Sharks and Other Fish in the Sea

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the August 30, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Every year sometime in August, most of become aware of Shark Week.  The Discovery Channel started this sensation over 25 years ago. They started it a way to raise awareness about sharks, the fish that terrified at least one generation of swimmers who viewed the 1975 thriller movie, Jaws.  It’s no surprise that in 1987 marine biologists and the Discovery Channel concluded that the shark needed a more wholesome biography!

Shark Week resumes each year as a television spectacle complete with charming marine biologists, plenty of gimmicks, and loads of awesomeness of close-in shots of the fish we love to hate. Some viewers around the world obsess about the weeklong adventure like tennis fans tune in to Wimbledon. About twice as many as those who watch Wimbledon, to be exact.

Now Read This!

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the August 23, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

If you are anything like me, as soon as you enter another person’s home or office, your eyes are drawn to their bookshelves. I mentally take note of the books that we have in common – or those titles that I have admired but that I don’t own.  I nearly always notice how they are arranged.  Are they are haphazardly stacked between framed photographs or trophies or are they neatly organized by author?

That is why I loved thumbing through “My Ideal Bookshelf” edited by Thessaly La Force (2012). One hundred writers are featured in the book. James Patterson, Dave Eggers, Stephenie Meyer and Chuck Klosterman are among them. Each two-page spread includes spine art created by Jane Mount; they could be frame able art in itself.

Little Free Library

Read Kelly Unsworth's column in the August 16, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Kelly is a children's librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. 

This summer in the library, the Jr. Friends have been working on one of my favorite volunteer projects of the season, the Morrill Memorial Library’s version of “little free libraries”; those gnome-like creations that have been springing up for years across the country, and more recently in the Boston area.  As far as I know, and I would love to be proven wrong about this, there are none in Norwood.  Or shall I say, none “yet”.

Books: They're for the Birds

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the August 9, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Time was that I did not know the difference between a grackle and a crow.  Or a crow and a raven, for that matter. However, these days I can spot that crow on a telephone wire or treetop or that grackle underneath our bird feeder.  I don’t profess to ever having seen a raven, yet I know that they are the biggest of the three.

When I married my husband, Gerry, I was annoyed that he would interrupt my conversation in the car, or at the breakfast table, to point out a hawk high above the highway or a bluebird flitting about its house in the backyard.  I thought it quite rude that he was not paying the proper attention to my conversation that it deserved.

Classics: The Whole Story

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the August 2, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

I’m always sad when I find that one of my favorite children’s books has gone out of print.  Several of some lesser-known children’s authors have published amazing picture books and they've never have published a second. The first edition isn’t reprinted; when supplies dwindle (or when remainder piles are snapped up in discount book stores) the book becomes impossible to find.

Sadly, one of my favorite series of books for children and teens is out of print.  It is the Whole Story series of extraordinary unabridged classics. There are fifteen in the set and they were published by Viking Press between 1994 and 2002.

Creating and Remembering Secure Passwords

Read Brian Samek's column in the July 26, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Officially, I’m the Technology and Information Resources Librarian. Unofficially, to both staff and patrons, I’m “the computer guy.” One patron brought in his broken VCR and asked me if I knew what was wrong with it.

One of the most common questions I get is about computer security. A staff member received a phone call at home from a scammer who claimed that her computer would break irrevocably if she did not immediately follow his instructions. A patron was being stalked on Facebook. Patrons whose email or social media accounts have been hacked ask about how to make a password strong enough so that it can’t be guessed. And our website has been subject to a variety of attacks

Musicals on the Silver Screen

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the July 19, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. 

Saturdays spent at double and triple-features were not, unfortunately, part of my happy childhood.  My family didn’t go to movies very often, if at all.  By the time my mother deemed me old enough to go alone with friends I’d moved to the suburbs and the downtown theaters were no longer close by.

I actually can’t recall one memory of going to the theater as a young child although I must have seen some movies on the big screen such as101 Dalmatians or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

A Little Library Tale

Patty Bailey is a Circulation Assistant at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read the published version of Patty's column in the July12, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. 

As a little girl growing up in South Norwood, I was fortunate to have two library sources in my neighborhood.  One was in the Balch Elementary school; the second was the little South Norwood branch of the Morrill Memorial Library.

Thankfully Filling Another Mother's Shoes

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the July 5, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

I’d like to believe that my great days always outnumber the bad.  I’m far from a Pollyanna who sees the world through the rosiest of glasses, but I like to think I am a positivist.  Once in a while, I tumble out of the wrong side of the bed but I’m ordinarily thankful I have a comfy one to slumber in. Every so often I have a bee in my bonnet about my husband’s quirks or kick up a fuss about one of my lovely daughter's latest antics but every day I am more than grateful to have them in my life.

Finally Growing Up with Zeppelin

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the June 28, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Led Zeppelin is the greatest band of all time.  Or so some would say.

