tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62966833948956868212024-03-13T06:31:57.546-04:00From the Morrill Memorial LibraryOver a Decade of 535+ Newspaper Columns by Librarians in Norwood, MassachusettsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger585125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-40701202535586661942020-12-01T16:30:00.000-05:002020-12-01T17:14:39.238-05:00Eight Directors - 123 Years<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lhNESiPKC0s/X8Ykd_c_hVI/AAAAAAAAF5E/m0Se4ktah-QzKXNkt0iw-RcR0BO6CYrZQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1036/mmleglomise.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="618" data-original-width="1036" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lhNESiPKC0s/X8Ykd_c_hVI/AAAAAAAAF5E/m0Se4ktah-QzKXNkt0iw-RcR0BO6CYrZQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/mmleglomise.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>A few weeks after the new year
begins, I will box up the last of my personal items from my office on the
Morrill Memorial Library's second floor. The elegant 123-year old
mahogany-lined walls, nearly floor-to-ceiling bookcases, leaded glass, and
six-foot windows in the Director's office have been home to me for the past
twelve years. When I lived closer to the library (in Norfolk until 2012 and
Norwood until 2018), I would often drop in to the library to spend a weekend
afternoon. I spent many more darkened hours on weeknights surrounded by urgent
library work. Yet, any time of the day, I was satisfied in the interior light
of an institution that has provided Norwood residents with vibrant library
service for well over a century. <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Many times
over the past decade, I would rise from my chair in my quiet office, one in
which I had just spent hours at my computers on spreadsheets and memos. I would
glance around the entrance and tall wooden office door to watch the work of my
peers – those librarians whose commitment and perseverance always astound me. I
would smile at the morning gentleman or the group of afternoon mothers who
surrounded our jigsaw puzzle table, finishing yet another 1000-piece challenge.
I would hear captivated children sing and clap during yet another story hour in
the Simoni Room. I would listen to our tired, but dutiful grandfather clock
chime the hour. One of my favorite things to do was to lead visitors on a tour
of the second floor, as I pointed out the beauty of the stained-glass windows,
multiple fireplaces, and details of the 19th Century architecture. I never
neglected to expound on the generosity of the Morrill family, and I could
endlessly gaze at the beauty of this library given to the Town in 1898 in honor
of a daughter – a young Sarah Bond Morrill who died at the age of 23. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">In January
1898, when thirty-two-year-old "Jennie" Hewitt spent her first day in
the new Morrill Memorial Library, she was accompanied by one assistant. Both of
their salaries totaled a bit over $300 per year. Ms. Hewett came from Canton,
MA, where she had worked at the Canton library. Many libraries did not require
a master's degree in librarianship in 1898, and Hewett did not have one.
However, the Norwood trustees were fully assured that Hewett would triumphantly
lead the library through the end of the 19th century and into the 20th.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">And she
did lead – for three more decades. By the time she retired in 1939 in her
seventies, her staff had grown to seven assistants. The library's holdings and
circulation had increased by thousands, and the Morrill Memorial Library
possessed what might have been the first Young Adult (Intermediate) Room in the
Commonwealth. She was far ahead of her time, recognizing the importance of
community involvement and her own professional work outside of Norwood. Norwood
had weathered WWI, the Pandemic of 1918, and the economic crash of 1929.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Upon her retirement, the Daily Messenger, one
of Norwood's newspapers, awarded Hewett Forty-One Gold Service Stars for her 41
years of service. The townspeople saluted her, and the trustees regaled her.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">In 1939,
Edna Phillips stepped into Ms. Jennie's shoes. Edna was, perhaps, the most
professional and accomplished director the library has known. She started her
career as a librarian near her home in Edgewater, New Jersey. Dutifully, she
served in WWI from 1918-1919 in both France and Germany with the YMCA.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She returned home to continue her work as a
librarian in East Orange, New Jersey. Obviously, both courageous and energetic,
Edna was also intelligent and was awarded a Carnegie Fellowship at Columbia
University.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She came to Massachusetts as
the director of the Sawyer Free Library in Gloucester. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While working in Norwood from 1939-1962, she
was professionally connected across the country. She served on the American
Library Association Council and traveled to conferences in San Francisco,
Chicago, and Florida. She spoke locally across the Commonwealth and regionally
across New England at conferences and workshops. She contributed book lists on the
cultural achievement of the North American Indian and led seminars on immigrant
relations. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Unfortunately,
the Massachusetts Legislature abandoned the practice of delaying mandatory
retirement at the age of 65, and Ms. Edna was forced to retire at the age of 71
in 1962. In a tribute by the Norwood Woman's Club, it states that "for her
graciousness and serenity [she] is a shining example of effective
womanhood." Like Jane Hewett before her, Edna was a devoted public servant
and beloved librarian. When she passed away in 1968, she left a sizeable
portion of her will. In the library's renovation in 2001, the second floor's
reference room was dedicated as the Edna Phillips Reference Room. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">From 1963
to 1968, Charles Joyce was perhaps the most notorious library director, as
library directors go. His directorship was marked by finishing a complete
renovation and expansion of the library in 1964 – doubling the library's size
and moving the front door close to Walpole Street. He hired a staff of
master-degreed librarians who dared to move the library far into the 20th
Century. In the winter of 1968, however, Joyce and all of his professional
staff resigned over a controversy with the library board of trustees. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">In
September of 1968, Barbara Jordan from Pittsburgh, PA, was appointed director.
She was originally a Norwood native, and upon her return to Norwood, she
brought 35 years of experience to the library. Just two brief years later, she
retired from the library. Her achievements were acquiring a lending library of
art and a microfilm reader.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Virginia
Pauwels arrived in the winter of 1971 from Texas. During her tenure, she
published a short pamphlet which was a criticism of Henry Ward Beecher's
"Norwood or Village Life in New England." <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Norwood
was a fictional town of 5,000 in western Massachusetts, written by Beecher in
1868. Whether or not the Town of Norwood was named after this fictional account
is doubted by many. Pauwels retired in the winter of 1973 to take a position in
southern California. Interestingly, she had just attended a conference there
and missed the "vastness of the West."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Carl
Himmelsbach succeeded Pauwels as library director in the fall of 1973. From New
York state, Mr. Himmelsbach received his master's degree from the University of
Rhode Island and lived in Franklin when appointed. He and librarians in Dedham
and Westwood were instrumental in developing a library in the Norfolk County
House of Corrections. Himmelsbach oversaw enormous technological changes in the
80s and encouraged the expansion of the outreach program. With trustee Eleanor
Monahan, Himmelsbach developed the successful literacy tutor program that is a
now shining example in the Commonwealth. In 1988, he retired after 14 years of
directorship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Mary
Phinney had come to Norwood as the Technical Services librarian in 1971,
hailing from Amelia Island off the coast of Florida. To this day, Mary makes
Norwood her home. When she was promoted in 1988 to the directorship, Mary
quickly began work with the trustees to plan a major renovation project to the
building, then nearly a century old in 1988. Mary, the trustees, and the Town's
building committee took a modern 1965 addition, one that took away from the
beauty of the 1898 building,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and planned
a library that blended new technology and diverse collections with the
library's original classic architecture. Mary led the library through admission
into the Minuteman Library System. She retired in 2008 after twenty years of
directorship. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I take
enormous pride in the honor of having been the eighth director of the Morrill
Memorial Library in the past 123 years. My twelve year term of service in
Norwood was not the longest – nor the shortest. I followed seven other
passionate and dedicated directors - all public servants. I know that others
with that same passion will come after me. In a few short weeks, that new
director will be chosen, and his or her personal books, artwork, and
photographs will make the 2nd-floor director's office home to a new
administration. I am assured that this new directorship will be with the same
awe, passion, and dedication to serving the Town of Norwood.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-30163960185799126002020-09-17T00:00:00.001-04:002020-09-17T00:00:05.626-04:002020 and A Year of Wonders<p> <b style="color: #0e101a;">Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the September 17, 2020 edition of the <i>Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">After the library closed in
mid-March due to the Coronavirus, and when we were still in some disbelief of
what was happening to life as we knew it, I immediately reached for my copy of
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. Published in 2001, it became one of my
all-time favorite books. As I thumbed through the pages and thought about it
and other books about plagues and disease and death, I outlined a column that I
had due at the end of April. </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iteobRwYEfY/X1zwpMRS-4I/AAAAAAAAFzw/UbHm-uwSjykQlUxhn96kaIYU5cwAdzFoACLcBGAsYHQ/s612/Year%2Bof%2BWonders.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="612" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iteobRwYEfY/X1zwpMRS-4I/AAAAAAAAFzw/UbHm-uwSjykQlUxhn96kaIYU5cwAdzFoACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Year%2Bof%2BWonders.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">April was not a particularly
emotionally healthy time for me. I missed my place in the library. I was
energized only in fits and starts; I had seemingly comatose times when I merely
stared into space. I couldn't watch the news. My attention span didn't allow
for movies, series, or podcasts, let alone books. I rarely knit but nervously
surfed the Internet watching COVID-19s numbers climb around the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">Working remotely, my husband
and I navigated our home office spaces and our life as a couple. I baked bread
and roasted chicken, while at the same time leading the library staff in daily
(and sometimes hourly) Zoom meetings. I texted and called, preferring a
personal touch. I updated the trustees and town managers via emails. Those
missives barely spoke of the loss I was experiencing, communication that belied
a deep and profound grief for my place of work, my co-workers, and my normal
life. The only time I felt energized and happy were Tuesdays spent in my office
in a cavernous, nearly empty library.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">April was not the time for a
column on a book about sickness and death. I abandoned the topic and wrote
about the wonders of the library's virtual offerings. The staff had performed
miracles from the days before we closed through March through May. We hoped to
reopen, but we prepared to remain closed. It was a confusing, slightly
schizophrenic time.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">In the months that followed,
I mused about other novels of plagues that I'd read years ago: Stephen King's
The Stand, and Albert Camus' The Plague. I knew there would be another time
when I could consider writing about these novels in my column. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">Stephen King's The Stand is a
giant book – both figuratively and literally. The original I read was around
800 pages.* As a post-apocalyptic fantasy, it isn't a genre that I currently
read. However, in the late 70s, I remember being intrigued, committed, and
addicted to it. The story (or multiples of storylines) was initially set in
1980. King's novel follows numerous characters who are survivors of a
pandemic. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">The US government developed a
weaponized version of the flu, and its accidental release threatens the entire
world's population. The fatality rate is 99.4% within one month. Small groups
of survivors from various parts of the country form coalitions and new
societies that confront each other. Scenes take place in Vermont, Colorado,
Nevada, Nebraska, and Maine. *Later, in 1990, King released the uncut version
that was 1100 pages. I have one of those mass-market copies, a carry-over from
when I distributed free copies as part of World Book Night in April of 2012.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">There are survivors, and
King's dark book ends with some hope in the first version. Hope is doubted in
the extended version when crazy Randall Flagg survives an atomic blast.
Interestingly, a second miniseries (the first was in 1994) completed production
in March 2020 at the beginning of COVID-19 and will be aired this December.
Whoopi Goldberg is cast as 108-year old Mother Abagail. Alexander Skarsgård
plays Randall Flagg. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">Albert Camus' The Plague
(1947) is usually required high school or college reading. At 300+ pages, The
Plague is definitively shorter than The Stand. What it lacks in length,
however, it is abundant in meaning. Camus' plague has a double meaning – both
the pandemic that ravages the port city of Oran, Algeria, and the rise of Nazi
Germany and the suffering that was unleashed as World War II. Camus' The Plague
has many parallels in the Coronavirus pandemic, and it is an eerie read in
2020. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">The epidemic is denied as a
hoax. Shortages and hardships are endured. Death is rampant. The inhabitants of
Oran are quarantined for a year, emerging at the end, frightful and relieved at
the same time. However, unlike COVID-19, the outbreak is contained to Oran. In
fact, Camus' premise is that by working together, cooperation is achieved. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">
"What's natural is the </span><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/human-microbiome-and-microbiota-4146796" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;">microbe</span></a><span style="color: #0e101a;">. All the rest — health, integrity, purity (if you like)
— is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never falter. The
good man, the man who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest
lapses of attention." <b>Albert Camus in <i>The Plague.</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">In Geraldine Brooks' Year of
Wonders, a similar tragedy struck an English town in the 17th Century. War
correspondent and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Brooks, visited the small
English village of Eyam. While there, she was intrigued about a sign designating
it Plague Village and learned the plague arrived in the countryside in 1665.
After suffering a multitude of quick and sudden deaths, the village's residents
agreed to self-quarantine for 14 months so as not to spread the virus. With
little written record to go on, Brooks crafted a historical novel centered on
one line in one of the village rector's letters. Her book is the intriguing
story of how one bolt of fabric brought the bubonic plague and the horrors of
death and desperation to the mostly illiterate English town.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">In doing some research for my
column this week, I found that NPR wrote a piece on April 20, 2020, titled
"A Matter of Common Decency: What Literature Can Teach Us About
Epidemics." Not surprisingly, the article included both Year of Wonders
and Camus' The Plague. It also included a book I have not read. It is a science
fiction work and was published just one year before our experience with
COVID-19 began. By Karen Thompson Walker, the Dreamers is the story of an
ominous sleeping sickness that sweeps over a fictional town in Southern
California. While the book focuses on the psychological realism of the dreams
of its victims (one sleeping a year through an entire pregnancy), there are
prescient parallels to our own pandemic experience. The virus is airborne. A
community is quarantined. Masks are in short supply. Perhaps most visionary of
all is the description of one of the ways the virus travels from person to
person. Before the town is locked down, one last wedding is held. The bride has
the first signs of being ill:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">"Whoever
shares her lipstick that day, whoever borrows her eyeliner, whoever kisses her
cheek that night or dances too close or clinks her flute of champagne, whoever
touches her hand to admire the ring, whoever catches the bouquet at the end of
the night — all of them, every one, is exposed. This is how the sickness
travels best: through all the same channels as do fondness and friendship and
love." <b>Karen Thompson Walker in <i>The Dreamers</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">Our library has these books
in print and digital versions. They all have messages that we need to hear in
these difficult times. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: #0e101a;">"Here
we are, alive, and you and I will have to make it what we can." <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 14.1pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="color: #1c1e29; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Geraldine Brooks in <i>Year of Wonders.</i></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 14.1pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #0e101a; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-indent: 0px;">For a complete list of additional readings on epidemics and pandemics suggested by </span><a href="https://www.colgate.edu/alumni/attend-events/living-writers/living-writers-summer-reads/year-wonders" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-indent: 0px;" target="_blank">Colgate University's 2020 Summer Reads</a><span style="color: #0e101a; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-indent: 0px;">, click </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/17mA-XaapoHFuLcTtJ6m2HqESaB8pA96i8dot3gydLVQ/edit" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-indent: 0px;">here.</a></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e29;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-22974624003515253892020-05-28T12:27:00.004-04:002020-08-26T12:32:30.935-04:00Polio and the Race for a Vaccine<p> <b>Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the May 28, 2020 edition of the <i>Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-style: initial; font-family: lato; transition-duration: 300ms; transition-property: all;"><img alt="paralyzing-fear-documentary-cover" class="wp-image-14407 alignleft" data-attachment-id="14407" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"Charlotte Canelli","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1590348970","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Paralyzing Fear" data-large-file="https://i1.wp.com/www.norwoodlibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Paralyzing-Fear.jpg?fit=201%2C300" data-medium-file="https://i1.wp.com/www.norwoodlibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Paralyzing-Fear.jpg?fit=201%2C300" data-orig-file="https://i1.wp.com/www.norwoodlibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Paralyzing-Fear.jpg?fit=663%2C990" data-orig-size="663,990" data-permalink="http://www.norwoodlibrary.org/polio-and-the-race-for-a-vaccine/paralyzing-fear/" height="258" sizes="(max-width: 173px) 100vw, 173px" src="https://i1.wp.com/www.norwoodlibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Paralyzing-Fear.jpg?resize=173%2C258" srcset="https://i1.wp.com/www.norwoodlibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Paralyzing-Fear.jpg?resize=201%2C300 201w, https://i1.wp.com/www.norwoodlibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Paralyzing-Fear.jpg?resize=16%2C24 16w, https://i1.wp.com/www.norwoodlibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Paralyzing-Fear.jpg?resize=24%2C36 24w, https://i1.wp.com/www.norwoodlibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Paralyzing-Fear.jpg?resize=32%2C48 32w, https://i1.wp.com/www.norwoodlibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Paralyzing-Fear.jpg?w=663 663w" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; margin-right: 30px; max-width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: all 300ms ease-out 0s; vertical-align: middle;" width="173" /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The Coronavirus not only took us by surprise in winter, but we seem to have lost the spring. It canceled weeks of our scheduled lives: vacations, business trips, conferences, weddings, and birthdays have vanished in the confusing fog that has become enduring COVID-19. We are fated to remember these past two or three months, and more that will follow. How we first processed the news, what we lost and grieved, and where we socially isolated, will be memories we share.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">I was born in 1952, the summer that the notorious poliomyelitis epidemic approached its most significant number of cases – over 59,000. Of course, I recollect none of those first few years of life and how the terror of polio may have touched my family and friends. I have no idea if I received the Salk vaccine, by injection, in the 50s. I may have, instead, received the sugar cube vaccine in the early 60s. Polio only influenced my life minimally. My high school boyfriend’s mother was a 1952 polio survivor just after her youngest child was born. She walked with crutches due to paralysis caused by the virus. My stepbrother contracted polio around the age of 5 or 6 and had constraints of neck movement since surviving the illness.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Polio had been around for years before the 20th century. An outbreak of the epidemic in Vermont in 1894 resulted in 132 cases. In 1916 it struck with a vengeance, particularly in New York City, and specifically to children under the age of 5. Some New York City children with polio were isolated in sanitariums, away from their loved ones that year.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Outbreaks waxed and waned the next thirty years, striking without warning from June to September. Parents grasped their children close – the usual summer activities like birthday and slumber parties were abandoned if cases were prevalent. Playgrounds were sometimes empty. Movie theaters and swimming pools – normal activities for children of the times – were closed. Fear swept through cities, communities, and neighborhoods. In some towns, schools were closed in early June or remained closed in September.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">At the end of WWII, US soldiers’ return and the baby boom brought a surge in polio. After 1948, cases rose each summer by 5,000. In 1952, the summer I was an infant, poliomyelitis cases crested with over 59,000 cases. 3,145 people died in the United States. Survivors of the disease suffered long-lasting effects – 15,000 people a year suffered some paralysis from polio. Some lived in iron lungs, while others endured only limited movements of the neck or extremities.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">72% of polio cases produced little or no symptoms or resulted in full recovery. Accidental deaths claimed ten times more lives than polio, cancer three times as many. However, panicked and terrified parents, apprehensive for their children acquiring the virus, urged the government in the early 1950s to find a vaccine or a cure. Parents wanted to keep their children safe.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The story of the race to find a vaccine is genuinely astonishing and has parallels today in a rush to find a vaccine for COVID-19. And it involves the most prominent polio survivor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">FDR was 39 years old when he contracted polio on summer vacation on Campobello Island in 1921. He was paralyzed from the waist down and remained so for the rest of his life. It is debated that Roosevelt may have actually suffered from an undiagnosed auto-immune disease and not polio; however, what is not disputed is that President Roosevelt, in 1938 at the age of 56, founded NFIP, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">This private foundation became the March of Dimes Foundation and, with its 3,100 chapters, funded not only hospitalizations and treatments but rehabilitation for those struck down with the virus. The March of Dimes efforts raised millions every year in the late 40s and early 50s, eventually funding both the Salk and Sabin vaccine efforts. (Today, the mission of the March of Dimes is to eradicate birth defects.) Through NFIP studies, it was learned that there are three strains of the poliovirus and that it entered the body through the mouth and digestive system.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In 1943, the NFIP awarded a grant to investigate polio to Dr. Albert Sabin conducted parts of his studies of polio in North Africa. He returned home to develop a live or active vaccine containing forms of the poliovirus. This oral, or sugar cube vaccine was tested on millions of people worldwide, but it would take nearly 20 years to perfect. Eventually, Sabin’s vaccine became an effective one, but not before Dr. Jonas Salk developed the dead vaccine given by injection.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The NFIP pinned its highest hope and the most funding on Salk, a researcher at the University of Pittsburg. Americans desired a vaccine, and Salk focused on developing it quickly. Salk and his team worked around the clock on this inactive vaccine. In 1954, when I was just two years old, 1.8 million older schoolchildren called “polio pioneers” lined up for the trials of the vaccine (or the placebo) given by injection.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Less than a year after the experiments began, on April 12, 1955, highly anticipated news was announced to the world. It was the tenth anniversary of the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Salk vaccine was a success. However, it was not without a considerable hiccup – tainted vaccines, produced by Cutter Labs in California, caused polio cases and deaths. The vaccinations were halted at once, causing alarm and confusion. Eight days later, the US Surgeon General allowed vaccinations to continue under more rigorous control of manufacturing. And parents clamored for doses for their children.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Efforts to totally eradicate poliomyelitis have taken more than a half century to realize the eliminate the virus across the world. Type 2 of the poliovirus was eliminated by 2015. On October 24, 2019, the World Health Organization declared that Type 3 of the poliovirus had been eradicated worldwide. Only Type 1 remains a risk. WHO hopes that polio will be totally eliminated by 2023.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The library’s streaming service, <a href="http://www.norwoodlibrary.org/borrow/kanopy/" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Kanopy</a>, offers a 1998 documentary, <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3687952" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">A Paralyzing Fear</a>, narrated by actress Olympia Dukakis. It is an insightful and comprehensive look at the virus and the rush for the vaccine. The <a href="https://www.pbs.org/show/american-experience/" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">American Experience</a> series (available online at <a href="http://pbs.org/" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">PBS.org</a>) includes a one-hour documentary, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-the-polio-crusade/" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Polio Crusade</a>. It chronicles not only the disease and the vaccines but the fear that gripped the town of Wytheville, Virginia, in the summer of 1950, a community hard hit by the virus. <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Polio Crusade</em> is partially based on one of the most acclaimed books on the poliovirus and vaccine – <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2236995" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Polio: An American Story</a> by David Oshinsky (2005). Both that book and <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3563700" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Vaccine Race</a> by Meredith Wadman (2017) are available in Norwood and can be requested for curbside delivery as of May 26, 2020, during the COVID-19 closure of the library.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Delivery of physical library materials (books, DVDs, and audiobooks) in the Minuteman Library Network begins was halted in mid-March 2020. Until it begins again there are various other eBooks and documentaries about polio that are available online with your library card through <a href="http://www.norwoodlibrary.org/borrow/kanopy/" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Kanopy</a>, <a href="https://www.hoopladigital.com/" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Hoopla</a>, and <a href="http://norproxy.minlib.net/login?url=https://morrillma.rbdigital.com/" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">RB Digital’s</a> Great Books.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The polio epidemic, spanning more than 40 years in America, was a fearful time, not unlike the recent COVID-19 pandemic that reached the United States this past winter. While polio mostly affected those under five years old before the early 1950s, no one knew who it would strike. Like today’s COVID-19 epidemic, the race to find a vaccine with give hope that families could finally wrestle successfully against the disease.</span></p><p><b><i><br /></i></b></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-39816696825499813372020-04-30T21:29:00.002-04:002020-08-26T12:27:27.024-04:00Heists: Feathers, Maps and Works of Art<b>Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the April 30, 2020 edition of the <i>Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b><div><br /></div><div>Our library closed in mid-March due to COVID, but our librarians are still writing weekly columns for the Transcript. We directed our focus on writing about library services beyond the walls of the library building. In this unfamiliar, unprecedented time, we are reinventing our professional lives by working from home. We are committed to teaching our non-library users to sign up for a library card online.<br />
