, Birthright by Nora Roberts, and Only Child by Andrew Vachss. Non-fiction includes Vermont Farm Women by Peter Miller, Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghouls, and Unsolved Mysteries by Joe Citro, The Mist Grill: Rustic Cooking from Vermont by Stephen Schimoler, and Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafasi. Over two hundred books crowd the shelves that hold our new books. We have begun offering an e-mail list of new books to anyone who wants to subscribe. The first list will be e-mailed in June and will offer the opportunity for e-mail reserves for any books on the list.

We have also started a small but excellent collection of foreign films on VHS. I appreciate any suggestions for additions to this collection. We would like our video collection to be different than that offered by the video stores in town. We have many classics and musicals appropriate for family viewing. If anyone has suggestions for other types of films we should add to our collection I would love to hear them.

Our musical CD collection continues to grow. We’ve received a wonderful gift of a set of classical music CDs and books that outline the history of the music contained in the CD. It is a beautiful set and well worth a look.

Mon, 12 May 2003 20:05:05 GMT

Well, Mother’s Day has come and gone. The library has completed the first weekend of our plant sale, which will last for two more Saturdays. It is a big fundraiser for the library and a fun event for board members and staff. We have a nice variety of hanging baskets, shrubs, and perennials. We are still looking for donations of divided perennials to sell the next two weekends. I have to get out this week and dig some things up!

I am starting an e-mail list to send out a list of the new books purchased at the library each month. If you are interested in receiving a list of new books send me your e-mail address. I will send out the first list at the beginning of June. We are changing the way we add books to the library. In the past there has been a waiting period during which new books were at the library but not yet ready for circulation; people could look at the books and put their names on them ahead of time. Now books are ordered and on the shelf in just a couple of days. It will be difficult to know what has been added to the collection.

I am in the middle of Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor (Sinead O’Connor’s brother). I think I like it. It takes place on a ship traveling to America from Ireland that is full of passengers fleeing the potato famine. It is a bit melodramatic and contains an unlikely love story but thus far has kept my interest. I almost stopped reading because I have so many books waiting but am plowing on. It is quick.

Fri, 02 May 2003 18:03:41 GMT

I know, I know, its about darn time I updated this website! I’ve been scrambling to complete some projects that are due in May. Things are back to “normal” or will be soon.

I have been working with a committee of local folks on our second One Book, One Bristol project. We have decided to read Witness by Karen Hesse. The book is based on a true incident that took place in 1924 when the Ku Klux Klan came to Vermont. We are applying to have the author come to our town this fall. In the mean time, we need to get as many people as we can in the community reading the book. The novel is written for young adults but is a good book for everyone. It should generate some interesting conversations.

We started our free museum pass program yesterday. It is still a little early but we hope that the passes are well used. We have a great list of museums and historic sites included.

I am in the middle of an interesting book. It is called The Dante Club and is written by a very young first time author. It is about a group of Bostonians: Fields, a publisher, Oliver Wendell Holmes, (the son) a doctor, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet, and James Lowell, the writer, to translate The Inferno for the first time into English. Up to then the book is historical but becomes fiction when a series of murders based on Dante’s rings of hell begin to happen. I find it a challenging book because it is written in a way that is not how we speak, old-fashioned and complicated. But I am sticking with it because I want to know “who done it.”