Stuck on a Desert Island

Nancy Ling is an Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read the published version of Nancy Ling's column in the June 8, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

For our 6^th annual library essay contest the topic was “If You Were Stuck on a Desert Island, What Book Would You Bring and Why?” Yes, this is an oft used question but we had as many different answers as sand upon the shore.

When My Story Began

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the June 1, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

This week, I returned from a professional conference in Hyannis. As you might guess, I spent four days surrounded by colleagues – librarians of all types from Massachusetts libraries, organizations and associations.

Did we spend the time shushing each other? No, of course not! Instead, we introverted types arose early each morning and going to bed late, devoted each day to sharing our hopes and dreams for the present and future of libraries.

What drives librarians to reach well past our own comfort levels and beyond our own communities? We attempt to grow as professionals, to learn from our colleagues, and share with other librarians our own unique way of serving our Massachusetts communities in the best way we can. For many of us, this burden of extroversion is an assault on our systems. It is entirely true that we are drawn to the field of librarianship by our love of information and our love of sharing it. Most of us are altruistic and generous with both our time and our resources. We are extremely enthusiastic about learning, researching and reading.

Your Friend, The House Rabbit

Jeff Hartman is the Senior Circulation Assistant, Paging Supervisor, and Graphics Designer at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read Jeff's column in the May 25, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

With Easter in the rearview mirror, now is a great time to talk about having a bunny in your life every day, not just once a year!  After cats and dogs, rabbits vie with fish and birds for the position of third most popular pet in America, with as many as three million living with families across the country.  In the last few decades, perception of rabbit ownership has changed considerably, from thinking about them as farm animals good for learning about breeding and responsibility to a long-term commitment as a family pet.  My wife and I have been “rabbit people” for about ten years now and have come to love and understand much more about how smart, fun, and loveable bunnies can be.

Big Papi and the Library Ladies

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the May 18, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

If you were lucky enough to come to the library on April 25^th, you most assuredly did a double take when you saw the Retirement Rookie – or Big Papi shelving books in the stacks. You saw him shushing patrons, chatting it up with readers in our quiet Cushing Reading Room, or checking out books at the front desk. The adorable storytime in the Children’s Room was so much fun for the children, Big Papi, the parents, and onlookers.

Big Papi (aka David Ortiz) retired from the Red Sox at the young age of 40 and now he apparently has time on his hands. In April, viewers online were asked by John Hancock Retirement to tweet ideas for how Big Papi could spend his free time.

Books in the Time of Exhaustion

Kate Tigue is the Assistant Children's Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column in the May 11th edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Every expectant mother goes through a period of anxiety when she imagines what life will be like after the baby arrives. Will anything be the same? It’s one of those rubicon moments that you can’t totally fathom until it happens. Most of us realize that life will never be the same once a child enters the picture but understanding the enormity and permanence of that change can take some time to process.

One of my chief worries during pregnancy about life as a new mom was wondering how I would keep reading. Compared to concerns about the baby’s health, it’s a little trivial but reading is my only lifelong hobby. I’ve never been dedicated to crafting or outdoor pursuits or any other recreational activity. Reading has been one of the constants in my life since childhood and the one thing I truly love to do. Like many moms-to-be, I was trying to figure out how I could hang on to some small part of myself during an intense life change.

In the La La Land of Dreams

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the May 4, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Each year after the Academy Award nominations have been announced, I begin a manic quest to see as many of the top movie contenders as I can. I’m apparently not the only one who needs to catch up because theaters across the county hold marathons screenings in those weeks before the Oscar ceremony.

I haven’t had the time to sit in a darkened movie theater for a few weekends so I watch those nominated films that are available on video or On Demand at home in the comfort of my own easy chair. Or I scramble from theater to theater in those last few weeks, always missing a few movies that seem to only be screened at the art spots in and around Boston. (Luckily, we have a terrific little gem of a theater in the town next door at the Dedham Community Theater and they always have a handful of Oscar candidates on either of their two big screens.)

D-Day in a Day

Librarian April Cushing is head of Adult and Information Services at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column published in the April 27 issue of the Norwood Transcript Bulletin.

“You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you… We will accept nothing less than full victory!”  Yikes. Talk about pressure.

Standing Beside Our Bill of Rights

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the April 20, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Unlike the Ten Commandments that I memorized in Sunday School, I admit that I haven’t been quite as painstakingly thorough with the first ten amendments of our Bill of Rights. I can readily refer to the First Amendment (freedom or religion, speech, press, assembly and petition) and the Second (right to bear arms).  Yet, the other eight get a little vague as I search around in my memory for them.

More Than Little Green Men and Faeries

Read Alli Palmgren's column in the April 23, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Alli is the Technology Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library.

I am a very eclectic reader. There is hardly a genre that won’t grace my to-read pile. For that reason, I really enjoy the Reader’s Bingo competition that the library holds periodically (OK, so everyone else thinks that it is a game, but I can make anything into a blood sport).