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We've shared our news about the Chat with Us box on our website that is staffed 9-5 on weekdays. (After-hours chats are addressed directly to our adult services librarian's email where they are responded to the next morning.) We are expanding our services with more robust 24/7 WiFi available in the parking lot. We are offering online book discussions, children's storytimes, and other innovative programs by way of Zoom, YouTube, or Facebook Live.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pJcUPEoQDdQ/XqY0edVAsKI/AAAAAAAAFlc/HdZTSKHlt18Yp5Y6d9LBRjAoXWZhbpC8wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/feather%2Bthief.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="132" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pJcUPEoQDdQ/XqY0edVAsKI/AAAAAAAAFlc/HdZTSKHlt18Yp5Y6d9LBRjAoXWZhbpC8wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/feather%2Bthief.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
In addition, we are focusing on the library's digital collection - books, audiobooks, movies, magazines, and music available through our digital services – OverDrive (and the Libby app), Hoopla, Kanopy, Flipster and our newest offering, RB Digital.<br />
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If you appreciate non-fiction crime and intrigue, I have three excellent suggestions for you that are available as OverDrive Advantage ebooks – digital copies that are shared only with Norwood cardholders. You won't have to wait in line with other Massachusetts library users outside of Norwood to check them out.<br />
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Two years ago, in the winter of 2018, I attended the American Library Association MidWinter Meeting in Denver, Colorado. As usual, I registered for a morning session of Penguin-Random House book talks. At these events for librarians, we are offered a selection ARCs (otherwise known as advanced reading copies, pre-press copies, or galleys.) These pre-publication copies are incomplete in that they need a final proofread, and sometimes a final cover design. Reviewers are always given copies of ARCs – especially those who will write comments that will appear on the back of the final book. Publishers do, however, always want to get books into the hands of librarians who are going to suggest books to readers. They are hoping that we read them with a great recommendation.<a name='more'></a><br />
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Flying to and from conferences with minimal baggage doesn't permit me to bring home much complimentary swag, especially books. But that morning, I jockeyed my way around the publisher's ARC table eager to grab a copy of The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson. The title fascinated me and the subtitle even more: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century. The bright cover with a plethora of blue, green, purple, and red feathers added to the book's charm. I tucked it, and a few others from various other publishing events, into my suitcase to bring home.<br />
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Fast forward to the winter of 2020. I'd acquired a final copy of the Feather Thief for the library that spring, but I never seemed to find the time to read my own advanced reading copy.
One day this past February, I happened to listen to an encore episode of This American Life that initially aired two years ago in February 2018. I sat in my car listening closely. You may recognize these so-called Driveway Moments: the times when you sit mesmerized by the topic or the speaker. Host Sean Cole, sitting in for Ira Glass, interviewed author Kirk Wallace Johnson.<br />
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Enchanted with the story, I realized that my copy of the Feather Thief sat unread on my bookshelves. I immediately searched for it, cracked it open, and began to read the sometimes crazy, always tragic, story of a heist of prized and invaluable bird feathers.
Author Kirk Wallace Johnson stumbled upon the story of this feather heist while he was fly-fishing in New Mexico.<br />
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As a young man he graduated from the University of Chicago and went on the serve in Iraq, where he coordinated reconstruction efforts in Fallujah. The son of parents well-versed in government service (his father served several terms as Illinois state representative and senator; his mother was a policy advisor), Kirk felt obligated to serve humanitarian efforts in Iraq. His first book, To Be a Friend is Fatal: The Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind (2013) is the account of how he managed to help thousands of Iraqis (Iraqi nationals assisting the US in Iraq) resettle in the United States.<br />
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Following a highly stressful decade, and the publication of his first book and subsequent author tour, Kirk was de-stressing and fly fishing when an exotic salmon fly in his fishing guide's tackle box caught his eye. Studying the brilliant colors and silver thread that intricately tied them together, Kirk's guide explained the beautiful fly. He assured Johnson that he would also be intrigued by the story of Edwin Rist, a notorious feather thief.<br />
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Rist was a young American flautist who was studying with London's Royal Academy of Music in 2009, not far from the village of Tring. An outpost of the British Museum of Natural History in Tring had a collection of rare bird skins and feathers, among them the priceless 150-year old collections of naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.
One night in June 2009, 21-year old Edwin Rist succeeded in breaking effortlessly into the museum, packing his suitcase with beautiful bird skins and feathers, and taking off into the night.<br />
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Amazingly, the theft went undetected until the next day when Rist was long gone back to London. Hundreds of bird skins (the epidermis of a bird complete with feathers) of Red-ruffed Fruitcrow, Spangled Cotinga, Resplendent Quetzals, and Birds of Paradise had simply disappeared from the drawers that had held then safe for decades.<br />
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Listening his guide's story, author Johnson was hooked. He spent the next five years researching, hunting, and investigating the heist and the thief, Edwin Rist. The resulting story in the Feather Thief is captivating - teeming with natural history, ornithology, child psychology, hobbyist obsession, the intricacies of fly-tying, and even women's hat fashion in the early 20th Century.<br />
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Rist was eventually found out, but many of the beautiful specimens were never found.
Two other digital books of thievery that you can check out with your library card are the Map Thief (Michael Blanding, 2014) and the Gardner Heist (Ulrich Boser, 2008). The Map Thief is the story of E. Forbes Smiley III, an erudite and proper map dealer turned thief. Smiley visited libraries where he was a trusted authority. Undetected, Smiley slipped maps from books, sometimes cutting them out with an Exacto knife. He pled guilty in 2006 to stealing the missing maps.<br />
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Like the feathers, though, many of the maps have never been recovered.<br />
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The Gardner Heist is another captivating narrative of intrigue and possibly obsession. Unlike the Rist and Smiley, the stolen Gardner Museum art has never surfaced, and the mystery has never been solved.<br />
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Please Chat with a librarian on our website if you need help registering for an online library card and introduce yourself to our OverDrive collection, and the Libby app, to check out these digital books.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-34391315500857099052020-04-23T16:35:00.000-04:002020-04-24T16:55:56.338-04:00Growing in a Fallow Time<br />
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<b style="text-align: start;">Kirstie David is a Literacy and Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the April 23, 2020 edition of the <i>Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VKO9ELL_IqY/XqNPNTIMr-I/AAAAAAAAFkY/-70dq-ufdu8bBl9u9vLenX1zuOlXTM2bwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/kirstie.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="350" height="227" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VKO9ELL_IqY/XqNPNTIMr-I/AAAAAAAAFkY/-70dq-ufdu8bBl9u9vLenX1zuOlXTM2bwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/kirstie.png" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The wisdom limned in the biblical book of Ecclesiastes – “To
everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven” – is common
enough to be known outside of religious circles. Through the thousands of years
that mankind has been engaged in agriculture, we understand that there is a
time when we plant seeds, a time to harvest, and even a time when the ground is
resting, fallow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Nobody I know put the precept of a time for every purpose into
practice more than my mother. She was a science teacher and was deeply dedicated
to the job. During the school year she would often follow a full day of classes
by offering after-school help, then grade homework, tests and lab reports in
the evenings. Yet she was also an outdoor person at heart who delighted in
summer breaks when she could work in the yard, cultivating her own wonderland
of florae. On rainy days when we were stuck indoors she made good use of her
time, bustling around the house and getting chores done. All the while she’d
cast glances out the window, waiting for her chance to resume playing in the
dirt. If just one fraction of the gloom lifted, she would take notice of it and
utter a favorite and oft-used phrase: “Looks like it’s brightening up out
there.” This habit said a lot about her. She was the type of person perpetually
waiting for things to get better so that she could celebrate that circumstance
and share it with others. <a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">While I haven’t yet achieved my mother’s level of optimism or
productivity I keep after it, even now. The midst of a pandemic might seem like
a counterintuitive time to look on the bright side. We’re isolating ourselves
from others, donning masks and gloves to go to the market, wondering about the
availability of basic supplies like toilet paper and holding our collective
breath to see just how bad the repercussions of COVID-19 will be. There is a
lot to endure. Yet focusing time and energy on the negative aspects of our
current situation doesn’t help. So why not put this seemingly fallow time to use?
In a world that’s been turned upside down, couldn’t we also turn on its head
the notion that seasons of growth and stillness are separate? We might feel
limited right now, but it could also be viewed as a time of opportunity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">For my part, I’m trying to balance some of the adversity of this time
with positive changes. Working from home has been a challenge, complete with
mastering new technology to tackle tasks remotely while we try to create a
virtual library to tide people over. Yet it has also imparted new insight about
workflow processes, and encouraged me to explore online resources and learning
opportunities that I hope will increase the knowledge I have to offer patrons. With
the closure of nonessential businesses in March I realized how much time I
wasted browsing, but not buying, in stores. Instead of taking that bad habit
online, I’m using the time to chip away at projects on my to-do list. During
this imposed renaissance of home-cooked meals, and in spite of the extra work
and dishes, I’m reminded how much I like cooking and baking. It has been like
encountering an old friend and having such fun you’re not sure why you fell out
of touch. On the topic of reconnecting, I’m meeting weekly for a video chat
with a group of college friends scattered from LA to the UK; I’ve also spent
hours on the phone with loved ones. Daily walks help keep my spirits up and my
weight down. I don’t know that these habits will survive our return to
normality, but I hope so. They’re serving me well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">While we are stuck at home, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with
binge-watching a few worthy shows. I’ve dabbled in a bit of that, myself. Yet
there’s only so much TV I can watch. I also understand that a lot of people are
pressed for time, working from home while parenting kids out of school, and are
more likely to be looking for a nap than a self-improvement project. They might
be better served by the short but sweet task of practicing gratitude. Why not
take a minute to notice the things, however small, that make you happy – and
then be grateful for them? I am no longer surprised to find that every day I’m
thankful for something. In a time of huge uncertainty, it’s funny how tiny joys
have taken on a magnified importance for me. I try to relish those moments I
feel positive; they help offset the inevitable dismay brought on by the news. Much
of my recent happiness is related to the weather, partly because of its impact
on my daily walks. I’m grateful for a bright sunny day when I can walk the
quiet streets around my house listening to the cheerful chatter of birds, and
for feeling not so alone when I exchange waves and greetings with fellow
walkers even as we cross the street away from each other to comply with
distancing. If the day is dreary (and many of them have been) I cast frequent glances
out the window watching the sky for signs of improvement, for the slightest
lifting of gloom so that I, too, can observe, “It looks like it’s brightening
up out there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Those interested in virtual resources for personal growth or
entertainment will be delighted to hear that the library is launching a new
suite of digital content including Acorn (British Film & TV), Learn it Live
and The Great Courses. Among many others, The Great Courses features subjects such
as baking, cooking, yoga, tai chi, mindfulness, birding, and even dog training.
Visit the library website and check them out! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-38180121575210259962020-04-16T16:26:00.000-04:002020-04-24T16:57:18.915-04:00Stranger Than Fiction<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(86, 86, 86) !important; font-family: Lato; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 400;"><b style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: normal;">Nicole Guerra-Coon is the Assistant Children’s Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her column in the April 16, 2020 edition of the<i> Transcript.</i></b></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #565656; font-family: lato; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VIt0nknQg9A/XqNM1UB6T6I/AAAAAAAAFkM/UiE9r2HwwvUmRAmVFUGLcKboKi1KNS06gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/them2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="199" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VIt0nknQg9A/XqNM1UB6T6I/AAAAAAAAFkM/UiE9r2HwwvUmRAmVFUGLcKboKi1KNS06gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/them2.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">When
I was going to college, I worked part time in an independent bookstore. I loved being surrounded by books and meeting
interesting people (like my future husband,) and most of my paycheck went right
back into the store. At the time, I was
really only interested in reading fiction.
I spent most of my money on fantasy novels - anything by Alice Hoffman,
classics I never read in school, young adult books, things suggested by
customers and more. I bought graphic
novels, and huge art books (that I didn’t always read), pouring over the images
with appreciation. With a 35% discount,
I felt like I needed to take advantage and stock up.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">At
the time, nonfiction seemed boring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
reminded me of a school assignment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
one day when I was shelving books, a book cover caught my eye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“Them”
by Jon Ronson, was a pretty unassuming book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The cover was red, with lots of text, and a picture of a guy who looked
uncomfortable, his posture apologizing that we even had to look at him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must have looked at it in passing ten times
before I finally picked it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
about this book was getting to me? Obviously the red cover stood out, but lots
of books have bright colors and more interesting illustrations. I finally took
the time to read the full title and blurb - “Them: Adventures with Extremists,”
a story of an investigative reporter who tries to follow up on the claims made
by various extremist and conspiracy groups that there is an elite, secret group
who really runs the world, known as the Bilderberg Group. I looked at this
nerdy, self conscious guy who was apparently brave enough to meet with some
strange and dangerous people, and I was intrigued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who was this guy? What did he find? I had to
make an exception from my usual purchases and find out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Instead
of slogging through the book like required reading, I found it more fascinating
than fiction. How could this stuff be real?! I was in my early twenties, and
though I knew generally about conspiracy theories around the moon landing being
fake and others, I hadn’t yet discovered the true scope of strange ideas out
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ronson meets with David Icke, a
former English football/soccer player, who travels the world lecturing on his
findings that many world leaders are actually lizard people in disguise. He
talks with people from militias, religious radical groups, and American white
supremicists, who all believe that there is a group of powerful men who are
pulling the strings to affect world events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Ronson
doesn’t make these people out to be cartoonish villains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He tries to take them at their word to start
off with, sincerely following them down various rabbit holes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ok, Ronson implies, if there is this group of
global elites running the world, then who are they? What do they want?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where do they meet? He asks for leads and
evidence, and then sets out to see what he can find.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remarkably, he does end up at some private,
exclusive meetings attended by some of the Bilderberg Group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are these people really the masterminds that
those groups believe them to be?<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Part
of Ronson’s empathic charm is his ability to find humanity in everyone, while
also admitting when he thinks they are totally full of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is not a Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo style
reporter with little to no fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
fully admits his panic attacks and nervousness when interviewing his subjects,
particularly antisemitic racists who believe in a plot for world domination by
Jews, all the more troubling for Ronson, as he is Jewish himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His anxiety and apprehension about this and
other prejudiced canards are palpable in his writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I
have become a fan of his, and have read most of his other works throughout the
years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may have heard of “The Men
Who Stare At Goats” - another investigative piece about the US military using
‘psychic warfare,’ that was turned into a movie with George Clooney and Ewan
McGregor. “The Psychopath Test” is a book that looks into the idea of
psychopathy, in particular who decides what a psychopath is, how do they do it,
and how should society handle these individuals?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” is about
online shaming and bullying, and Ronson has other books that are collections of
his articles from various publications.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">At
this point, deep dives into the stranger parts of human thought and subculture
are certainly not the only kind of nonfiction books I read, but “Them:
Adventures with Extremists,” was one of the first books that made realize
reading about things that really happened can be just as interesting as, or
stranger than fiction. Jon Ronson helped
me see that.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-24209193028245310052020-04-09T16:34:00.000-04:002020-04-24T16:59:04.697-04:00Books Take Me Away<b>Kate Tigue is the Head of Youth Services at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column in the April 9, 2020 edition of the <i>Transcript and Bulletin. </i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VnGFsKJXjVM/XqNRqQZqpgI/AAAAAAAAFkk/nJEzfBL3d_Aujsfrt7lSGM0-_x-I0ixHQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/PaperBirds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="986" data-original-width="1600" height="197" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VnGFsKJXjVM/XqNRqQZqpgI/AAAAAAAAFkk/nJEzfBL3d_Aujsfrt7lSGM0-_x-I0ixHQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/PaperBirds.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">When this article is published, I will
have completed nearly 4<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>weeks of staying
at home during the COVID-19 global pandemic, all while working and parenting
full-time. This time hasn’t been easy for anyone. These rapid changes in the
way we live, while necessary, have left so many of us anxious, lonely, and
pretty claustrophobic. I think I truly understand the sentiment of that old
commercial where the overwhelmed woman cries out, “Calgon, take me away!”.<a name='more'></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">In addition to all the concerning news,
so many of us have been transitioning to working from home. While the library
is closed to the public, the staff are doing our best to provide virtual
services and programs for Norwood residents. Reference librarians are currently
answering questions via the <u><span style="color: #1155cc;"><a href="http://www.norwoodlibrary.org/"><span style="color: #1155cc;">new RefChat
feature on our website</span></a></span></u>. Located on the lower right corner
of the library’s website, this new service allows our patrons to connect with
librarians to ask questions virtually while the library is closed. RefChat is
live Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. If you use RefChat during
off-hours, don’t worry! An email will be sent to our librarians who will reply
back to you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Reading has been one of my main coping
strategies during this time of upheaval. I’ve been using my Kindle and scouring
the library’s <u><span style="color: #1155cc;"><a href="http://www.norwoodlibrary.org/download/hoopla/"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Overdrive
and Hoopla apps </span></a></span></u>to find ebooks I can escape to before I
go to bed and audiobooks I can listen to while typing away on my home computer.
