Your Daily Funnies

Jeff Hartman is the Senior Circulation Assistant, Paging Supervisor, and Graphics Designer at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read Jeff's column in the August 25, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Growing up, I had a morning routine.  I’d fix a bowl of cereal, pour myself a glass of juice and open up the Globe to the comics.  My early favorites included Garfield and Mother Goose and Grimm – the punchlines didn’t change much, but Odie falling off the table was funny every time.  As I got older, I preferred the family humor of FoxTrot and For Better or Worse.  I even eventually began to appreciate the adult political takes found in Doonesbury and Bloom County/Outland.

Loafing Around: Adventures in Bread Making

Read Alli Palmgren's column in the August 18, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Alli is the Technology Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library.

My husband and I were visiting my sister at her home in New York last winter. While I had known for some time that she had turned into an incredible bread baker, my husband was experiencing the fruit of her labors for the first time. While he was was blissfully savoring his fourth or fifth piece of just-out-of-the-oven

Piecing It Together @ the Library

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the August 11, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Growing up, my family was not a puzzling one; to clarify, we did not do jigsaw puzzles. Of course, we had small puzzle toys for our family of four children when we were young but I don’t remember doing jigsaw puzzles with my family or friends as a young child or teen.

I think I must have first fallen in love with jigsaws when my children were babies - when I had very short or very long stretches of time on my hands between their naps or after their bedtimes. We lived in Ireland at the time and the toy shops in Cork and Dublin were filled with wonderful European puzzles of rich scenes and thousands of pieces and they captivated me.

“Laissez les bon temps rouler!”

Liz Reed is the Adult and Information Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Liz's column in the August 4, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Or, if your Cajun is a little rusty, “let the good times roll!” This phrase captures the joie de vivre, or joy of living, carefree attitude characterizing the culture of New Orleans. Known as Nollins or Nawlins, NOLA, The Crescent City, The Big Easy, The City that Care Forgot, and Mardi Gras City, New Orleans is truly unique.

            I had the great pleasure of visiting NOLA this past spring. Whether your interest lies with cuisine, music, history, folklore, nature, art and architecture, or vice, there is something for everyone in New Orleans. The number of attractions and pastimes is almost overwhelming; I spent a week in New Orleans and only saw a fraction of what the city has to offer. Luckily, NOLA is such a popular tourist destination that there are lots of guidebooks and websites to help you plan your trip.

Bird Brain

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the July 28, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

When I wrote several columns about birds in 2011 and 2013, I shared the many new books that you’ll find in our library’s collection.  (For anyone hoping to read a past column, you can find all of our nearly 400 columns archived online or organized annually in spiral books that are available from our adult services librarians.) 

I wrote about my experiences as a non-birding wife; that is, one who is married to a man who stops conversations, meals, and eyes-on-the-road to stare at, point out, or listen to birds. I used to find it particularly annoying when I was interrupted. Gerry would excitedly stop everything to exclaim about the long lines of black cormorants on the electrical wires. When he spied the trail of a circling hawk spotting an unfortunate prey, all other words and thoughts went out the window.

Pick Me Up Books for Your Summer

Nancy Ling is an Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read the published version of Nancy Ling's column in the July 21, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Open any paper, stream the news, and soon you will feel overwhelmed with the world. A car bomb killing hundreds in Bagdad, a train going off the tracks in Pennsylvania. Truly it’s a wonder we get out of bed every day and head to work or the gym. Lately I’ve found myself avoiding many things but reading isn’t one of them. Instead my tastes have changed. Now I’m searching for what I’ve termed a good “Pick-Me-Up” book. No, not a book on dating, but one that makes me smile. While I may be The Queen of Denial, a humorous escape seems like the perfect remedy to this world’s ills.

Free Fun in Massachusetts: A Day at the Zoo

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the July 14, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

In 1889, when Andrew Carnegie wrote his essay titled Wealth, it was published in the North American Review and soon after became known as The Gospel of Wealth.  In the article, Carnegie reasoned that successful capitalists have an obligation to improve the world, both culturally and socially, with the bulk of their riches. They must, he contended, leave the world better than they found it. “I should consider it a disgrace to die a rich man,” in Carnegie’s words speaks to his legacy to the world. Carnegie’s wealth built over 3,000 public libraries in English-speaking countries, many of them in the United States. The foundation in his name endures to this day.