When I was growing up in the 60s, their music just seemed to hurt my ears and my brain. I was more of a Simon and Garfunkel fan. In the early 70s, I preferred the mellower music of Cat Stevens and Carly Simon.

Even though I wasn't a Zeppelin fan, full disclosure is the fact that I was married to a Led Zeppelin fan.  There was no way but to listen, sort of, to all eight of the Zeppelin albums.  Dazed and confused, however, I think I simply tuned them out. Led Zeppelin never really got this 60s girl rockin’ beyond their most famous song, Stairway to Heaven.

Welcome to My Party, Pal

April Cushing is the Adult Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column published in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin on June 21, 2013.

My youngest got the green light to graduate over Memorial Day weekend, having returned the last of her overdue library books. I got to shiver on the sidewalk for three hours hoping to catch a fleeting glimpse of her as the Class of 2013 cavorted down College Street in cap and gown. Meanwhile, my sister and her husband were holed up in the warmth of their hotel room until lunchtime. Life was good. There was just one little problem.

There and Back Again: Random Thoughts Traveling To and From Boston

Margot Sullivan is a part-time reader's advisory and reference librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column as published in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin on June 14, 2013.

    For approximately 8 months I used public transportation to travel to hospitals in Boston and Cambridge.  My primary routes involved leaving from Norwood Central via commuter rail and disembarking at Copley Square to then catch the Heath Street trolley green line to Brigham and Women’s or disembarking at South Station to catch the red line trolley to Harvard Square in Cambridge for Spaulding Hospital.  Always held close my “Charlie” card and senior commuter rail pass made traveling into Boston very reasonable and easy.  I began to treat my travels as adventures: observing and listening to people.

 I grew incredibly tired of “noise” everywhere especially cell phone conversations on the streets, in subway cars, in coffee shops, in the bathrooms EVERYWHERE. Conversations were never stopped or interrupted while crossing intersections, getting on trains, elevators, escalators, and meetings. My traveling companion Tina and I were reprimanded twice for not knowing we were on the commuter rail quiet car but we were only trying to catch up and establish the day’s agenda.  The quiet car is very nice! HOW DID WE EVER COMMUNICATE BEFORE CELL PHONES? People have no problem bearing their inner most secrets and problems out in public!  Street musicians often play music which is not pleasant and in the subway stations way too loud.

Boston: Our Fair City

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the June 7, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Although I grew up in California, I was always proud to announce that I was born in Boston.  Not exactly Boston, of course, but within an hour’s drive to the Boston Common or Cape Cod.  My mother never lost her Boston accent and our mother said things like “pahty” and “cah”.   We suppered on baked beans every Saturday night and feasted on Boston Cream pie for special occasions.  Growing up on the west coast, our family loved our semi-exotic flair and reputation.

Of course, in the 50s and 60s, Boston was a long airplane ride from San Francisco.  We talked to our faraway relatives on the telephone only a few times a year and letter writing was a standard ritual in our house.

Walking the Woods with Thoreau

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the May 31, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

When I decided to become a librarian, I had already spent the first half of my life raising my family of daughters.  I had just turned 47 when I returned to graduate school in library science.  It was a natural reinvention of my life after having spent years reading to my children and volunteering in their school libraries.  After homeschooling one of my daughters, and serving as home librarian, I slipped effortlessly into the role of children’s librarianship.

I was wise to subscribe to these words attributed to Confucius (551-479 BC): Find a job that you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. (A friend of mine left his career as a certified public accountant because he wanted to love his job as much as I loved mine. He is a librarian today, working as a public library director in New York State.)

A few of my favorite books published during the years I worked as a children’s librarian were the unusually illustrated picture books known as the Henry Books by D.B. Johnson. In them, Johnson whimsically make sense of some of the complicated, yet paradoxically simple philosophies of New England’s Henry David Thoreau.

Living Off The Land

Diane Phillips is the Technical Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read the published version of her column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin on May 24, 2013.

I’m about to embark on a new venture.  I just purchased a share in a community farm.  In my opinion, there’s nothing better than sitting down to a meal prepared with fresh, locally grown vegetables.  It reminds me of my childhood.  My grandmother used to have the best garden that yielded bushels of green beans, cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, zucchini, tomatoes, and so on.  From the early summer to early fall, my family had homegrown vegetables.  I’ve tried my hand at gardening in the past, and I learned that I don’t have the knack for it.  I forget to water it and weed it.  I don’t provide adequate protection to keep out our resident rabbit and neighborhood woodchuck.  Because of my ineptitude at living off my land, I made do with the offerings at the local grocery store.  I’ve tried to make sure to buy organically grown fruits and vegetables to avoid the genetically engineered or pesticide-laden products.  It just wasn’t the same as that fresh-picked taste that I remember from my grandmother’s garden.  I figured I’d have to make do with what I could buy since I clearly didn’t get the gardening gene from my gram.