Recently, the library has increased the number of items patrons may check out
in Hoopla to 20 titles. Hooply is a streaming service with ebooks, digital
audiobooks, digital graphic novels, movies, and music available for Norwood
residents with their Minuteman Library Network card while Overdrive is a
service that allows users to check out ebooks and audiobooks like regular books
on our shelves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">For me, this is not the time for gritty
realistic fiction or grim murder mysteries. This is a time for escapism.
Fantasy and humorous writing are my preferred genres to transport myself
somewhere else from the comfort (confinement?) of my home or transform my mood
when I need a pick-me-up. I recently finished New York Times bestseller Sarah
J. Maas’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><span style="color: #1155cc;"><a href="https://minuteman.overdrive.com/minuteman-morrill/content/media/5066267"><span style="color: #1155cc;">House of Earth and Blood,</span></a></span></u></i> a
contemporary fantasy that incorporates magic, danger and hot romance into one
rollicking read. Main character Bryce Quinlan is a half-human,half-Fae seller
of rare antiques who gets drawn into the Crescent City’s underworld to solve
the murder of her best friend. The plot races along and requires readers to
suspend a lot of disbelief but the magical setting and characters are so enjoyable
that readers forgive some of the quirks of Maas’s writing style. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://minuteman.overdrive.com/minuteman-morrill/content/media/3865771"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Vita Nostra</span></a></span></u></i><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">, a Ukranian import by Marina and Sergei
Dyachenko and recently translated into English, is often described as a dark,
Russian version of Harry Potter. While this story does feature a young woman
who attends a special school and discovers she has extraordinary abilities, the
similarities end there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sasha Samokhina
meets the mysterious Farit Kozhenikov, the man in sunglasses who demands she
perform strange tasks for gold coins. Sasha finds out she’s been accepted to
the Institute of Special Technology, an unknown school in a backwater town
where the lessons are obscure, the books can’t be read, and teachers punish
students for the lack of effort by threatening their families with physical
harm. Sasha figures out how to survive in this bizarre environment while
excelling at her schoolwork. In the end, readers are left wondering if Sasha’s
abilities are only magical or can actually re-shape the foundations of reality.
This is fantasy for readers who need a change of pace from predictable genre
tropes and are willing to power through Russian names and a complex, thoughtful
plot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">If fantasy isn’t your thing and being
stuck inside with family is starting to get to you, perhaps stories featuring
dark humor will get you through staying at home. No one loves to poke fun at
his family more than the irreverent David Sedaris and <u><span style="color: #1155cc;"><a href="https://minuteman.overdrive.com/minuteman-morrill/content/media/504881"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim</span></a></span></u>
is a collection of hilarious stories featuring his dysfunctional siblings and
parents. Nothing remarkable usually happens during the course of his stories
but his observations about his family members charms and imperfections are
always funny but painfully relatable. Even if you are not an audiobook person,
listening to Sedaris read his own work is a treat that should not be missed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://minuteman.overdrive.com/minuteman-morrill/content/media/650438"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Where’d You Go Bernadette</span></a></span></u></i><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> by Maria Semple is a short, absurdist take on
suburban upper middle class America and what happens to a woman when she gives
up one dream for another. On the surface, Bernadette seems like a typical
stay-at-home helicopter mom. She obsesses over her brilliant daughter, shuttles
her from activity to activity and holds down the fort while her husband works
for Microsoft. Except Bernadette has never recovered from tragedies in her past
and is practically agoraphobic. She secretly loathes her life in suburban
Seattle and eventually escapes after a PTA disaster. Her family has to follow
her clues to find out what happened to Bernadette, past and present.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Books allow you to travel without leaving
your home. If you would like to use the library’s online resources but don’t
have a library card, you can <u><span style="color: #1155cc;"><a href="https://library.minlib.net/selfreg"><span style="color: #1155cc;">fill out
this application </span></a></span></u>for an e-card and get instant access. The
library is also facilitating the <u><span style="color: #1155cc;"><a href="https://norwoodlibrary.assabetinteractive.com/calendar/together-apart-book-group-3/"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Together, Apart book group,</span></a></span></u> an
online book group where people can join a Zoom meeting to discuss the books
they love and what they are reading. In a time when we must isolate ourselves
to protect ourselves and others, we still can go beyond our four walls and
connect with each other through books.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-86431566373494497962020-04-02T16:34:00.000-04:002020-04-24T17:05:04.690-04:00Your Library - Still Open for Business, Virtually<b>Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the April 2, 2020 edition of the <i>Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XBNyW6FLCr8/XqNUIGa-hqI/AAAAAAAAFkw/Yx6eEPZspmQXb1yOCgVhj4njqPEG2wRjQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Chat-with-a-Reference-Librarian.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XBNyW6FLCr8/XqNUIGa-hqI/AAAAAAAAFkw/Yx6eEPZspmQXb1yOCgVhj4njqPEG2wRjQCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/Chat-with-a-Reference-Librarian.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">Although
we may be reminded lately of the dystopian novel, The Stand by Stephen King,
the world has been here before. The 1918 H1N1 flu pandemic (also called the
Spanish flu) was the deadliest epidemic of the 20th Century. It spread
worldwide during 1918-1919 and was ameliorated by World War I and the crowded
conditions in the trenches on the battlefields of the Western Front. “The virus
traveled with military personnel from camp to camp.”<a name='more'></a></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/DIRECTOR/Desktop/Library%20Columns/Libraries%20in%20Times%20of%20Crisis.docx#_edn1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;">[i]</span></a></span></span><span style="color: #0e101a;"> In
addition, returning soldiers brought the epidemic across the Atlantic. More
American military personnel died of influenza and pneumonia during the war than
they did from the enemies’ weapons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">One-third
of the world’s population (or 500 million people) were infected with this
virus. 50 – 60 million people died across the globe. 675,000 of those occurred
in the United States. Norwood’s own historian, Patricia Fanning, wrote about
Norwood’s involvement during the pandemic (see From the Library Column </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;"><a href="http://fromthelibrarycolumn.blogspot.com/2018/09/influenza-and-inequality.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;">Influenza and Inequality</span></a></span></span><span style="color: #0e101a;">, September 13, 2018). Over 100 of the 12,000 citizens of
Norwood perished from that flu.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">To put
this into perspective, the U.S. population in 1918 was about 103.3 million
people. 6.5% of the population died in the United States. The population now is
more than three times higher.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">During
the pandemic of 1918, the Board of Library Trustees wrote in the 1918 Town of
Norwood Annual Report that the total circulation (books checked out) for the
year was down by over 5,000 items. “The decrease … due to the war work
activities and also the closing down of the circulation department of the
library during the severe influenza epidemic.” Due to the war, the hours of the
Library after January 13 were 12:30 pm – 8:00 pm. To conserve fuel and
electricity, there were no Sunday hours, as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">Regular
hours resumed in December after World War I had ended on November 11, 1918.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">As many
library users in Norwood know, our library closed to the public on Sunday,
March 13, due to the Covid-19, a virus that causes a respiratory infection,
sometimes deadly. Library staff members were sent home – and expected to work
from their homes, while minimal staff took care of technology and network
issues. Very quickly, library staff began manning a chat-with-a-librarian
feature prominent on our website. Reference and other professional librarians
became available for instant answers to questions from 9-5 every day that week.
(On off hours, the Chat application sends an email to staff who answer those
questions as soon as they can.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">Delivery
between all Massachusetts libraries ended on Monday of that week, and on
Thursday and Friday, a staff of no more than six people telephoned or emailed
library users who had books waiting on the hold shelf. A curbside delivery
service was implemented for those two days, according to Norwood’s Public
Health Department guidelines. 175 users were contacted, and 94 of them received
their items – 308 in total. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">Upon
Governor Baker’s stay-at-home order given on Monday, March 23, all library
staff have been at home communicating online through Zoom, on phones, text, and
email. Programming librarians quickly began presenting both children’s and
adult events – StoryTime with our children’s staff - Miss Kate Tigue, Miss
Nicole Coon, and Miss Dina Delic on Facebook Live at 12:30 pm in the afternoon.
Liz Reed, Adult Services librarian, held the first Craft Connection, and Patty
Bailey, the library’s book discussion leader, held the monthly Turn-the-Page
event in the evening. Both events were held on Zoom, a free remote conferencing
service that combines video conferencing, online meetings, chat, and mobile
collaboration. Nancy Ling, Outreach Librarian and author, and Kate Tigue,
Children’s Services Librarian, conducted a Google Meet split-screen interview.
A Together-Apart book discussion was held on Thursday night, March 26 and it
was a huge success. Many more programs are being developed as I write this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">Library
staff began Zoom conferencing each evening, to coordinate programs, solve
problems and share ideas. In between meetings, group texts have provided
instant communication and feedback.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">Unlike
1918, libraries are more equipped than ever to provide free digital services to
library users. While we have had digital audiobooks since 2005, and digital
eBooks, movies, and music since 2010, we have been investing in both the media
AND staff training since that time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">Libraries
in the Minuteman Library Network have been investing nearly a million dollars a
year in the OverDrive platform, also known as the Libby application. More and
more readers have found reading and listening on their personal devices
(tablets and phones) for the past decade. All OverDrive books and audiobooks
are easily accessible through the Minuteman Library catalog. In addition, there
are many titles of popular magazines available for download.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">The
Morrill Memorial Library has been offering magazines on the Flipster app for
the past few years and adding more and more titles. Flipster is a user-friendly
app – magazines appear much like they do in the paper version, flipping through
the actual pages. The Atlantic, Oprah, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Men’s
Health, G.Q., Real Simple, and Bon Appetit are a few of the many free titles
available. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">Hoopla
provides Norwood residents free and easy access to stream and temporarily
download thousands of movies, T.V. shows, music albums, audiobooks, e-books,
and comics. Kanopy is an online streaming service, much like Netflix or Hulu.
It provides access to excellent movies (many from the Criterion Collection),
independent films, foreign language content, and award-winning documentaries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">Of
course, in addition to all of the terrific streaming and downloadable options,
library users still have all of our database resources that have always been
available from home – Britannica, Boston Globe, the Chilton Library, NewsBank –
America’s Newspapers, Heritage Quest Online, and Mango Languages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #0e101a;">If you
need a library card to access all of these tremendous digital library
collections, you can quickly sign up online on our website. Check the How Do I?
drop-down menu for Library Cards. As soon as you are registered, the library
will open your world to a wealth of possibilities during this time at home. And
make sure you click on the link to chat with a librarian – he or she will
attempt to solve any problem you encounter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<h1 style="margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #0e101a;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: #0e101a; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><span class="MsoHyperlink"><b><span style="color: #4a6ee0; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/DIRECTOR/Desktop/Library%20Columns/Libraries%20in%20Times%20of%20Crisis.docx#_ednref1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;">[i]</span></a></span></b></span><b><span style="color: #0e101a; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <em><span style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif;">The U.S. Military and the
Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919</span></em>. PMC (Pub Med Central), Carol R.
Byerly, PhD. Public Health Report, 125. 2010.</span></b><span style="color: #0e101a; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-23419869734269453112020-03-26T16:34:00.000-04:002020-04-24T17:13:27.410-04:00Can a Book Heal the World?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HF1bZ4u5sUE/XqNVFnp1JyI/AAAAAAAAFk4/h3Xty--vFiMEgtaHl1v2ORiZEIFnFotZgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/image.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HF1bZ4u5sUE/XqNVFnp1JyI/AAAAAAAAFk4/h3Xty--vFiMEgtaHl1v2ORiZEIFnFotZgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/image.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HF1bZ4u5sUE/XqNVFnp1JyI/AAAAAAAAFk4/h3Xty--vFiMEgtaHl1v2ORiZEIFnFotZgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/image.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HF1bZ4u5sUE/XqNVFnp1JyI/AAAAAAAAFk4/h3Xty--vFiMEgtaHl1v2ORiZEIFnFotZgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/image.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HF1bZ4u5sUE/XqNVFnp1JyI/AAAAAAAAFk4/h3Xty--vFiMEgtaHl1v2ORiZEIFnFotZgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/image.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="905" data-original-width="1280" height="226" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HF1bZ4u5sUE/XqNVFnp1JyI/AAAAAAAAFk4/h3Xty--vFiMEgtaHl1v2ORiZEIFnFotZgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/image.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;">Kirstie David is a Literacy and Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the March 26, 2020 edition of the <i>Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">I recently read a remarkable book. Actually, it was an audiobook narrated
by the author, and once I began, I found it hard to stop. While not all
narrators are created equally I can confirm that this one is delightful; the
soothing cadence of her voice is like a lullaby for the soul. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass” should be required
reading. I mention this to everyone I’ve told about the book, and nobody asks
for whom it should be required. Maybe they assume I mean school children. I
actually mean it should be required reading for anyone who wants to live on the
planet. Hyperbole? Probably. Yet perhaps a universal playbook is just what we
need to heal the fragile ecology of our world. <a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The author is both a botanist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi
Nation, so her writing encompasses the dual lenses of science and indigenous
wisdom. This book opens with a short retelling of the legend of Skywoman, an origin
story of how the first people came to inhabit this world when one of them falls
from the sky. Importantly, her survival is possible only through the
cooperation of the creatures already here. Then, a reciprocal relationship is
established when Skywoman cultivates seeds she brought with her. Soon plants
and trees spread everywhere, providing an abundance of food for everyone. This story
establishes the major theme of the book: that it is through reciprocity between
people and the natural world and all its inhabitants that we can seek ecological
sustainability. When Skywoman arrives here she is pregnant; caring for the
plants of the land isn’t just for her own survival but for the future of her descendants.