Netflix and Binge

Read Kate Tigue's column in the July 7, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Kate is a Children's Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library.

Sometimes sunny days are just too sunny.  That’s what I used to tell my mom when I was a kid and sick of being outside in the summer.  She thought I was nuts.  She may still think I’m nuts.  I’m not a home-grown New Englander but I can complain about the weather with the best of them. Yes, I griped about the cold and the snow all winter and groused about any rainy day in the spring. Summer is finally here and the weather has been perfect.  Like San Diego-perfect.  Like it’s a crime-to-stay-inside perfect.  And yet...sometimes sunny days are just too sunny!

A New England Food Fight!

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the June 30, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Fights within a family are nothing new. The world’s oldest literature records them (Cain and Abel), history chronicles them (Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth 1), and folklore embellishes them (the Hatfields and McCoys).

            Massachusetts is not new to family troubles, either. In-laws in the Porter and Putnam families tussled in Salem during the 1600s and some of that acrimony fed the Witch Trials. The Friendly’s brothers fought over ice cream. Even the famous Koch brothers’ in-fighting has a tie to Massachusetts – three of the Koch brothers attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Election Fever

Norma Logan is the Literacy Coordinator at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read Norma Logan's column in the June 23, edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Since last June, for anyone paying attention to the political arena, it has been a whirlwind of emotions and news bites.  More than twenty politicians have come and gone out of the presidential campaign, and we are now edging closer to seeing one non-politician and one career politician left standing.  Emotions are running high, and we still have a long way to go.

In Search of the Perfect Tomato

Read Alli Palmgren's column in the June 16, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Alli is the Technology Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library.

For the first time in over two months, my husband and I are able to eat dinner at the kitchen table. Since March, nearly every flat surface in the house has been completely covered in seedlings. While I devoted a fair amount of counter space to peppers, strawberries, pumpkins, and the like, it is really the dozen varieties of tomatoes that have taken over our house and my life.

Trains and More Trains

Margot Sullivan is a part-time reader's advisory and reference librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column as published in the June 9, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Many, many, many years ago at Boston University I took a course on Middle Eastern History with a young professor who is now Professor Emeritus – foreign policy in the Middle East.  I am not really sure why I took the course other than it was something totally new and different but I ended up writing the final paper on the construction of the Berlin to Baghdad Railway. I do remember enjoying the research.  From 1899 to 1914 and eventually 1940 this immense project was fraught with politics, finances, and confusion. The reasoning behind such an enormous and long linking between two geographical areas was that Germany would get oil and Turkey would trade for needed goods. Abdul Hamid ll was the last sultan to have absolute control over the Ottoman Empire from 1876 to 1909 when he was deposed. The alliance with Germany and Kaiser Wilhelm ll which included the Baghdad Railway construction was unsuccessful. There is still discussion today as to whether this undertaking helped bring about World War l.

Libraries I've Known and Loved

Jeff Hartman is the Senior Circulation Assistant and Paging Supervisor at the Morrill Memorial Library. Jeff also creates the graphics used in marketing library services and programs. Read Jeff's column in the June 2, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. 

I started out in the basement, two afternoons every week, all summer long.  It was hot that year, and I rode my bike downtown, but it was a good chance to get out of the house.  And I got all of my volunteer hours out of the way before my freshman year of high school even started in the fall.  It was dusty down in the basement, but cool and quiet, and all I had to do was rip barcodes off of old magazines, stamp them “WITHDRAWN,” and wheel my booktruck down through the stacks to get a new batch.

Reinventing the Librarian of Congress

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the May 26, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. 

            I visited the Library of Congress on a trip to Washington, DC in 1999 and I applied for my first LOC library card. During that first trip to the Library of Congress I was awed that I, merely a citizen of the United States, could get a library card from such an iconic American institution. I remember registration as quick and, while I managed to visit a few of the library’s research collections, I admit that I really just loved returning home with the card in my wallet.

The Bravest Character I Know

Nancy Ling is an Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read the published version of Nancy Ling's column in the May 19, 2016 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

I thought I would take this opportunity to let someone else’s words speak to our library readers. This year the topic for our annual essay contest was “The Bravest Character I know.” We had over 100 entries and while the decision to choose winners from the various age groups is never easy, the best writing seems to rise to the top.