The Stories of S-Town

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the April 6, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Season One of the astonishingly-popular Serial podcast had a profound effect on an entire world of listeners. When the 12-episode podcast ended on December 18, 2014, there had been 40 million downloads but I was not one of them. I discovered it sometime later, in the spring of 2015, and I binge-listened to every single minute, totally addicted.

Make It Work

Liz Reed is the Adult and Information Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Liz's column in the March 30, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

“Everything old is new again.” We’ve all heard variations of this famous line, usually applied to fashion. We’re supposed to change our wardrobes seasonally, and seasonal staples change from year to year. All fans of Project Runway know that the fashion world moves quickly; as Heidi Klum says, “In fashion, one day you’re in, the next day – you’re out.”

Who Loves Opera

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the March 23, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Gerry and I were listening to Sirius’s The 70s channel on a long turnpike ride home from our New Jersey children. There’s nothing better than a Sunday afternoon riding shotgun, my knitting in my lap, while I occasionally look up to notice the landscapes of New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island slide by. Knowing most of the words to the songs on the radio is a bonus.  Gerry and I often switch to the 60s so that we know ALL the words to the songs. We were simply Groovin’ on a Sunday Afternoon.

As we were singing along to The Pinball Wizard, the Who’s rock opera Tommy came to mind that afternoon.  Images from the 1975 musical and Roger Daltrey’s luscious golden curls apparently entered my consciousness from that area of my hard-driven brain that stores my young adulthood memories.

The Creative Potential of Freckles

Sam Simas is a Technology Assistant at the Morrill Memorial Library this winter and spring. Read Sam's column in the March 16, 2017 issue of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

As a child, when I still drank grape-flavored juice-boxes and stared into the sky, my friend Emily sat with me at a splintered picnic table under Camp Y--’s pavilion and taught me that my freckles had creative potential; that I could use pens or permanent markers or lip-stick and do what she did: connect one dot to the other, make a diamond, or a sailboat, or a horse (she had a lot of freckles).  But my freckles have always been too linear; I could come up with a line, or at best a slanting Orien’s Belt.  Otherwise, I let myself become dejected by the inferior quantity of my skin abnormalities.  For this, I need someone to blame, and so I blamed the sun.

            In defiance of my mother and father, I abandoned all SPF and counted the hours of direct sunlight I could catch on my arms.  Sometimes, in school, I would sit in the window and roll my sleeves back, hoping for a freckle or two.  This, as you may imagine, did not work.  After many years of bright pink sunburn at Camp Y--, no more freckles had appeared on my arms, and I stopped trying to keep up with Emily and her horse-shaped freckle constellations.

I’d learned a lot from trying to fry my skin, more perhaps than a kid should have known; that the sun’s rays were once measured with a Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder (think of a magnifying glass for frying ants, but adult-sized), and fascination with the power of weather lead to me to explore other weather phenomena: tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. 

Rediscover James Michener

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the March 9, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

When I was a young teenager in the mid-1960s, the young adult genre of books was a mish-mash of Nancy Drew, Sue Barton, The Hardy Boys, Little Women, Treasure Island and David Copperfield. Once we teens had devoured all of those books, including Black Stallion, Johnny Tremain and I Capture the Castle, we seemed to move quickly and deliberately into books written for adults. We read John Steinbeck’s Mice and Men, Conrad Richter’s A Light in the Forest, and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. We carried dog-eared copies of Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Pearl Buck’s Good Earth, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.

           

There were many of us who wanted something more meaningful than the romance, science fiction, and adventure written in the 40s and 50s for teenagers. Bestselling author Steve Berry writes that “what we now know as the young adult genre [in the early 60s] had yet to be invented”. Steven King’s Carrie was a decade away and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter was more than 30 years from being published.

Discovering an Old Spirit

Diane Phillips is the Technical Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library.  Read Diane's  column in the March 2, 2017 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

I took my first sip of bourbon at Thanksgiving.  A few friends gathered for a Friendsgiving celebration and I was bringing dessert.  I didn't want to bring a traditional pie or cake.  That was boring to me.  I remembered seeing a book in our collection that had caught my eye – "Baked Elements: Our 10 Favorite Ingredients" by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.  The cover of the book is well done and inviting but it was the layout that really captured my attention and got me to look into it further.  Each chapter of recipes is organized by the authors' favorite ingredients that are found in many popular dessert staples such as peanut butter, caramel, cinnamon and chocolate.  Chapter four is what got me curious - Booze.  I knew that spirits are used in both cooking and baking but I hadn't tried adding any to desserts that I've made in the past, so I was intrigued. The first recipe listed in the Booze chapter is Bourbon, Vanilla, and Chocolate Milk Shakes.  That sounded, and looked, really good and super easy to do.  I had my dessert!