So there’s a lesson, here, about thinking beyond our own lifespan with respect
to our environment. Surely this is a philosophy worth spreading. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">At the same time, the author observes an interesting point: that
Skywoman, the original woman, was an immigrant. She allows that some of her
ancestors are Skywoman’s people while some of her ancestors are the newer kind
of immigrant. The idea of all of us sharing the label of immigrant might prove
too provocative for some, but in this divisive age it is a generous and
encompassing idea, one that invites unity instead of discord. It also invites
connections between past, present and future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Another idea explored by the author is that of a gift economy versus
one of commodity. She notes that unlike purchases, which conclude with the
parity of payment, gifts create an ongoing relationship. A hand-knit pair of
socks from a relative might require a note of thanks and, for instance, and wearing
them during the next visit (even if you don’t like them) plus making a gift in
return. Some gifts cannot be bought, as with ceremonial sweetgrass. Kimmerer
tells of a friend who uses it for ceremonial purposes and although he is kept
supplied by people, he may run out at larger gatherings. He would then have go
to vendors and ask them for it; it can’t be bought or sold and still retain its
essence for the ceremony. The relationships created by a gift economy adds a
level of responsibility to each other that is absent from the equation of goods
bought and sold. Although we live in a market economy, Kimmerer’s message is
clear: to a certain extent, we make the choice to participate or not. She notes,
for instance, that water is a gift not meant to be bought or sold, and we can
choose not to buy it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Kimmerer has a talent for storytelling and she is nimble in weaving
together different accounts into a cohesive narrative. Her writing flows
seamlessly between tales from her own personal and professional life to the larger
histories of the indigenous people of America and the environment. Both of the
latter subjects necessarily address mistreatment on a massive scale, which she
is somehow able to tackle without making one feel overwhelmed and hopeless. All
of the stories are connected as, she would say, we are all connected. One delightful
example of her skill as a writer begins with the tale of an unproductive
fishing expedition made by her grandfather one evening in September of 1895 that
turns into his discovery of windfall of pecans. With nothing to carry them in,
he doffs his pants, ties the leg holes with twine and brings home an impressive
haul, despite the lack of fish. This anecdote flows into the origin of the word
pecan, requiring a brief recounting of how her ancestors were forcibly removed from
their lands three times in one generation. In their travels they encountered a
grove of nut trees of a variety unknown to them, and simply called them nuts,
or ‘pigan’ which became ‘pecan’ in English. Kimmerer then deftly steers the
narrative to botany by noting that nut trees don’t produce a crop every year
but rather follow a boom and bust cycle called mast fruiting. She explains that
concept and hypotheses about what causes this cycle but also notes that it happens
to trees as a group, not individually. Then, in the blink of an eye, she
carries the idea of the seeming solidarity of these trees back to the sad
history of how her people were divided and conquered by the offer of owning
property as individuals, when they might have taken a lesson from the pecans
and remained united.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">This is but one example of many wonderful story webs spun out in
Kimmerer’s book. Her lyrical language is the spoonful of sugar that helps the
science go down, for those concerned about that aspect of the book. Her writing
is also peppered with references to everyone from Lewis Hyde to E.O. Wilson. If
you’re looking to branch out, numerous books from both of those authors are
available in the Minuteman Library Network including E.O Wilson’s ”The Origins
of Creativity.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-69003704575698052202020-03-19T16:33:00.000-04:002020-04-24T17:24:06.329-04:00Falling Between the Cracks<b>Librarian April Cushing is head of Adult and Information Services at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column published in the March 19, 2020 issue of the <i>Norwood Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b><br />
<br />
I think I’m officially losing it. In this case, “it” refers to pretty much anything of importance I lay hands on. My mother called it carelessness. It’s not a recent affliction with me, but it may be getting worse. It’s definitely getting more frustrating. After my most recent episode, I realize I need to take action.<br />
<br />
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I come from a long line of losers. My forebears (by marriage) lost waterfront property on the coast of Maine by neglecting to pay the taxes. My immediate loved ones have misplaced everything from wallets to watches, cell phones to shoes, coats to cameras (remember them?). I managed to lose one of my few valuable pieces of jewelry—a single sapphire earring--at my daughter’s wedding in England last year. I beat myself up over that one for days.<br />
<br />
Not long ago I got a call from a recycling company in Ohio. Had I left a laptop on an Amtrak train to DC last summer? No, but the daughter to whom I’d lent it had, I discovered. I couldn’t even be mad at her because it’s exactly the sort of thing I’d do. My new friend at the recycling company reset the password and mailed it back to her in Brooklyn, gratis.<br />
<br />
A couple months ago I lost my keys. I lent them to one of my kids who borrowed my car and did, in fact, return them. Moments later I sped off to the Cape for the weekend in my trusty, keyless-entry Prius. When I pulled into the Harwich Stop & Shop and tried to lock the car containing my priceless (to me) pup, the key fob was nowhere to be found. I checked pockets, purse, on the seat, under the seat, around the seat. Nothing. But since I was able to restart the car by simply pushing the ignition switch, I wasn’t too worried. The key, with its proximity sensor, had to be nearby. When I got to the house I turned off the car, then immediately tried powering it back up. Upon hearing it purr to life I unpacked the Prius and figured I’d find the key in the light of day.<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Big mistake. The next morning, my no-longer-trusty vehicle refused to start. But the key was in the car last night! So I did the only logical thing—repacked the entire car and tried again. Still nothing. Had I lost my mind in addition to my keys?<br />
<br />
My neighbors got involved. Flashlights were produced and magnets deployed to search the groundcover by the driveway. Apparently starved for a challenge, they volunteered to turn my house upside down, which was more worrisome to me than the actual loss of the key. I ended up borrowing my neighbor Jen’s car and drove back to Norwood to retrieve the spare key which was, mercifully, hanging on the hook. I drove back to the Cape, refilled the tank, bought Jen a gift card for her generosity, and quickly tried to tidy up my house in case my well-meaning neighbors decided to pull a fast one. Being a loser can be physically and emotionally exhausting.<br />
<br />
With all the advances in technology, I wonder why they can’t design an app to find your…. fill in the blank. Like a universal Lo-Jack. The Find My Phone app has been a godsend, but why stop there? Someday such a thing will no doubt exist, but probably not in time to save me from myself.<br />
<br />
From then on, my spare key and I were inseparable. Pulling up to my house one day I heard a soft thunk from below. Again, I retrieved the flashlight and go exploring. And there it is, lying oh so innocently directly beneath the driver’s seat, taunting me with its presence. Dueling emotions flood in: relief at finally having found it and embarrassment at having to admit where. It must have slipped between the car seats and decided to come out of hiding only after we’d suspended the search. Why my Prius didn’t pick up the proximity sensor remains one of the Great Mysteries of Life.<br />
<br />
I enjoyed a few blissful weeks free of separation (from my stuff) anxiety until the monster struck again. This time, the missing item is gone for good. On the plane to Mexico last week to attend a time-share presentation in exchange for some dubious perks, I whipped off an entire draft of this column on the stresses of preparing for a trip. With the deadline a mere hours after our return, I was feeling quite pleased with my unusual lack of procrastination. When the fourth consecutive cloudy day dawned I broke down and stuffed pen and papers into the beach bag. You can perhaps guess where this is going. Putting down the engrossing memoir, “The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood,” by the New York Times White House Correspondent Helene Cooper, I reluctantly reached inside my satchel to start the editing process. The legal pad containing my deepest thoughts was por ningun lado--nowhere to be seen. Desaparecida, gonzo.<br />
<br />
Frantic calls to Lost and Found, Housekeeping, and a visit to the front desk to personally scan the list of found items (lots of shoes, shawls, an errant Nintendo), were in vain. Seriously, who would want to abscond with someone else’s chicken scratch? I wondered aloud. “No one,” my husband assured me. “I’m sure it got tossed.” It must have fallen between the chairs and discarded during the nightly beach sweep.<br />
<br />
There was some obscure comfort in the knowledge that no matter how diligently I searched, my beloved legal pad would never reappear. I pictured the crumpled yellow pages slowly disintegrating among the other detritus in a remote Mexican landfill, and then let it go.<br />
<br />
Determined that this latest loss would not be in vain, I vowed to mend my miserably, misplacing ways. Or at least try. Other than praying to St. Anthony, the saint of lost things, you can check out some helpful books at the library, as long as you don’t lose them. During the coronavirus quarantine I plan on perusing “Organized Enough: the Anti-Perfection’s Guide to Getting and Staying Organized,” by Amanda Sullivan. And if I don’t misplace that I might move on to “Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment—and Your Life” by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I’m particularly intrigued by Henning Beck’s recent “Scatterbrain: How the Mind’s Mistakes Make Humans Creative, Innovative, and Successful.”<br />
<br />
That last one might be a stretch, but what have I got to lose?
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-77159409043121295672020-03-12T16:33:00.000-04:002020-04-24T17:29:44.216-04:00Finding a Treasure Trove<b>Nancy Ling is the Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Nancy’s column in the March 12, 2020 issue of the <i>Transcript and Bulletin.</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
someone you love is suddenly gone from your life, there are obvious things that
you will miss—their captivating smile, their warm embrace, that goofy joke they
told at every family gathering. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not
surprisingly there are other heartaches that we cannot anticipate or measure—things
we never imagined that we would long for after a loved one passes away. This was
the case with my father. This April it will have been two years since he
departed and I am shocked at how quickly we have forgotten some of his
character traits and idiosyncrasies. For a while, I couldn’t find any
recordings of his voice, and I was distraught. Yes, I remembered exactly how he
would say “Hello Nana-Banana” when he gave me a hug, but I wanted to remember
more, each intonation. Thankfully, several friends and family members found
recordings on their phones that they shared with me, one even highlighted his
laughter which was a treasure to hear. <a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
reverse of this is also true, however. I have discovered memories of my father
that I didn’t know existed. In our family, we always called him the “Mad
Clipper” because he constantly cut out cartoons and articles from local papers.
He would hand these out to a particular person he thought would benefit from a
laugh or a tip. His clippings could range from a “Wizard of Id” cartoon to a “Consumer
Reports” article about the best dishwasher brands, rated and ranked by price.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Just the
other day I uncovered a notebook I had never seen before. The front is covered
with a variety of stickers: Tin Can Sailors, Retired Navy Pride, Association of
Naval Aviation (ANA). Inside I found a treasure trove—book reviews of his latest
reads, mostly related to the military service. He also kept correspondence between
his friends as they shared their latest “good reads” analysis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is
like uncovering another glimpse into my father’s life and his interests. He
read books that I would never have thought to read, and he took notes on them,
too. This discovery dredged up a memory, too. Every year when we headed to a
local Christmas tree farm, he made sure to exchange books with the owner. Turns
out they had both served in the Navy and had similar interests. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Needless
to say, I thought I might share these findings with you, dear reader. Granted,
these titles are older, but the good news is they will be readily available
since they’re not “hot items.” To be sure, you will quickly catch onto the
nautical theme of these selections: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2449063">Halsey’s Typhoon:
The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue</a></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin. As
if December 1944 didn’t have enough trouble of its own, this is the story of a
popular naval hero, Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, who “unwittingly sailed his
undefeated Pacific Fleet into the teeth of a powerful typhoon” later named <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cobra</i>. Admiral Halsey’s task had been to
maneuver two dozen fleet oilers to provide fuel for the aircraft carrier <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">USS Enterprise</i>. When hit by the typhoon,
three destroyers capsized. Any survivors of this catastrophe faced
shark-infested waters, seventy-foot waves, exhaustion, and dehydration before
rescue arrived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks to Lt. Com. Henry
Lee Plage, “who, defying orders, sailed his tiny destroyer escort <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">USS Tabberer</i> through 150-mph winds to
reach the lost men.” According to my father’s notes: “Weather reporting was few
and sketchy at best at this time. There wasn’t much warning of a typhoon. Ships
were low on fuel and couldn’t refuel due to high seas and wind. They tried
various methods and none worked.” Basically, hands’ down an amazing story of a
lesser known World War II event.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1437347">Master and Commander</a></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Patrick O’Brian. Many of our
library patrons love to read O’Brian and his acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series.
That said, I had no idea that my father was also a fan, at least of O’Brian’s
first book. In “Master and Commander,” the friendship between Captain Aubrey,
R.N., and Stephen Maturing, ship’s surgeon and intelligence agent, is
established. Set in the Napoleonic wars, O’Brian captures the life of sailors
and servants in Admiral Nelson’s navy. As a quotation from the Guardian reads,
“There are two types of people in the world: Patrick O’Brian fans, and those
who haven’t read him yet.” <span style="background: white; color: black;">I believe
it’s time to read at least one O’Brian story so I can also become a fan, or try
the </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2233210">Master and
Commander DVD</a></span></span><span style="background: white; color: black;"> with
Russell Crowe.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="background: white; color: black;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1882628">The Hungry Ocean</a></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Linda Greenlaw. Many readers
first learned of Captain Linda Greenlaw in “The Perfect Storm,” where her boat
the “Hannah Boden” was the sister ship to the fated “Andrea Gail.” In this
book, Greenlaw has adventures of her own during a month-long swordfishing trip
in the Grand banks. My father was impressed with this Colby graduate’s sailing
skills. He also took note of the average expenses of running a five person
fishing boat and the hardships that they face on a daily basis. In Greenlaw’s
own words: <span style="background: white; color: #333333;"> "If we don't
catch fish, we don't get paid, period. In short, there is no labor union."</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="background: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2305793">Ten Hours Until
Dawn: The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do</a></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Michael Tougias. I know my
Dad loved to attend local library programs where local historians like Michael
Tougias presented their latest books. I remember Dad sharing the story he had
heard about the brave captain of the pilot boat, the “Can Do,” who set out to
rescue the tanker “Global Hope” in the Salem Sound and the Coast Guard patrol
that was caught in the maelstrom as well. According to Dad’s notes, Tougias “did
a good job describing the main characters and their families and the results to
each of the loss.” That sounds like a win!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2102637">Dangerous Waters:
Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas</a></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by John S. Burnett. I can
understand how this book would have fascinated a retired Naval Commander like
my father. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As he wrote, piracy is still
a big problem for “whole ships disappear without a trace. Crews are captured,
killed, tortured.” In particular, Burnett focuses on an area between Singapore
and Sumatra called the Malacca Straits which is susceptible because “it’s a
narrow area and very busy and a highway of ships going to and from the far
east.” Amazingly, 25 ships per hour, 600 ships per day, pass through this area
and pirates have no trouble boarding them by “climbing up ropes, poles, anchor
chains etc.” Combine this read with the movie, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3125354">Captain Phillips</a></span>,
and you will be staying off the high seas for some time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1048734">The Good Times</a></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Russell Baker. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not too surprised to find Baker’s second
memoir on Dad’s list, since he also served in the Navy and grew up in the
Depression. I remember my father regularly following his column entitled “The
Observer” in the New York Times. Like my father, Baker spent his childhood
delivering papers in his neighborhood and finding humor in so many day-to-day
events. According to the “Library Journal,” “Aspiring writers will chuckle over
Baker’s first, horrible day on police beat, his panicked interview with Evelyn
Waugh, and his arrival at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in top hat, tails, and
brown-bag lunch.” Who doesn’t appreciate a man who brings a brown-bag lunch to
the Queen’s coronation?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">While Dad’s
list consists of book titles that I would not have picked out on my own, it has
been wonderful to add a little variety to my repertoire. I hope you think so, too.
I also hope you discover a treasure like this from your own loved one,
providing insight into their interests, hopes, and dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-42290743589270102422020-03-05T19:32:00.000-05:002020-04-24T17:30:39.609-04:00The Printers' Daughter<b>Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the March 5, 2020 edition of the <i>Transcript &Bulletin.</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;">This past week, I was
yanking some memento out of the bottom of a long-forgotten box, when a small
metal plate slipped out of a booklet. It was a three by one-and-one-half inch
engraved plate - a metal negative of a photo of my mother. I remembered the
photograph well. It accompanied an article in a printed newspaper or newsletter
published over a half-century ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KauTXuv_u6U/XlxVO1kiXQI/AAAAAAAAFg8/b5oUnHNIzFsYWSvcaBBwTBe46Y0G9upTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_8722.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="428" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KauTXuv_u6U/XlxVO1kiXQI/AAAAAAAAFg8/b5oUnHNIzFsYWSvcaBBwTBe46Y0G9upTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/IMG_8722.jpg" width="133" /></a><span style="color: #1c1e29;">In the early 1960s,
Mrs. Carolyn Fitzgerald had been elected to the office of President of the
Women's Auxiliary to the Typographical Union in Oakland, California. I flipped
the metal right to left and revealed an image of a beautiful, perfectly coiffed
young mother in her thirties. Flipping it again, of the metal plate exposed the
negative image of the same photo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;">That day, I was
reminded of the newspaper printing business that defined my childhood. In 1959,
my soon-to-be stepfather left his job as a typesetter at the Worcester Telegram
and Evening Gazette. He and his brother, Bill Fitzgerald, had heard there were
plenty of printing opportunities, particularly typesetting, in the newspaper
industry in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Like pioneers, they were the advance team, moving to the west coast,
getting decent-paying union jobs, and setting up apartments to await their
families. My mother, my brother, and I made the transatlantic journey from
Boston to San Francisco on TWA and settled into that unique college town called
Berkeley.<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: #1c1e29;">
The Berkeley Daily Gazette was published in a low, industrial building
in the heart of the city's downtown. From our home, it was only a bit over a
mile walk along tree-lined city streets. I remember my mother and I often
visited as a child with my younger siblings in a stroller. Few women worked in
the typesetting or printing press areas, as I recall. These were the fifties,
of course, when wives and mothers tended children and homes. However, wives did
drop by with children in tow. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1c1e29;">
The Gazette, of course, ran around the clock. Over the years, I remember
my stepfather taking the later 3 pm to 11 pm shift to make sure the newspaper
was ready for printing in the morning for delivery later that day. What I do
remember is that he left the house every day in our one and only
"automobile" to drive the short distance to work. He dressed in a
suit jacket and pants, white shirt and tie, and spotlessly shined shoes. He
changed into his perfectly-pressed work clothes as soon as he got to work. His
New England penchant for formality never wavered.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;">I was fascinated by my
stepfather's work, and it might explain my early interest in books, fonts, and
writing. The tiny tweezer-like instrument he held to pick up and place the
letters, spaces or punctuation mark, placing them in metal lines. I imagined
him lining up little letters to form words and columns. I've read since that
the centuries-old Letterpress printing of manually placing each space and
letter was abandoned to hot metal typesetting long before my stepfather worked
at the Berkeley Gazette.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;">The Linotype was
invented in the 1880s. Lines of type were composed using a method of entering
text (sometimes on punched paper rolls), and the machine forms letters in a
line cast into metal called a slug. This miracle of typesetting was never
explained to me. In retrospect, I realize that my stepfather and his team of
typesetters must have been placing these lines of type, and adding headlines
into the frames that became pages of the newspaper. In the International
Typographic Journal, Volume 64 (found on Google Books), the newest linotype
machine was installed in the Berkeley Gazette in 1924.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;">Meanwhile, in other
areas of the large newspaper composing room of the 20s to 60s, another
specialist, a lithographer, was creating metal plates of negatives of
photographs. The plates were then cast in rubber and set inside the pages that
were laid out on a large work counter. The sheets were finished with captions,
metal-lettered headlines, and linotype of thousands of tiny letters making up
the news. The smells of ink and metal, of leather aprons and machinery and men,
filled the air. A half-century later, I remember the noise of the presses in
the background as if it were yesterday. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: #1c1e29;">
The newspaper business changed drastically in the later 1960s and
1970s. New technologies forced
typesetters and lithographers to learn new trades that relied on other skills.
Phototypesetting replaced the hot metal with cold type. By the early 1970s, my
stepfather and his coworkers retired earlier than they expected, forced from
work by technological advancement. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"> Ironically, it was my homemaker mother, her
children growing up, who took phototypesetting classes and worked for a few
more years in the industry. A decade later, these skills were replaced by
computer drives, and her job, too, disappeared in the digital era. The rest, of
course, is history as newspapers closed and merged. After nearly a century of
publishing a daily paper, the Berkeley Gazette printed its last newspaper in
1984. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1c1e29;">
Every schoolchild learns that Johannes Gutenberg invented moveable type
and the printing press in the fifteenth Century. His invention undeniably
changed society. For the first time, people were mass consumers of information.
Five centuries later, in the 20th Century, we sent men to the moon, learned to
kill with mightier weapons, pushed medical milestones, and invented digital
technology. Yet, from 1439 until 1960, the printing industry relied mainly on
the manual labor of the printing trades to publish daily newspapers. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DupaIZ7SfOU/XlxVxVhidsI/AAAAAAAAFhE/ZdvntcZkjbAAUvBx9XuN-D8e18A0iZwuACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Gutenberg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="268" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DupaIZ7SfOU/XlxVxVhidsI/AAAAAAAAFhE/ZdvntcZkjbAAUvBx9XuN-D8e18A0iZwuACLcBGAsYHQ/s200/Gutenberg.jpg" width="137" /></a><span style="color: #1c1e29;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">
Last year, the Brookings Institution Press published From Gutenberg to Google:
The History of Our Future by Tom Wheeler (February 2019). It is a history of
that 500 years between the invention of the printing press and the revolution
of Google. It is also a story of technology that is moving at lightning speed
in the 21st Century. Wheeler's book describes the ways that communication
changed through the inventions of movable type to the telegraph, the telephone,
the personal computer, the Internet, and beyond.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #1c1e29; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> We're all too aware of the changes in the publishing business in the
last few decades as it has adapted to a digital and online environment.
However, the changes of the mid-20th Century were significant in the news
industry to the workers behind the scenes, those creating the pages for the
printing presses that worked 24-hours a day. We owe them a debt, along with
journalists, editors, printing press operators, and newsboys with making
information abundantly available through them - in what we all relied on for
the news.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">
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<b><i><br /></i></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-63855742703331601682020-02-27T00:00:00.000-05:002020-02-27T00:00:07.414-05:00Dispatches in Sandpaper: Send 20-Grit<b style="background-color: white;">Liz Reed is an Adult and Information Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Liz’s column in the February 27, 2020 issue of the <i>Transcript and Bulletin.</i></b><br />
<b style="background-color: white;"><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X1-GKn7GfO8/XlA0LKikMWI/AAAAAAAAFgc/I6cojoSY964rovTWo8sZVF2eHnGFgeXowCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Liz%2BReed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X1-GKn7GfO8/XlA0LKikMWI/AAAAAAAAFgc/I6cojoSY964rovTWo8sZVF2eHnGFgeXowCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/Liz%2BReed.jpg" width="150" /></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> When you buy a fixer-upper house, sooner or later you
need to start fixing it up before it can feel like home. And if you’re fixing
the place up on a shoestring budget, you find creative solutions and invest
sweat equity wherever possible. You start by checking the low-hanging fruit off
the punch list, tasks like spackling mysterious holes in the original window
frames, replacing lightbulbs, and gingerly tucking the porch door screen back
into its frame with a butter knife.</span></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> Next
you move onto jobs that are a bit more disruptive and take more time and
resources, but that go a long way towards improving the look of the house.
Painting is a great thing to do at this phase. Taping window frames and
baseboards is a time consuming precursor to painting, but is very much worth it
if the color of your paint is significantly different than the wood trim, if
you’re trying to preserve the natural-wood look of that trim, or if you’re
painting an accent wall.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The
painting step goes something like this: after taping, grab some paint testers
and throw some swatches up on the wall. Abandon the entire color palette and
get more testers. Commit to a color scheme and begin transforming the look of
your walls. Have so much fun painting that you decide to paint every room in
your house. Every. Room. Because it turns out that having one freshly painted
room makes the rooms that previously looked just fine suddenly look as dingy
and dated as a 1980s B-reel movie. Oh, and remember that wood trim you spent
hours taping? Well, that needs to be repainted now too, because the charming
antique cream suddenly looks like dishwater splashed at the edges of your crisp
and tasteful grey walls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Be
prepared for a few necessities to take priority along the way, like needing to
re-plumb a section of the nearly brand new furnace because the previous owners
cracked it and now it’s leaking. Also rip out the carpet almost immediately,
because on the one hand you have no idea how long it’s been there, and on the
other your cat has made it abundantly clear that she smells dog and she is
having NONE of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">If
you’re lucky enough to be surprised by hardwood floors under that nasty old
carpet and if you’ve come this far on your fixer-upper journey, then it is well
within your reach to refinish those floors yourself and bring them back to
life. And if you’ve been putting off refinishing the floors for several months,
give yourself a deadline by ordering furniture for those rooms that’s too big
to fit through any doorway except the front door.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">In
all seriousness though, when faced with the logistics of refinishing your own
floors, the project can seem huge and daunting. With a plan in place, advice
from experts, and more than a little moxie, the whole job can be done in a
weekend. To prepare for refinishing your floors, you’ll want to patch any
broken or damaged boards and pull out any lingering carpet staples. With a
hammer and nail punch, go all over your floor and pound down any nails that are
at or above the surface of the existing wood; refinishing floors yourself can
save a lot of money, but damaging the rental equipment on protruding nails
would be very expensive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Being
a DIY-extraordinaire, you may be tempted at this point to use a hand sander to
sand along the walls. I implore you resist this urge and spend the extra $25
for the room edger rental, since it will save you hours of labor and is really
fun to use. Also invest in ear protection, a set of cushy comfy knee pads, and
extra-strength Tylenol. If at all possible, try to find a local family-owned
rental shop to rent the floor sanders and refinishing accoutrement. Big box
hardware stores will also rent the necessary equipment, but by working with
professionals who have specialized in this sort of work for years you’ll get
expert advice and tips that make the job that much easier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Top
tip: if you’re refinishing a floor that still has an old stain and or finish,
and that also has mastic or glue from old floor tiles, skip all other grits of
sandpaper and go straight to the heavy-duty 20-grit paper. The person renting
you the equipment may advise that you can get away with 36-grit alone, and it’s
true that 20-grit paper is so intense that you really cannot let the machine
stop moving or else you’ll wear a groove in the wood, but good gracious does it
ever work like magic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">My
final advice is that even though the sawdust catchment bags on these industrial
sanders are actually quite good at gathering nearly all the sawdust, you will
need to dust mop your walls after the project is done. Also your windows,
baseboards, and ceiling beams. You may want to hang sheets over fixtures that
can’t be moved, and over open doorways. Other than that, have fun and make sure
you still have a way to get to the bathroom when the polyurethane is drying on
your beautiful new floors!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Luckily
the library has much more detailed and professional advice than mine when it
comes to home improvement and DIY projects. Though dated, “Grand Finishes for
Walls and Floors” by Matt Nikitas has indispensable sage advice like the sort
you’d get if your dad were a finish contractor helping at every step of the
process. “Installing & Finishing Flooring” by William Spence is worth a
look, as is “The Complete Guide to Flooring” by Black & Decker. For more
general home maintenance and DIY how-to’s, try “How to Fix Anything” by Popular
Mechanics, “The Complete Photo Guide to Home Improvement” by Black &
Decker, and “The Ultimate Guide to Home Repair and Improvement” by Creative
Homeowner. If you’re not quite ready to roll up your sleeves and are looking
for inspiration, we have tons of books about decorating, organizing, and refreshing
your space and furnishings, such as “Weekend Furniture Facelifts” by Helen
Carey and “Styling with Salvage” by Joanne Palmisano. I also highly recommend a
few DIY magazines available through Flipster, such as “Do It Yourself,” “The
Family Handyman,” “Better Homes and Garden,” and “Flea Market Decor.” There are
even more magazines available through the Libby app by Overdrive, such as “HGTV
Magazine,” “Country Living,” “Elle Decor,” “Good Housekeeping,” and “House
Beautiful.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Good
luck, fixer-uppers! As Red says in the classic Canadian comedy, “The Red Green
Show,” I’m pulling for you. We’re all in this together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<b style="background-color: white;">
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b style="background-color: white;"><i><br /></i></b>
<b style="background-color: white;"><i><br /></i></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-2912338042858075812020-02-20T00:00:00.000-05:002020-02-20T00:00:05.341-05:00Tomorrow’s Treasures<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Brian DeFelice is the Information Technology
Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA and </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">Anthony DeFelice Jr. is a retired U.S. Marine, antiques
dealer, and accordion player in Plymouth, MA</span></i></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">My father recalls the time he was in the middle of
an intense bidding war with another antique dealer over an item. He was in an
auction house in Acushnet, Massachusetts and was sitting in the way back of the
spacious barn that had been converted into an antique auction house. He was
smoking a cigarette with the other smokers (it was the early 90s that was
allowed back then!). Though he could not recall what the item he was bidding on
was, he remembers he knew he wanted it for his antique store, but was being
constantly outbid by another dealer who was in the front row of the auction
house.</span></div>
<br /><o:p></o:p>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KXdeiqlcJ_I/Xk2VWq1eXJI/AAAAAAAAFgE/skt7NZc1pFgL6OYdHo223Z8RbBIxraBmACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/BR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="131" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KXdeiqlcJ_I/Xk2VWq1eXJI/AAAAAAAAFgE/skt7NZc1pFgL6OYdHo223Z8RbBIxraBmACLcBGAsYHQ/s200/BR.jpg" width="130" /></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Meanwhile, I was in my usual stomping ground: the
kitchen area, watching “Big Bill'' the auctioneer moderate the bidding war
between my dad and the other bidder. I loved going to antique auctions with my
dad because the people at the auction house treated me like a prince. Everyone
was really nice and they would let me play with some of the (less valuable)
antique toys, and Big Bill would let me have a cheeseburger on the house. To
this day, my mom and I still talk about how good those cheeseburgers were. Big
Bill was a presence. He was loud and totally in charge of the auction that
night. I remember that for less valuable items, he would start the bid at $1
and would say “let’s start this bid at a bawk bawk bawk bawk” and start
imitating and clucking like a chicken. I was seven at the time, and this
silliness NEVER got old with me.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">My dad would not be outdone, but abruptly during
this bidding war, Big Bill yelled out “Tony, are you and your wife speaking to
one another?” My dad was totally perplexed; why would Bill ask this kind of
personal question in the middle of an intense bidding war?” Bill, in his
booming voice said “because you keep bidding against your wife!!” The mystery
dealer in the front row? That was my mom. They were bidding against each other
on the same item, and did not even know it. EVERYONE got a good laugh. Bill
said “Oh…and Tony” then slammed the gavel down, ending the bidding war “Your
wife wins!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Further proof that my mom always wins.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">My mom and dad opened their antique store,
“Tomorrow’s Treasures” on Billings Road in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1990. The
library was an important place to my dad back at this time, because it gave him
free access to books on antique items and pricing. This was of course during a time
before the internet was as established as it is today. To be effective in the antique
business at the time, you had to know what your items were worth, and this
meant a mix of doing your homework, experience, and, as my dad put it,
embracing the “thrill of the hunt.” He explained “I loved the thrill of the
hunt. Just going out and searching for items that were unique and different.
It’s so exciting when you come upon something special, something one of a kind,
and then owning it. The fun is that you never know what you will find, or where
you will find it. Sometimes you find it at yard sale, or an auction, or at flea
markets, you just never know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I hope you will enjoy the interview I conducted
with my dad about his experience owning an antique store in the 90s. The
Library continues to be a place of great information and resources for both the
professional antique dealer and those who are curious about antiques in
general. Be sure to check out the resources at the end of this article for more
information!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Brian: What inspired you to become an antique
dealer?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Tony: Before enlisting in the Marines during the
Vietnam War, I was an accordion teacher. When I got out of the Marines I
thought I would go back to teaching, but interest in the accordion had greatly
diminished after the war, so I went to work with your grandfather at “DeFelice
Movers” in Waltham. Though we were a moving company, we also doubled as a used
furniture store as well. Back in the 80s students didn’t dorm like they do
today, they group rented apartments, which meant our #1 customers were Brandeis
University students looking for affordable used furniture. Along with the used
furniture, I started to buy antiques, and I realized we could not keep the
stuff in the store! When your grandfather sold DeFelice Movers in 1987, I
decided I wanted to go into business. That's how I opened “Tomorrow’s Treasures”
in Quincy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Brian: Any particular items you were most proud to
acquire?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Tony: Your mom and I got this Hoosier kitchen
cupboard that was amazing. Most Hoosier cupboards were made of pine or oak at
the time. The one we owned was green oak, so it still retained some of the
natural green that was found in the oak it was made of. It had been done over a
bit, but the guy who had restored it was a true professional. I had found the
piece at the </span><span lang="EN"><a href="https://brimfieldantiquefleamarket.com/2020-brimfield-show-dates-brimfield-ma/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Brimfield Flea Market</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> and I
remember paying around $800 at the time. I loved it, but I was a salesman, so
of course I wanted to turn a profit. I recall a woman in Carver was interested
in it, so I put it on the truck and drove it out to her to see if she was
really interested. When she saw it, she just loved it and said to me, “get that
in my house and do not damage it!” She paid $1,500 for it, a $700 profit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Brian: Ah! Brimfield. I remember we used to camp
out in the back of a moving truck to go to that. Tell me about your experiences
at the Brimfield Flea Market.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Tony: I believe it is the largest, if not, one of
the largest flea markets in the U.S. Yes, we would set up a spot for about 4-5
days in a row, and as you remember, we would sleep in the back of a moving
truck. If you had the goods, there is no way you could NOT make money in
Brimfield. Your mother and I would clean the house in Brimfield. People would
come from all over the Nation to see your items. Because of this, you would get
people interested in items that might not necessarily be popular in New
England. For example, at the time, I found people from California were really
interested in “Empire Style” couches and chairs, perhaps because they were not
as common in the West. Also, some items had international interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used to deal with a Canadian dealer who
loved Mahogany sets. I had a solid mahogany dining room table that had about
4-5 leaves. The chairs had a Queen Anne style back style with buttercup legs.
There were about 12 chairs. He bought it on the spot. I guess Mahogany
furniture was in vogue in Canada at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Brian: Any advice you would impart on people
interested in the antiques business?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Tony: Never bid against your wife! (he laughs). You
start to learn a bit at auctions as you go to them, and realize that sometimes
the person you are bidding against might actually be the seller of the item
trying to up the price of their own item.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Let's say I put something into the auction for $200 but it’s really
worth $300. Let's say the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>item is about
to sell for $250 and I put in a bid for $300 to try to up the price, I would
bid on my own item, hoping to at least break even, or at best, illicit a
bidding war to make more money. Yes, it’s possible that no one else would bid,
and I would effectively have not only bought my own item, but would have lost
some money (during that time it cost $20 to put an item to bid) but it’s much
less of a loss than the $70 loss I would have incurred had it sold for $250. If
bidding set a max price in your head that you will pay for the item and do not
go over. Remember, the person you are bidding against just might be the owner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Some items might not be worth much to some, but are
worth quite a bit to a particular collector. For example I had a customer who
loved Elvis, but before the internet, you had to go to auctions, flea markets,
or stores to acquire Elvis memorabilia. She worked many hours, so she did not
have the time to go out and find items for her collection. If I found anything
Elvis related that I knew she did not have, I would buy it on the spot. She
would buy any Elvis collectable she could get her hands on. Some items have a
particular niche buyer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Brian: So, what ended up happening to the store?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Tony: We were in business for about 3 years, from
1990-1993. Your mom and I worked so so hard, but the store, in the end, was a
financial disaster. Times had changed and people were no longer as interested
in antiques. You could get something more modern looking (but cheaply made) at
a cheaper price. People become more interested in new things. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Brian: Do you regret opening it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Tony: No, not at all. First off Bri, if you don’t
try something in life, you will never know if you could have been a success or not.
Your mother and I worked hard, and we learned so much, but we also made some
truly great friends who made a big impact on our lives. What I lost
financially, I made up in friendships. The real “treasure” in “Tomorrow’s
Treasures” was the experiences we had, the thrill and fun of the hunt, and
especially the great people we met along the way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Ready to start your journey into the world of
antiques? Check out the following titles at the Morrill Memorial Library and
start your collection today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="background: white; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif";">-</span><span lang="EN"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2646960"><span style="background: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif";">Miller's antiques
encyclopedia ; by Judith Miller</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="background: white; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1221164"><span style="background: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif";">-The Kovels' antiques &
collectibles price list; By Ralph and Terry Kovel</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="background: white; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1891880"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">-The Magazine Antiques</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2424224"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">-Brimfield Rush : the thrill of collecting and the hunt for the
big score by Bob Wyss</span></a></span><u><span lang="EN" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-40830721072943907572020-02-13T12:38:00.000-05:002020-03-01T19:32:21.656-05:00Tales from the Swamp<b>Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the February 13, 2020 edition of the <i>Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you study a map of Florida, you'll see that most of the southern tip
is a remote green wilderness with few roads or cities. Except for that
significant development of cities and towns along both of Florida's southern
coasts, there are just a few east-to-west highways that connect Boca Raton on
the Atlantic to Naples on the Gulf. One of them, Highway 41, starts in a
downtown neighborhood in Miami and veers north at Everglades City, bypassing
Marco Island, skirts the Gulf Coast cities of western Florida, and then heads
north to Michigan. This Tamiami Trail passes east from Miami to the west and
north to Tampa. Along the Everglades, it is known as Alligator Alley, with one
lane in each direction. Alligators, commonly seen in the waters near the highway,
share this land along with hundreds of other animal and bird species.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HJT3EAsS04A/XkGX15QnrDI/AAAAAAAAFfc/-fT9VNMwD44lHhXXjx8r_iw6lqtFHLMuwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Marjory%2BSaves%2Bthe%2BEverglades.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="215" data-original-width="260" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HJT3EAsS04A/XkGX15QnrDI/AAAAAAAAFfc/-fT9VNMwD44lHhXXjx8r_iw6lqtFHLMuwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Marjory%2BSaves%2Bthe%2BEverglades.jpg" /></a></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A more well-known highway, Interstate 75, skirts the northern parts of
the Florida everglades and Big Cypress National Preserve. It travels through
Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve before it, too, turns north through western
Florida, before it reaches West Virginia forests and eventually crosses the
land between the Great Lakes and ends at the Canadian border.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most travelers take either of these two routes across the vast glades of
Florida. The hardier traveler, however, travels southwest from Homestead,
passing through Everglades National Park along State Highway 9336 and deep into
the swamp at the southernmost tip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those
riskier adventure-seekers can then go to the ghost town of Flamingo, or travel
along the 99-mile Everglades Wilderness Waterway. This watery land is also
known as the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Wilderness. It is only accessed by kayak,
canoe, and shallow-draft powerboats through a system of interconnected creeks,
rivers, bays, and lakes. It is recommended that boaters relying on paddles plan
eight days to travel – one of the passes is navigable only at high tide.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Florida Everglades was originally a 14,000-square mile expanse. Through
a series of diversions, the Everglades has shrunk to 4,000 square miles. The
1.5 million acres known as Everglades National Park protects the 20% of the
original area. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While
most of the America's national parks are established to preserve the beautiful
and unique geography of the United States (such as Yellowstone, the Grand
Canyon, Death Valley) the Everglades National Park was created to protect a
fragile ecosystem. Lake Okeechobee to the north feeds a river that flows
through the glades into Florida Bay. I had always envisioned the Everglades as
a dark and murky, wet and wild place much like a rain forest. Instead, I have
learned it is a flowing river and provides a perfect habitat for the American
crocodile and other reptiles such as alligators and snakes, the Florida
panther, the West Indian manatee, 350 species of birds and hundreds of types of
fish. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In 1882 the first plans to drain these Florida wetlands began as
somewhat well-intentioned uses for agricultural and residential development. At
that time, Miami was merely an eastern outpost. Once a land inhabited by the
Tequesta – a Native American tribe that occupied this area along the
southeastern Atlantic coast – missionaries and colonists were attracted to the
land and its long growing season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
railroad tycoon Henry Flagler connected the Florida East Coast Railway to
Miami, the population of the town was a bit over 300. After World War II,
Miami's population soared to nearly 500,000, similar to what it is today.
However, the northern and southern metropolis of Miami boasts over 6 million
residents, the seventh-largest in the United States. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fortunately for Florida, environmentalists intervened well before this
population boom to protect the vanishing Everglades. The foremost of those was
Marjory Stoneman Douglas.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many of us are familiar with the name Marjory Stoneham Douglas. On
Valentine's Day two years ago, a deranged gunman killed 17 children and adults
at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. That school
had opened on Douglas' 100th birthday in 1990. An elementary school in
Miami-Dade County is also named after her, along with a municipal building, and
a 15-minute orchestra piece, Voice of the Everglades. But, there is so much more
to attribute to Douglas, including saving the Everglades.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Marjory Stoneman Douglas has roots in New England that I never knew
until my Everglades reading began. While she was born in 1890 in Minneapolis,
after the divorce of her parents at age six she moved to her mother's family
home in nearby Taunton, Massachusetts. At the age of 17, she won a Boston
Herald prize for a short story. A stellar reader, writer and student, she left
home for Wellesley College at the age of eighteen and graduated in 1912.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Several
years later, after the death of her mother, (and a failed marriage to a
scoundrel named Kenneth Douglas) she moved to Florida. There she began writing
for a newspaper that her father published – later to be named the Miami Herald.
It was through her journalistic voice that Marjory began changing the history
of Florida.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Her early activism included women's suffrage and public health. Her
efforts turned to environmentalism early in the 1920s when she was in her
thirties when she joined the board of the Everglades Tropical National Park
Committee. In 1947, she wrote The Everglades: River of Grass, the essential book
written about the Everglades.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The story of Florida, the terrible mismanagement of natural resources,
the Big Sugar pollution of Lake Okeechobee, the rampant abuse of the land, and
the corruption of politicians, is a larger story than this column can begin to
describe. Yet, the work of Marjory Stoneham Douglas has saved a portion of the
Florida Everglades for generations to enjoy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you are interested in learning about this magical wilderness and its
rescue, read The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise
(2007) by Time correspondent Michael Grunwald.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In another great book, Liquid Land: A Journey through the Florida
Everglades (2004), author Ted Levin describes his many journeys through the
Everglades, with profiles of those who attempted to coerce or steal the
Everglades for development - and those who have worked to win it back. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you want a serious, and sometimes hilarious, account, read Hodding
Carter's Stolen Water: Saving the Everglades from Its Friends, Foes and Florida
(2005). It's a great way to begin an education into the story of Florida and the
abuse of its land, particularly the Everglades wilderness.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jack E. Davis' biography of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, An Everglades
Providence (2009), is a 700-page tome dedicated to the virtues and actions of
this amazing woman. In 1993, five years before her death at age 108, Marjory
was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor
granted by the United States. The citation read "Grateful Americans honor
the Grandmother of the Glades by following her splendid example in safeguarding
America's beauty and splendor for generations to come." <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A lovely children's picture book
biography will be published this September. Marjory Saves the Everglades will
be an important book to share with every young environmentalist. As Marjory and
other preservationists cry, "The Everglades is a test. If we pass, we get
to keep the planet."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e29;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-54899077867905770272020-02-06T12:42:00.000-05:002020-02-10T12:44:47.975-05:00New Year, New Me?<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(86, 86, 86) !important; font-family: Lato; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
In my last article, I claimed I avoid New Year’s resolutions like the plague. Now that we’re a month into 2020, I have changed my tune. My motto has also been “All things in moderation” and I think I can apply that to the “new year, new me” spirit of January. I’ve correctly observed I’ll never be the type to make a massive change on January 1st but I could be the sort of person who makes small changes which add up to a sizable difference over the year.</div>
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Instead of “resolution,” I choose to use the term “modification.” This term is less radical and scary than resolution and thus, makes my goals feel more attainable. I’m not resolving to undertake a new lifestyle, I’m just making a few adjustments to the one I already have. I also try to stay away from trends when considering little changes at the start of the year. It seems like the Internet is always ready to champion the latest health or diet fads along with the best way to organize your time, be happier, less stressed, a more effective parent, a better employee, etc. The self-help industry is booming and librarians certainly see this reflected in the demand for books on this topic. Librarians are constantly fielding requests for books on how to improve your life and updating our self-help collection with new titles.<a name='more'></a></div>
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The best way to make small, effective changes for me has been to reflect on any areas of my life where I’m dissatisfied and brainstorm solutions that fit into my everyday routine. For example, exercise hasn’t been a regular part of my life for an unhealthy amount of time. Instead of committing to a boot camp fitness class four times a week at 5:00 AM or challenging myself to run a half marathon by the spring or even purchasing an expensive gym membership, I realized I could fit thirty to forty-five minutes of walking into my life as part of my morning routine.</div>
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Another key strategy when modifying my life comes from the idea of always having a backup plan. In my example above, weather or other events or even lack of motivation could conspire to keep me from my daily walk. How can I keep myself from feeling like I’m failing to meet my modest goals even if I don’t walk in the morning? I was recently bemoaning this to a colleague when she reminded me of the power of Plan B. Having a backup plan if Plan A fails has allowed her to keep on track with her fitness goal of incorporating more physical activity into her days. If she fails to exercise, she can always pop on a short fifteen minute YouTube fitness video in the evening. It’s only fifteen minutes but it keeps her on track.</div>
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Aside from fitness, becoming more organized in my personal life is a major goal in 2020. I’ve often tried to keep daily calendars and to-do lists without much success. I’ve tried multiple apps on my phone and many organization systems that have failed me. Even though I try to stay immune to trends, I finally caved and started a bullet journal at the end of 2019. With the zeal of a convert, I can say my life has been changed.</div>
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Ryder Carroll, a digital product designer, came up with the idea of a bullet journal when facing the same problems with to-do lists as I had. A bullet journal is a flexible catch-all system for to-do lists, a planner, a calendar and any other organizational scheme you need for special projects. Mr. Carroll set up a notebook for rapid logging on tasks, events, and other thoughts that are categorized by a simple bullet system to let the user know what’s been done, what needs to be done, and what’s happening when. His revolutionary book, <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3774555" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Bullet Journal Method</a>, is a beginner’s guide to setting up this system to not only keep track of one’s life but also to help people focus on what is truly important in their lives.</div>
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Carroll sees bullet journaling as more of a mindfulness practice than just an organizational tool. By writing things down, we remember them more fully and by transferring tasks, dates, events, and thoughts from month to month, we hone in on what goals we want to accomplish. For people who are intimidated by reading the whole book, you can also set up an easy bullet journal for yourself after watching the five minute YouTube video available on the <a href="https://bulletjournal.com/" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">bullet journal website</a>.</div>
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Another small change I’m attempting in 2020 is to make improvements to my diet. I’m not going on a diet. Studies have shown that most diets aren’t effective and don’t help the dieter make lasting changes to his or her weight or health. I’ve noticed several things in my life that prompted me to make this small adjustment. As the household cook, I’ve realized that I’m in a dreaded cooking rut, the place where I find myself making the same things over and over again for dinner. Some of these items are healthy, some are not. None of them are inspiring anymore after being repeated week after week. I’ve also realized my diet has become more meat-heavy than necessary and lacking in fruits and vegetables.</div>
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I realized I didn’t need to pick up any new diet books to unearth different recipes and shake up my dinner menus. I already own a formidable collection of cookbooks that largely go unused and are ripe for rediscovery. I have started to comb through two old favorites, <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2643076" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Cooking Light: Fresh Food Fast</a> is helping find tasty recipes with fewer calories that still satisfy everyone. This cookbook also goes the extra mile and includes a side recipe with each entree to take the guesswork out of meal planning.</div>
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In order to focus on adding more fruits, vegetables and healthy grains to my diet, I’ve pulled out <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3217925" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook</a> by America’s Test Kitchen. This book focuses on recipes that put non-meat dishes front and center so you don’t feel like you’re eating a side dish for a main course. So far, the Poblano and Corn Empanadas have been a huge hit in my house.</div>
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2020 isn’t the year of the big change, it’s the year of the small adjustment, the fine tuning of an already happy life for me. I applaud everyone who can transform their lives by using January as a springboard to launch themselves toward positive change. But it’s not for me. We don’t always have to burn everything to the ground in order to start something new. The best resolution, after all, is one that you will stick with through the whole year.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Kate Tigue is the Head of Youth Services at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the February 6, 2020 issue of the Transcript and Bulletin.</em></strong></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-61176964818216780782020-01-30T16:26:00.000-05:002020-02-10T12:37:01.277-05:00My Journey to Not Motherhood<b style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Lydia Sampson is the Assistant Director/Technical Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read her column in the January 30, 2020 issue of the<i> Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b><br />
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The doctor slid a piece of paper across the table showing a line graph that looked like it represented a stock market crash- a jagged line rising, peaking, falling, then plummeting. The line represented my fertility. She explained the graph with facts, numbers and percentages, but the image of that nose-diving line got the point across. The doctor explained that if I did everything right- took hormones, tracked my ovulation, timed my pregnancy attempts carefully- I’d still only have a 5% chance of getting pregnant, and even if I did, there’d be a 60% chance of miscarriage.</div>
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Preliminary tests showed nothing physically wrong with me or my husband. The doctor was essentially telling me I couldn’t have kids because I was just too old. I quickly learned that telling people about the prognosis only made me feel worse. Suddenly everyone had encouraging words about women bearing children late in life. Everyone knew somebody in their mid-forties who had a healthy baby, or someone diagnosed as infertile who wasn’t after all, or a couple who began the process of adoption only to get pregnant soon after. Good for all of those people, I thought, but what about the women who received similar news to mine, and did not go on to have a “miracle” child? I could not count on being one to defy the odds.<a name='more'></a></div>
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In vitro fertilization (IVF), I learned, can cost tens of thousands of dollars and you don’t get a refund if it doesn’t work. Sure, you can’t put a price on your future child’s existence, but librarianship didn’t make me a millionaire, and I could not afford to gamble on getting pregnant through IVF. At that point when I told people about my plight, I started hearing four words I grew to hate even more than those about the miracle babies: “You can always adopt.” Not “usually,” not “potentially,” not “hopefully,” but “<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">always.”</em></div>
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I already felt like a failure because my body could no longer do what the female of the species is supposed to. Now on top of this I was coming to terms with harsh realities and discovering that in a world where “you can always adopt,” my life was in such disarray that I, indeed, could not. I researched adoption options: international, domestic, private, and public through the foster care system. As explained in the UMASS Amherst Center for Adoption Research’s, <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1956905" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Adopting in Massachusetts</a>, any adoption requires a homestudy and approval by a social worker. According to the book <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2662148" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">You Can Adopt</a>, over 90% of prospective parents receive the stamp of approval, but certain factors that signal potential inability to care for a child could rule a couple out.</div>
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Truth be told, I did not have a stable home. My husband was in and out of the hospital and the future looked uncertain. Thank goodness the state does not allow just anyone to adopt. Children, especially those already traumatized by birth-family problems and institutional care, need as much stability and security as possible, and in all honesty, I could not provide this. Well-meaning folks again shared stories of unlikely successes. Everyone knew someone who adopted in spite of their age, health, marital status or other factors. But I did not intend to sugarcoat the circumstances to a social worker, trying to make my home life seem less chaotic than it was, or stubbornly persist in getting a child no matter what. The foray into adoption served as a wakeup call. Even though plenty of irresponsible people have children every day, I decided it would be wrong to go out of my way to bring one into my volatile life on purpose.</div>
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It took time to accept the new reality and reject the magical thinking others had foist upon me. Going forward I would reluctantly identify as “childless,” which felt pathetic in a world that venerates motherhood, or “child free,” which seemed like a snub toward adults burdened by parenthood and unable to bask in some alleged freedom I must be experiencing. I joined a support group started by Jody Day, author of <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3846835" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Living the Life Unexpected: 12 Weeks to Your Plan B for a Meaningful and Fulfilling Future Without Children</a><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">,</em> and settled on referring to myself as “childless not necessarily by choice.” I met a spectrum of women: some who never wanted kids but found it frustrating navigating life in a society that expects women to become moms, and others whose biology or partnerships thwarted their chances of motherhood.</div>
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The best thing the support group offered was a forum for speaking openly about shared experiences. We discussed the dread of going to baby showers, the jealousy we had to hide upon hearing of someone else’s pregnancy, and the frustration of never being taken seriously on topics related to parenting. My childless-by-choice friends tended to revel in the liberty that such a lifestyle avails, and I do appreciate the freedom to travel, stay out late, and make spontaneous decisions without needing to coordinate with a babysitter, however I felt like I was in mourning and not ready to celebrate just yet. My loved ones who had kids tried to elevate me as an honorary part of their families- an Auntie to their kids- but this didn’t help. The other childless-not-necessarily-by-choice women were the people who validated my feelings, and could simply say “I get it, and I’m sorry.”</div>
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Ultimately, I experienced a trauma, and recovering from it came from living through it, not being convinced that it didn’t really happen or it wasn’t that bad. We don’t tell people going through a divorce not to worry because the spouse who left will change their mind, or tell people grieving a death that they are better off without the deceased. I had to take time to heal, and still haven’t finished. I stopped going to the support group, but now frequent the website <a href="https://www.thenotmom.com/" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Not Mom</a> for a sense of belonging among childless women “by choice or by chance.” The website includes an excellent list of books, ranging from the contemplative (<a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3138961" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Otherhood: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness</a>) to the humorous (<a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3058222" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids</a>, by Jen Kirkman). The Minuteman Library network has most of the books on the <a href="https://www.thenotmom.com/resources" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Not Mom list</a> available to borrow in print, audio, or e-book format.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Lydia Sampson is the Assistant Director at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the January 30, 2020 issue of the Transcript and Bulletin.</em></strong></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-52523614050422895532020-01-23T15:21:00.000-05:002020-02-10T12:29:41.580-05:00“IF:” Intermittent Fasting… The Last Best Thing<b>Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the January 23, 2020 edition of the <i>Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p7a9_tjs6DE/XkGRe8IB4lI/AAAAAAAAFek/3EFhEsauF38mlYCW1SfT1aUcicVuB5csACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/intermittent-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="197" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p7a9_tjs6DE/XkGRe8IB4lI/AAAAAAAAFek/3EFhEsauF38mlYCW1SfT1aUcicVuB5csACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/intermittent-1.jpg" /></a>I first heard about IF in the workplace. A colleague had dropped a significant amount of weight in less than a year, and I was intrigued. When this colleague told me about IF, I was dubious, but, results speak for themselves. Still, I hesitated. Going hours without eating… could I do that? I was just embarking upon a short trip to Sandwich (ha, ha) in September of this year, and while there I visited the Sandwich Library (of course). As I was entering, I saw that they were having an annual book sale. For some reason, the thought went through my mind, “If Intermittent Fasting (IF) is for me, I will find a book for $1.00 on it.” Impossible, right? Not so. I discovered <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3493663" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The FastDiet</a> (updated in 2015) by Dr. Michael Mosely and Mimi Spencer.<br />
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In this particular book, the authors acknowledge the benefits of fasting, but did not want to live a permanently restrictive lifestyle; thus the 5:2 Diet was born… fasting 2 days (eating only 500 calories) and eating normally the other 5. I tried this, but like many others, I found eating 500 calories on the 2 days too difficult. I seemed to be too focused on food and hunger- exactly the opposite of what I wanted. I wanted to find out more about the many other IF options available. My colleague directed me to Dr. Jason Fung and his landmark book, <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3493560" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Obesity Code</a> (2016).</div>
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Dr. Fung recommends fasting completely on the fasting days- what is called a “clean fast.” This means you drink only black tea and coffee, and consume only plain seltzer, mineral water, etc. I have found, in my short experience, that this is much easier to do than to have only 500 calories on a fast day. This book outlines the ins and outs of a fasting lifestyle, including all the possible benefits. Not only will one reach a healthy weight and maintain it, but you can also expect to have more energy, feel physically better, and stave off any number of age-related diseases (including pre-diabetes and Type 2 diabetes), and IF sharpens your senses and your brain. Dr. Fung explains how the body is more like a thermostat than a scale, and that it is actually certain hormones that dictate a person’s set point weight, and whether they lose or gain weight. Dr. Fung’s main point is that our bodies’ ability to lose (or gain) weight has a lot to do with insulin levels- he quotes it at 75%. Over time, the body becomes “insulin-resistant,” meaning that it takes more insulin to digest foods. Dr. Fung’s solution? Intermittent Fasting, or IF. During a fast, insulin levels drop and eventually our bodies begin to digest stored fat. (This is an extremely simplified version!) Over time, intermittent fasting allows our bodies to “eat” up extra stored fat, and we lose weight. Benefits: no starving, not complicated, no calorie counting, enjoy foods you love most of the time, sustainable; not to mention the benefits of less inflammation, which is a side effect of many diseases and conditions.</div>
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After finishing this book, I found a much shorter, simpler book dedicated to IF: Gin Stephens’ <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3723586" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Delay Don’t Deny</a> (2017). This book was a true layman’s dream. I learned all about IF, and Gin made the science behind it very readable. I also found Gin’s podcast, <a href="http://intermittentfastingstories.com/" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Intermittent Fasting Stories</a> and was hooked. I have since listened to 55 episodes, and have “caught up” with the real time podcast. The stories are fascinating, relatable and inspiring, to say the least!</div>
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I officially began on November 11<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span>. It has been about 2 months and I am already experiencing some of the benefits. Though I haven’t weighed myself (I’ve always had a hate/hate relationship with the scale), I have gone down one pants size, which is incredible, since I have been eating all the things I love during my “eating window,” including sweets! I also have always been an emotional eater; this began when I was 6 years old and remember having some M & M’s shoved at me as I was told about the passing of my beloved “Pampa.” I remember the tears streaming down my face as I ate them, enjoying the sweet taste of the candy, but missing him already. Though I experienced another great loss this past October with the death of my mum (I called her “Mumsky”), I was determined to give IF a solid try. It has been so helpful with the emotional part of eating. I have been forced to face my feelings and let everything hurt, like it does, like it will, like it should, as I come to terms with losing her. Mum was only 70 years old but suffered from a host of health issues, including Type 2 Diabetes and COPD. Witnessing her last weeks in the hospital and in the nursing home influenced my decision to try IF.</div>
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Having been a dieter for over 40 years, I am always on the lookout for “the next best thing.” However, as I read (and listen to) more about IF, and as I try it myself, I can see it as a lasting lifestyle, not a diet to be put aside during the holidays or special occasions. Intermittent Fasting is not just the latest diet for those seeking a permanent weight loss solution. Intermittent Fasting is a complete change of mindset toward food and nutrition, and is backed up by science.</div>
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I look forward to reporting on my progress in a future article. Look for “IF: Intermittent Fasting, The Last Best Thing” Part Two!</div>
Carla Howard is the Senior Circulation and Media & Marketing Assistant at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the January 23, 2020 issue of the Transcript and Bulletin.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-32956254519816984792020-01-16T16:42:00.000-05:002020-02-10T12:28:36.733-05:00Making Room<b>Kirstie David is a Literacy and Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the January 9, 2020 edition of the <i>Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b><br />
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My husband and I are three-time greyhound adopters, and we said a sad farewell to our last hound in March. Lahni was nearly thirteen years old, and was the hardest luck case in our bunch. She had been adopted out, then returned to the agency about nine months later. Upon inquiring why, we learned she hadn’t done well being on her own during the day. Once back at the agency she was allowed to roam free in the hall because she wouldn’t tolerate being crated. Lahni had languished for over a year in this state of limbo while other dogs with fewer issues came and went.<br />
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We had actually been to this place on several occasions to meet and walk different dogs, following the heartbreaking loss of our first greyhound, Abby. We were determined to hold out on adopting again until we felt the same magic spark we’d experienced with her. Unfortunately, none of the candidates had stood out for us. One day after another failed attempt, we offered to walk Lahni. She wasn’t a consideration for us given her anxiety issues, but she looked like she could use a change of scenery.<br />
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Outside the confines of the kennel, a whole new dog emerged. She was in her glory! She had a jaunty little bounce to her step, sighting on everything that moved and with ears constantly perked up at attention, while her nose sniffed the breeze and then, every few feet, the ground. While I’m at it, I might as well mention that she had the largest ears I’ve ever seen on a greyhound. If I didn’t have the National Greyhound Association registration with her pedigree I might wonder if she was actually a purebred greyhound, owing to those elephantine antennae. But I digress. Her transformation on our walk was remarkable. While the other dogs had dutifully gone along with us, this one was on a mission. When we eventually turned back, she was crestfallen, and her pace slowed considerably.</div>
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As we made our way back we considered the situation anew. Yes, she had issues and might take some work. However it was beginning to dawn on us that we could look for the rest of our lives and never find another Abby. Lahni could also be waiting the rest of her life for someone. Maybe we should be thinking about something new: giving back. While they’d warned us about her anxiety being alone during the day, we secretly wondered if maybe the former adopter or environment just hadn’t been a good match. (When I later recalled this notion, I had a great laugh at my own expense – oh the hubris!)</div>
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We decided to go for it, and the adventure began. After an unsettling week or so during which we’d regularly come home to find Lahni had been sick to her stomach while we were at work, we took her to the vet. Following a series of expensive tests that showed nothing was wrong, the vet gave it to us straight: She needs company. Which is how we found ourselves in the hitherto unimaginable position of getting a dog for our dog. Back to the agency we went, and as luck would have it on that day, there was a new arrival. A brindle, like our first, but that is where the similarity ended. This one stared at us, wide-eyed, unmoving. As I crouched in front of her, looking into those unblinking eyes, I felt there was someone in there, waiting to be set free. And do you know what? There was. But that’s another story.</div>
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Lahni was a new dog once she had company. While she never did warm to me as much as she did my husband, we were able to give her a good life with lots of walks. With the addition of two greyhounds, our formerly carefree days became more complicated, expensive, and sometimes even circus-like, but mainly joyful and never boring. Now that they are gone, the quietude of our home feels less like peace and more like loneliness. Although we likely have not owned our last greyhound, we are taking a moment to regroup. It is difficult for us to wait, but easier on our would-be dog, given current schedules.</div>
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This lonely, dog-free time in our lives is no doubt what had me reaching for <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3183855" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Dog Stays in the Picture: Life Lessons from a Rescued Greyhound</a>, by Susan Morse. She decides to adopt a retired racer as her last two teens head off to college. This choice disrupts the plans she and her husband have for entering their liberated, empty nest years. Although this didn’t really scratch my itch for a dog-lover’s read I kept at it, in part comforted by the knowledge that I wasn’t the only person to be tolerated by a greyhound while a spouse is adored. In spite of the title, the book is more of a general memoir; stories about the challenges of adopting a greyhound are woven together with past and present reflections on her college-bound children, traveling-for-work actor husband and even a health crisis. And perhaps that is the point: making room for this singular breed in a life underway takes a little bit of doing, but will pay you back. Given the absolute lack of real-world context for dogs who have only known a racetrack environment, their general confusion is understandable (what is my purpose here?) As is their inexperience with practical concerns such as stairs (how do they work?) and glass doors (solid). The foibles Morse describes are familiar and perhaps even endearing to me.</div>
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National Adopt-a-Greyhound month is in April, and although the agencies we used when adopting are now defunct, there are numerous others still working to find homes for retired racing greyhounds. Visit the <a href="http://www.adopt-a-greyhound.org/" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Greyhound Project</a> website for a directory of agencies and other resources. To learn more about the breed, check out Cynthia Branigan’s <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2209040" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Adopting the Racing Greyhound</a>, or <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1986910" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Retired Racing Greyhounds for Dummies</a>, by Lee Livingood.</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Kirstie David is the Literacy/Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the January 16, 2020 issue of the Transcript and Bulletin.</em></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-61148635153033001142020-01-09T03:18:00.000-05:002020-01-03T12:05:51.523-05:00The Joy of Cooking Gadgets<b>Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the January 9, 2020 edition of the <i>Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b><br />
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<span style="color: #1c1e29;">While I received several beloved small kitchen
appliances for shower and wedding gifts nearly a half-century ago, most of them
were resigned to the graveyard for kitchen gadgets over the years. I abandoned
the electric can opener decades ago, along with the electric wok and
labor-intensive turn-the-crank ice cream maker. If one of my small appliances
was left abandoned in the cabinet above the refrigerator, or to the garage
shelf behind the holiday décor, it was out of sight and out of mind. Those
items never made the trip on the many moving vans as our family drove or flew
to our new home. If it did get packed for the move, it may have stayed packed.
Mice and spiders found cozy homes in tangled cords or Teflon coatings, and
entire boxes were tossed into dumpsters in eventual cleanouts.</span><br />
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<o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e29;">There
are, of course, those favorite kitchen gadgets that I adore and use often. In
the 1970s, I served my sister-in-law Minute rice for dinner. She was the
daughter of Japanese-Hawaiian parents, and she promptly she gifted me with a
Panasonic rice cooker that Christmas.</span><span style="color: #1c1e29;">
</span><span style="color: #1c1e29;">(Rice, after all, is a sacred dish to be cooked properly!) I've
cherished that cooker for nearly fifty years, and amazingly, it still works
perfectly after hundreds of uses.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #1c1e29;">In the
mid-80s, I joined millions of home cooks around the world who added Cuisinart
food processors and KitchenAid stand mixers to their culinary repertoire. I
took classes in the local mall's cooking school, perfecting pie crust, and
pizza dough. I abused and overused both the food processor and mixer to their
deaths, but happily replaced both of them recently. </span><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3236216" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;">The Kitchen Decoded</span></a><span style="color: #1c1e29;"> by
Logan Levant and Hilary Hattenback, published in 2014, is a perfect introduction
to kitchen tools and accessories such as the food processor and stand mixer.
The book is a "fun, new cookbook with chapters organized according to
gadgets and appliances, and accompanying recipes that can be prepared with each
tool."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e29;">This past
holiday, I found myself using many of my favorite countertop timesavers as they
played musical chairs – coming and going from their cozy storage places in
cabinets and closets to space on the countertops. We have a family holiday
tradition of squeezing fresh orange juice on Christmas morning, so the electric
juicer shared space with the automatic bread maker. The ice cream compressor
was later replaced by the pasta machine which was then replaced by my trusty
rice cooker an hour before dinner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e29;">Immediately
after our early holiday breakfast opening gifts, my young granddaughters ooohed
and ahhhed as red-and-white-striped peppermint chunks slowly churned into
creamy vanilla ice cream. It all turned decidedly pink and when the compressor
was done, the luscious frozen cream was packed into the freezer to harden. I
started with the basic recipe in Jeni Britton Bauer's 2011 </span><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2893099" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;">Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home</span></a><span style="color: #1c1e29;">. It's my go-to book for delicious homemade treats.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e29;">Later
that morning, we slowly poured a mixture of water, eggs and oil into semolina
flour that rotated in the Phillips pasta machine. The girls excitedly awaited
the moment they could begin to cut the emerging macaroni into uneven lengths
that don't seem to matter when they are mixed with cheese sauce to become Boxing
Day's macaroni and cheese. At the same time, my daughter arranged meaty lamb
chops in the sous vide water bath so that they could slow-cook to perfect
tenderness for a few hours in the afternoon. Before dinner, we would sear them
on the gas stovetop until all six sides were crispy. The best thing about the
sous vide process is that food can sit for hours at a warm temperature,
awaiting just that right moment of preparation for the table.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;">A great
book for anyone wanting to try out sous vide equipment and recipes is Hugh
Acheson's latest book published in 2019, </span><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3854965" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;">Sous Vide: Better Home Cooking</span></a><span style="color: #1c1e29;">. Acheson has been a professional chef for years and at
first he scoffed at younger chefs who used the sous vide technique in
restaurants. Over time, though, he realized that the sous vide method also had
a huge impact on preparation and on taste and he has written this book for home
chefs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e29;">Later
in the afternoon, I guarded the stand mixer as it creamed sugar and eggs and
flour, and blended in and fruit for a spongy orange-cranberry cake. As my
husband Gerry cleaned and dried each kitchen gadget, lifting it to its storage
place, I swept flour and baking powder dust from the floor and washed butter,
sugar and egg drippings from the counters. I wondered how 19th and 20th century
grandmothers managed to get everything done in time for holiday dinners. Did
they smile and grimace as little ones insisted on helping? I imagined that an
army of cousins in huge households of extended families entertained the
littlest ones, while the older ones took on tasks of cutting fruit and
vegetables or creaming butter and sugar with a rotary beater. Gerry tells me of
watching his Italian grandmother roll pasta into thin sheets with a clean broom
handle, cutting it precisely while using that same handle as a straight edge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e29;">Speaking
of Gerry, he came home a few weeks ago with an Instant Pot. Giving in to
chatter about this recent phenomenon (a recent and safer alternative to the
pressure cookers of the past), he thought it would be fun to figure out how to
use it. Facebook Instant Pot 101 posts rave about its miracles. "You'll
want at least two or three of them!" or "You'll never use your oven
again!" I took it out of the box and made several attempts to use it. I am
not convinced that it will become one of my cherished kitchen gadgets. An
entire chicken took nearly as long as it would have if it had been roasted in
the oven (after allowing for browning, cooking, and pressure-release). This new
Blueberry French Toast had no crisp or crunch that I expected of my oven-baked
rendition. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #1c1e29;">Perhaps
I just need more time and a few books from the library. </span><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3784217" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;">The Instant Pot Bible</span></a><span style="color: #1c1e29;"> ("the
only book you need") by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough might be
useful and my daughter swears by the </span><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3857246" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;">Instant Pot Vegetarian Cookbook</span></a><span style="color: #1c1e29;"> by Nadine Greeff. With time, and plenty of books
from the library, anything is possible in my kitchen, and in yours, as well.
Happy new year of joyful cooking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<b><i></i></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-66377659081410631822020-01-02T16:23:00.000-05:002020-01-03T12:04:32.420-05:00An Unconventional Spin on Holiday Films<b style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><b style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Lydia Sampson is the Assistant Director/Technical Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. </b>Read her column in the Jan 2, 2020 issue of the<i> Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b><br />
<b style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></b>
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With another Christmas gone by and the New Year approaching I’ve just about finished my annual tradition of binge-watching holiday movies. Ever since childhood I’ve associated the month of December and its corresponding onslaught of decorations, carols and cookies with a television set airing non-stop seasonal programming. As I’ve gotten older, though, my tastes have changed.</div>
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Once upon a time we didn’t have Netflix or Hulu or DVRs. Before then we didn’t have DVDs or cable television, or even VHS tapes. During my childhood we had no option but to scour the (print) TV guide that came with the Sunday newspaper and keep track of when Christmas specials would air. I could hardly contain my excitement anticipating the animated <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2736324" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">How the Grinch Stole Christmas</a>, <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2615930" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">A Charlie Brown Christmas</a>, and <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2288910" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Frosty the Snowman</a>. My absolute favorites, though, came out of the Rankin/Bass stop-motion studio and included <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3185870" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer</a> (featuring Bumble the abominable snowman) and <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2530004" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Year Without a Santa Claus</a> (featuring the brothers Heat Miser and Snow Miser).<br />
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Back then we had to mark our calendars and tune in at specified dates and times to watch these classics. Nowadays you can look up any of these in the <a href="http://find.minlib.net/" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Minuteman Library Network</a> catalog and borrow them, or likely find them available on-demand to stream with the touch of a finger. This convenience allows for the discovery of hundreds of holiday films, and I have been enjoying watching some less-traditional picks this year.</div>
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If you tire of wholesome classics like <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2458295" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Miracle on 34<span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> Street</a> and <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1978270" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">White Christmas</a>, I recommend <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3464235" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Night Before</a>, starring the comedic duo Seth Rogan and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Along the same irreverent lines, R-rated options include <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3799919" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Bad Santa</a>, starring Billy Bob Thornton, <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3605700" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Office Christmas Party</a>, starring Jason Bateman, and <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3712374" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">A Bad Moms Christmas</a>, with Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell. Rife with drunkenness, drug use, and exotic dancers, these choices may not be kid-friendly, but could lift the spirits of harried grownups this holiday season.</div>
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Amid the chaos of shopping and preparations, some movies offer relief by depicting Christmases gone horribly wrong. Imagine cute gifts turning into monsters and wreaking havoc as the mogwai do in <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2502348" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Gremlins</a>. Think your family is high maintenance? In <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2147042" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Ref</a>, a burglar takes an entire family Christmas party hostage and the attendees become so unbearable you find yourself empathizing with the criminal. In the alternative classic, <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2280042" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation</a>, hapless Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) finds his plans to engineer the perfect holiday going terribly awry.</div>
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As a horror movie fan, I gravitate toward Halloween flicks more readily than the Christmas classics, but fortunately some cross-genre films eliminate the necessity to choose between the two. Some, of course, fall into the so-bad-they’re-good category, such as <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3813910" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Silent Night Deadly Night</a> and <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Jack Frost</em> (and its sequel). I genuinely and non-ironically enjoyed <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3455218" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Krampus</a> though, and just discovered <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2933133" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Rare Exports</a>, which may rise to the top of my all-time favorites list. Both films hearken back to mythological origins of today’s sanitized Santa Claus. <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3455218" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Krampus</a> brings the eponymous Central European creature into the dysfunctional American family setting in a decent yet typical slasher film. The Finnish gem, <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2933133" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Rare Exports</a>, focuses on Joulupukki, the pagan Christmas goat. In a rare feat it combines comedy, horror, lovely cinematography, and touching father/son relationships.</div>
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What if you’re sick of Christmas altogether? Adam Sandler’s <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2412741" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Eight Crazy Nights</a> stands out as the most well-known of the few Hanukkah movies out there, and will have you humming “The Chanukah Song” from its soundtrack till New Year’s Day. Speaking of which, <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2998749" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">New Year’s Eve</a>, while met with mixed reviews, features an all-star cast directed by Garry Marshall. Departing from holidays altogether, <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2536742" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Shining</a> and <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2533426" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Misery</a>, both based on Stephen King books, depict what can happen as a result of getting snowed in. On a more upbeat note, the heartwarming <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2585784" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Edward Scissorhands</a> has beautiful ice sculptures and snowfall without overabundant Christmas imagery.</div>
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During the last week of the year I still have some appetite left for yuletide viewing. I plan to settle in with a hot chocolate for a <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2911960" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be;" target="_blank">Die Hard</a> and <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2595517" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be;" target="_blank">Die Hard 2</a> double feature to watch John McClane endure a couple of harrowing Christmas Eves. Perhaps I’ll venture out to the cinema to add something new to my list. Blumhouse Productions, the company known for <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3792735" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be;" target="_blank">Halloween</a> and <a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3681502" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1e73be;" target="_blank">Happy Death Day</a>, has just released <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Black Christmas</em>, in theaters now!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-81607129598794909372019-12-26T16:14:00.000-05:002020-01-03T12:03:45.825-05:00The Women Who Drew My Childhood<b>Nicole Guerra-Coon is the Assistant Children’s Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her column in the December 26, 2019 edition of the<i> Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">When I was about three or four years old, my parents took me to my
first movie in a theater - Disney’s “Snow White.” They weren’t sure if I would
be able to sit still, or if I would be overwhelmed by the darkness or the
sound. But I sat there, completely entranced, for the entire film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only when it ended and the lights came up,
did I start to sob.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My parents were
startled, and as they ushered me out of the theater, they kept reassuring me,
“It was just a movie! The witch isn’t real!” But as I sobbed through the
parking lot, the adults within earshot burst into laughter as I choked out
“I…just...didn’t want it...to end!”</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-grSrYn_gK2s/XgpwhjBcekI/AAAAAAAAFco/Il3LebpZP1cwOhAYEFcr9NtPzieyS5xxwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/mary%2Bblair%2Bsample.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="690" height="198" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-grSrYn_gK2s/XgpwhjBcekI/AAAAAAAAFco/Il3LebpZP1cwOhAYEFcr9NtPzieyS5xxwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/mary%2Bblair%2Bsample.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">This is a memory that has stayed with me, and I have always thought
about it through the lense of storytelling and its universal power.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">I have always loved stories in all forms,
especially books and movies.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">But
recently, as I saw a colleague checking out a book about the female artists who
worked at the Walt Disney Studios, something else occurred to</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">me.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">I
had thought for years about the stories and intricate artwork in Disney, but
had never known much about </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">who</i><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"> was
behind it all. I needed to learn more about the women who helped tell these
powerful stories.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“</span><span lang="EN"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3854346"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The Queens of Animation</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">” by Nathalia Holt, is the story of the women who
worked to create and shape the animated Disney movies, from 1937’s “Snow White”
to “Frozen.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Early on, these were women
who were inspired by seeing some of the first Disney cartoons, like “Steamboat
Willy,” and made it their mission to work at the studio.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Unsurprisingly, it was difficult to find work as a woman in animation
in the 1930s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Job postings were listed
in areas of Men’s Work and Women’s, and most professional jobs did not mix genders.
Originally, the Disney studios only employed women in its Ink and Paint
Department.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Talented male artists were
hired as animators or assistant animators, and they were the artists who worked
with the Story department to create the characters and stories that needed to
be drawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once completed, the images
were sent over to the women of the Ink and Paint Department to trace in smooth
india ink onto the transparent cells and, after the advent of color movies, paint
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though integral to every picture,
films that are considered some of the most timeless classics in American
cinema, these women were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">never</i>
credited as artists, and were paid a fraction of what male artists made.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">But Walt Disney was a man of chance and innovation. Though he did not
set out to employ women, he also recognized talent when he saw it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Holt’s book centers on five women who helped
make Disney into the company we know today: Bianca Majolie, Grace Huntington,
Sylvia Holland, Retta Scott, and Mary Blair. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The first woman he hired was an old classmate of his, Bianca Majolie,
whom he took on as a storyboard artist in 1935. Bianca would create many story
treatments for the company, and helped mold films like “Snow White,” “Bambi,”
and “Pinocchio” (which she also translated from the original Italian for the
studio.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">In 1936, Disney hired Grace Huntington as a writer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grace would lend her intellect and wit to the
early Disney films, and she was a great screenwriter. Yet, she was also a
record setting pilot, and what she really wanted to do was fly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, even during a shortage of male
pilots during World War II, no one would hire a woman. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Sylia Holland, the second woman to be hired in the storyboard
department, was an accomplished artist and musician.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her musical knowledge would prove invaluable,
helping Disney find the right music to use in his films, which would shape
emotional elements of the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Holland
chose the music from the Russian ballet, The Nutcracker, to use in the film
“Fantasia.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The use of this music in the
film helped reintroduce the ballet to America, where it had previously been a
failure with audiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Retta Scott would become the first female animator given screen credit
in a Walt Disney Animation Studios picture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is remarkable, as screen credits were rare for most animators, and
generally the competition was cut-throat among the most senior animators
working on a film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Retta worked on
several Disney films before becoming an artist at Golden Books, where she
helped create some of the most successful children’s books of the time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Eventually, Holt focuses on the most influential of her subjects -
Mary Blair. Blair was brought in as a storyboard artist, and she would
influence the company like no one else<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Originally, Blair’s husband Lee was hired as an animator, but Mary was
the one who would enchant Walt Disney and become one of his favorite
artists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her playful paintings, with
bright colors and flat, modern style would inspire the feel of films like “Cinderella,”
“Alice in Wonderland,” and many more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She would be the artist Disney would return to again and again, to
create the magical feel for his stories. Blair created an exhibit for Disney’s
presentation at the 1964-1965 World’s Fair entitled “It’s a Small World.” The
concept would prove so popular that he replicated it in his theme parks and
these attractions are still active today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After working for Disney, Mary would join her life long friend Retta
Scott at Golden Books, bringing her colorful modern style to children’s
literature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">These exceptional women were largely forgotten for many years, and
most of them did not enjoy much recognition in their lifetimes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only recently has their work been
rediscovered and properly studied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
addition to Nathalia Holt’s “</span><span lang="EN"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3854346"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The Queens of Animation</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">”, Mindy Johnson has written two books about the
women of Disney.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“</span><span lang="EN"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3660261"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt
Disney Animation</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">” is a coffee
table book featuring photographs of the women who worked at the Disney Studios,
and abundant samples of their art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Johnson also created a book aimed at a younger audience, </span><span lang="EN"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3863248"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“Pencils, Pens & Brushes: A
Great Girl’s Guide to Disney Animation</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">”, which takes her research from Ink & Paint
and creates illustrated collected biographies of the female animators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mary Blair has several books about her,
including “</span><span lang="EN"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2196099"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The Art and Flair of Mary Blair</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">” by John Canemaker, a stunning biography and
appreciation of her art.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Even though I didn’t know these womens’ names, their artwork and craft
has been inspiring me throughout my life. Now, that I’ve read “</span><span lang="EN"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3854346"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The Queens of Animation</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">,” I know who to thank for the joy some of the
timeless Disney films mentioned above provide again and again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<b><i></i></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-79364702262025618292019-12-12T16:17:00.000-05:002019-12-30T16:52:38.394-05:00A Year in Reading<b>Kate Tigue is the Head of Youth Services at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column in the December 12, 2019 edition of the <i>Transcript and Bulletin. </i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I’ve never been big on New Year’s
resolutions. I find them a little depressing, knowing I’ll likely never keep
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know what it is about the
word “resolution” but it has such a negative connotation for me that I always
avoid them. I prefer to set goals. Having goals sounds way more positive to me
than making resolutions. Goals are things you can work toward, resolutions are
things you have to keep. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ja0TaHaa8BI/XgpxgUqXO3I/AAAAAAAAFcw/3_P34VtCjScALN9bqqD0oG8ECva9BuS8ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/goodreads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="851" height="118" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ja0TaHaa8BI/XgpxgUqXO3I/AAAAAAAAFcw/3_P34VtCjScALN9bqqD0oG8ECva9BuS8ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/goodreads.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I am a member of GoodReads, a social
media centered around books and reading. When I first joined, I primarily used
GoodReads as a way to keep track of the books I’ve read and the titles I wanted
to read. But several years ago, GoodReads start challenging it users to a
yearly reading goal in January of the new year. Participants can set the number
of books they wish to finish reading by the end of December and a member’s
homepage will track their progress toward their goal. I’ve set a goal every
year since this feature was introduced and mostly met them. This year, I was
very ambitious and hoped to read 25 books. I might fall a few short of that
goal as I’ve only read 22 and December is halfway over!<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Even if I don’t finish all 25 books by
January 2020, I now have a lovely record of everything I’ve read over 2019. As
I look back, I can see a few trends. First of all, judging by my 5 star rating
system, I’ve read a lot of fantastic books this year. I’ve also discerned a few
trends in my reading during my review.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Here are a few books and reading trends I can recommend:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">2019 is officially the Year of the Memoir
for me. I’ve never been a nonfiction reader and rarely pick up anything but
fiction. I would love to say that I purposefully started out 2019 with a desire
to try new genres and expand my reading horizons but I suspect that convenience
is what led me to the memoir. The library’s popular Overdrive ebook service has
a wonderful feature in its Libby app called “Available Now” which highlights
all titles that are immediately available for download. I was scrolling through
this list, desperate to find an audiobook to keep me company on a long drive to
New Jersey. I found Amy Poehler’s Yes, Please! and was intrigued. I’d read Tina
Fey’s spectacular Bossypants years ago and figured I’d love anything Tina Fey
adjacent, especially anything by Poehler, her hilarious work wife and comedic
partner in crime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Yes, Please! is comprised of short
vignettes from Poehler’s life as a star on Saturday Night life, musings on
lessons in her personal life, and listicles of life advice. I love Amy Poehler
but her disjointed writing along with the disclaimer at the beginning and
throughout most of the book that "writing is hard" lets me know she's
not a writer. She's a great sketch comedian but she ran out of ideas in this
book and didn't know how to string the ones she did have together. The book is
filled with amazing anecdotes and guest appearances but that is the limit of
its charm. The lists, advice, and many of the insights Poehler provides are
somewhat boring and trite, even when read excellently by the author herself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The two highlights of my excursion into
memoir territory were Becoming by Michelle Obama and Educated by Tara
Westover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will be honest and say that
I was sure Becoming was not worth the hype before I read it. Once I did read
it, I completely understood and became part of the hype. The combination of
Mrs. Obama’s raw honesty, touching memories, and no-nonsense straight talk had
me devouring all 428 pages. Her ability to weave life lessons in with her story
without seeming preachy was endearing and relatable, even when our lives
had<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>nothing in common. I was especially
moved by her surreal and intense recollections of her time as First Lady and
her determination to keep growing as a person. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Educated by Tara Westover is another
amazing memoir, albeit in a completely different way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Westover narrates her dark and grim childhood
struggles to survive and educate herself as a member of an off-the-grid family
in rural Idaho. Her father forbids his children from attending public school,
fearing any government involvement in their lives, and Tara is barely
homeschooled by her mother and older siblings. She perseveres and gets into
college, eventually becoming a Gates Scholar at Cambridge University. But make
no mistake; this is a tough read. The book is a series of episodes illustrating
the author's terrible family experiences with her attempts to physically escape
and spiritually make sense of herself and the people she loves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Westover's descriptions of the many
accidents, injuries, physical and psychological abuse are unflinching and
horrifying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every time she seems to find
some hope of separating herself emotionally and physically from her family, she
gets sucked back in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But her journey of
learning what it means to be educated is not a straight line and perfectly
illustrates why the struggle to be yourself is truly worth it, even at a
terrible cost.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Reviewing my year in books has revealed
another trend: I listen more than I read. I’ve become a real convert to
audiobooks this year. Typically, I only read before going to bed. This really
limits my reading time and I was frustrated by my slow progress. Audiobooks
have allowed me to keep “reading” while doing other mundane tasks like running
errands or folding laundry. Listening to audiobooks has also allowed me to
tackle longer books than I would normally read. Finally, I’ve learned the
importance of a good narrator. Someone with a good voice and ability to
vocalize multiple characters is a necessity in the audiobook experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Pachinko by Min Jin Lee and The Priory of
the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon offer two different but excellent audiobook
experiences. Pachinko is the muti-generational story<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of a Korean family who relocates to Japan in
the 1930s and joins the second class citizenship of Zainichi, ethnic Koreans
living in Japan. This move affects every member of the family in different ways
and some adapt better than others. Allison Hiroto is a fantastic reader,
seamlessly transitioning from character to character without her performance
seeming forced or clunky. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The Priory of the Orange Tree is a
fantasy novel that features two interwoven narratives one from the East and the
other from the West.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each storyline
faces the growing threat from the Nameless One, a terrible slumbering dragon
that threatens to end life as we know it unless characters from each part of
the world can work together. There are the usual suspects of a fantasy novel:
assassins, dragons, and magic. But this book dispenses with the thinly veiled
Puritanical ideasl of most fantasy tropes and instead presents a feminist
narrative that champions diversity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Looking over my reading list from 2019
has been informative and nostalgic. I’ve read some really great books and
discovered new genres. As I start to make my list for 2020, I now have a better
idea of where I’ve been and where I should be headed with my reading. If you’ve
never kept a reading journal or list, I highly encourage you to try it next
year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may find keeping this New
Year’s resolution is easier and more fun than you think.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<b><i></i></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-73637299348953665622019-12-05T15:21:00.000-05:002019-12-05T15:31:44.757-05:00Florida's Carl Hiaasen<b>Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the December 5, 2019 edition of the <i>Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Carl Hiassen
wrote the little book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Assume the Worst</i>
(2018), as the "graduation speech you'll never hear." He wrote it to
his son, Quinn, upon his commencement from high school that year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The advice as far as Hiaasen is concerned is
meant for anyone. It might be a bit too honest, and perhaps a tad pessimistic,
for many of us. Hiaasen argues against some of the favorite adages we hear all
the time, like "Live Each Day As If It's Your Last" and "If You
Set Your Mind to It, You Can Be Anything You Want to Be."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His conflict with these sentiments? If you
lived every day like it was your last, you'd undoubtedly be broke, irrelevant,
and possibly in prison. And can you really be the next Willy Mays or Bill
Gates? Probably not. Hiassen's adage? "Self-delusion is no virtue."</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3CowHMphCGU/XeGBIy6n0qI/AAAAAAAAFaw/Cb1oUYfhQpMQXJkIN8xkngqn_yCoAil6ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/razorgirl.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="778" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3CowHMphCGU/XeGBIy6n0qI/AAAAAAAAFaw/Cb1oUYfhQpMQXJkIN8xkngqn_yCoAil6ACLcBGAsYHQ/s200/razorgirl.png" width="129" /></a></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Hiaasen
proclaims that it's more important to "figure out what you're good at and
get better at it." Or, more simplistically and realistically, "live
each day as if your rent is due tomorrow."<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Hiaasen has
obviously taken his own advice well. He's managed to work at what he is best at
and has made the rent payments, as well. Publisher Penguin-Random House interviewed
Hiaasen in a "Meet the Author" episode last year, and Hiaasen admits
that he is paid to "entertain and make people turn pages." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">And people
have turned millions of pages in Hiaasen's books since the late 1980s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Carl Hiaasen
was born in Florida in 1953 and has lived there all his life. He earned a
journalism degree from the University of Florida four years after graduating
from high school. He missed his college graduation because the small-town
newspaper in Cocoa, Florida (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cocoa Today</i>)
that hired him expected him to show up to work that day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A few years
later, Hiaasen was hired to work on the Miami Herald city desk and its Sunday
magazine. There he excelled at investigative journalism, exposing corruption in
Florida, efforts at war with the environment, and over-development that has
wounded Florida's natural beauty. He began writing weekly columns for the Miami
Herald in 1985 and continues to this day. Those columns have been published in
three volumes: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kick Ass</i> (1999), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paradise Screwed</i> (2001), and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dance of the Reptiles</i> (2014).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Hiaasen is
most well-known outside of Florida for the novels he began writing in his spare
time starting in the '80s. The first three were co-authored with a colleague.
Hiaasen struck out on his own in 1986 with Tourist Season and hasn't stopped
writing them since – he is the author of fourteen novels for adults and six for
younger readers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">In 2003 he
was honored with the Newbery Award for his bestselling children's book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hoot</i>. It was made into a family movie in
2006. His later novels for children, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flush,
Scat, Chomp,</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Skink-No Surrender</i>,
have been favorites among students and teachers in elementary and middle
school. Nineteen of Hiaasen's novels have been on the New York Times Bestseller
lists, and many have been translated into as many as 34 languages. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I became a
fan of Carl Hiaasen after reading his eighth novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sick Puppy</i>, published in 2000, and I began binge-reading the
earlier ones. They are irreverent and full of unsavory characters and Florida
sunshine. They are a perfect recipe for fun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Two of
Hiaasen's favorite writing tricks have managed always to tickle my fancy. One
is his use of the two-word title beginning with Tourist Season through the
thirteen others: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Skinny Dip, Sick Puppy,
Bad Monkey, Strip Tease, Stormy Weather, Nature Girl, Star Island, Double
Whammy, Native Tongue, Skin Tight, Lucky You, Basket Case, </i>and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Razor Girl</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The other
trick is the glorious use of real-life Florida that he finds in Floridian
newspapers. If you've never heard of, or Googled, "Florida Man," you
haven't discovered the never-ending litany of idiotic habits and behaviors of,
well, Florida Man. As an example, Esquire Magazine listed ninety of the Wildest
Florida Man Headlines from January through March 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>January included "Florida Man Learns
Hard Way He Stole Laxatives, Not Opioids". February 6 boasts "Florida
Man Tried to Run Over Son Because He Didn't Want to Take a Bath" and a
March 11 headline states "Florida Man Accused of Intentionally Pressure
Washing His Neighbor." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Okay, you
get the picture, and funnily enough, Hiaasen admits that he uses some of these
character flaws proven by newspaper accounts as the basis for events or
character description in his novels. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Maybe,
though, I'm drawn to Hiassen because we have several things in common. We both
graduated high school in 1970, and we both learned to write before the age of 8
on manual typewriters given to us by our fathers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Hiaasen and
I both grew up near the ocean – he on Florida's east coast and I on
California's west coast and we were each one of four children in our respective
families. Most importantly, though, we both have an unusually fine appreciation
for the dark humor found in the mistakes or idiotic behavior of criminals. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Sadly, Carl Hiaasen's
only brother, Rob, was killed in a mass shooting at The Capital offices in
Annapolis, in the summer of 2018. Rob followed in his older brother's
footsteps, working as an assistant editor and columnist at a city newspaper.
Hiaasen was devastated by the news. Yet, he continues to write his weekly
columns for the Miami Herald. He still exposes Florida corruption and
disrespect for Florida's environment, all the while ticking off many in South
Florida with his honesty. Given the fact that he has continued to publish one
of his novels every three or four years, I imagine he has another in the works.
Certainly, there are enough real stories in Florida's newspapers to supply
characters and plot lines for more hilarity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296683394895686821.post-82974074634604635492019-11-28T16:22:00.000-05:002019-11-29T12:50:22.400-05:00Who's Right About Rights?<b style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><b style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Lydia Sampson is the Assistant Director/Technical Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. </b>Read her column in the November 28, 2019 issue of the<i> Transcript & Bulletin.</i></b><br />
<b style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></b>
<b style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"></b><br />
<b style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hH9sBCs6Uic/XeFaKYijpzI/AAAAAAAAFak/eLQY1VmF2pIZ4PyMZDQDom3MLI5ldLIrwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/paparazzi-berlin-terry-r.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hH9sBCs6Uic/XeFaKYijpzI/AAAAAAAAFak/eLQY1VmF2pIZ4PyMZDQDom3MLI5ldLIrwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/paparazzi-berlin-terry-r.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Imagine working at your job, at the library, police station or Town
Hall, for instance, and seeing a few strangers walk in with video cameras and
iPhones pointed at you. They don’t identify themselves, but ask for your name
and title. They speak calmly, but decline to answer when you ask for their
names and the nature of their business. In fact, they inform you that they do
not need to answer, and that they have the right to film you, a public
employee, and the building, a public space.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">How do you react? Do you debate their rights and yours, or the
Constitution itself? Do you demand that they stop filming, or kick them out, or
threaten to call security? Do you smile or scowl? Think carefully, because all
of this footage may appear on YouTube and go viral.<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Nationwide and in Massachusetts, citizen journalists and activists
have been conducting “First Amendment audits,” aiming to put public employees
to the test, and spread awareness about the right to film, photograph and
record in public spaces. They know their stuff, often better than the subjects
they put on the spot, and believe it or not, the “auditors” generally operate
within their rights showing up unannounced and filming employees at work.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Well-intentioned, they advocate for transparency in government, and
enter <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">public</i> spaces blatantly
recording anything in view, waiting to document whether anyone challenges their
activities. The citizen journalists, quick to quote the Constitution, Bill of
Rights, and the law, stand by the assertion that there is no expectation of
privacy in public, the law does not require that they identify themselves or
show credentials, and that freedom of the press permits them to post their
videos online. Employees and agencies “pass” or “fail” audits based on how the
encounters play out.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Librarians, many of us introverts by nature, dread the prospect of
facing a First Amendment audit head-on. Libraries, police departments, and
other municipal agencies have been acting quickly to seek counsel and develop
policies in line with the law, then to inform staff of auditors’ rights and how
to respond to them.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Anyone may read <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript">the
Constitution</a></span> and the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights">Bill of Rights</a></span>,
and to better understand them we offer resources such as Akhil Amar’s <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3099745">The Bill of
Rights Primer</a></span>. With many grey areas, especially as technology
advances, the actions of citizen journalists still causes controversy though. <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3174621">Journalism</a></span>,
part of the Opposing Viewpoints series, includes separate chapters on the
credibility and validity of their approach. For better or worse, groups and
individuals including Anonymous, Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks have exposed
massive quantities of information not reported by traditional media outlets.
Increasingly, loosely-affiliated individuals and groups aim to expose
government infractions on a local level.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">What if I don’t want someone to record me? Even “passing” an audit,
I’d prefer not to appear as a poster-child for the proper response on YouTube.
Or be filmed on a bad hair day! As a municipal worker, however, I may not stop
someone from filming me or prevent them from uploading their footage. Where do
we draw the line? Individuals may not enter “employees only” or other
non-public areas in public buildings. Clearly they may not harass or threaten
anyone, or prevent someone from performing their job duties (whether this
entails shelving books or making an arrest). Generally though, auditors take
care not to raise their voices, block doorways or engage in behavior that may
rise to the level of criminal harassment. They will, on the other hand,
potentially file charges against anyone who shoves them, grabs a camera, or
otherwise threatens them.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">What about you, the library patron, innocently using a computer or
browsing the shelves? While unambiguous with regard to public servants, the law
becomes hazier as applied to private citizens. While striving to gain clarity
on this, I learned from the American Library Association’s <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=18859">Office for
Intellectual Freedom</a></span> (OIF) that a library is a “limited” public
forum, and that ”activities such as photography, filming, petition-gathering,
assemblies, and public speeches, may be regulated by the library using
reasonable, viewpoint neutral, time, place, and manner rules.” Clear as mud!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We, along with the library community in general, staunchly support
privacy rights. The Morrill Memorial Library does not divulge private patron
information without a warrant, and takes measures to purge data no longer
relevant to our record-keeping. People must have the freedom to use the public
library, as stated by the OIF’s <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=18859">Intellectual Freedom Blog</a></span>,
“to receive information free from harassment, intimidation, or threats to their
safety, well-being, and privacy rights.“ The good news is that First Amendment
auditors of libraries don’t tend to focus on bystanders, just librarians.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The library community’s and town governments’ recommendations for
responding to First Amendment audits, it turns out, seem to fulfill the
activists’ main goals, to encourage transparency and educate people of their
rights. After getting a crash course myself, I realized an ideal interaction
involves some basic best practices for life in general: treat others as you
would like to be treated, smile, de-escalate, be a good listener. If you work
as a public employee, do reveal your name and position if asked, and allow
anyone to film or photograph you, whether you feel camera-ready or not. Do not
demand that someone answer <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">your</i>
questions, identify themselves, or leave the premises, unless they do anything
that would normally result in punitive measures (such as fighting or damaging
property). Respect their command of the facts, avoiding heated debate. Smile
and offer to show your visitors around and answer questions. This should warrant
a passing grade, I hope.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">If I ever find myself in this situation, in my capacity as a public
servant or private citizen, I imagine I will very politely mention my desire
not to appear online, and ask whether the crew would kindly consider this
appeal. You may see me on YouTube regardless, but it doesn’t hurt to ask and
say please.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<i></i></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com