The Week in Library Land: December 22 to December 31
Breaking the rules again here, merging two weeks and truncating one. Why? Because it just makes sense to end with the year. Truth be told, these were quiet weeks, what with the holidays and all. Shockingly, we have NO PHOTOS from any of the visits!!
Last week saw just two and a half library visits. The full one was a visit by Adam to the Blackstone Public Library. This is a big and airy library by J. Steward Roberts Associates (now Johnson Roberts Associates) in 2004. It features lots of really great and functional spaces - a large meeting room and gallery, three large study rooms, separate children’s and teen areas, and a history room with plenty of genealogical resources.
There’s a large Library of Things collection that includes TWO metal detectors, a sewing machine, a record player, musical instruments and more! To demonstrate the value of the resources the library provides, they have a neat little calculator on the site, check it out to see how much visiting a library saves you!
And talk about events, the Blackstone Library has plenty. On January 4th, for example, there was a “Downton Abbey Tea,” featuring Kandie Carle as “The Victorian Lady.” In this role, Carle donned period garments and provided history and anecdotes on life and fashion in the early 1920s - a century ago. That’s the kind of program that brings people in! Library Land Score: 4.55.
From Blackstone, Adam went over to the Endicott Branch of the Dedham Public Library. We’ve visited both the main library and the branch in the past. Endicott is smallish place. It’s got a great view out its large back windows and a pretty active children’s area. It feels like it could do with an upgrade. Library Land Score: 3.18.
The half-library for the week was a half-hearted attempt to update my library card at the Medway library. Alas, I was too late and the library was closed!
That’s okay, because the following week I went to the Medway Public Library TWICE in one day. The first time was to take care of the library card thing and it was a very pleasant time. The maker space really is impressive. During this visit, there were a bunch of kids working on robotics projects and we saw they will be doing a training on the library’s bulky knitting machine. I also found out that there are plans for another seed bank at this library this coming Spring.
The second visit for the day - and the last one for 2019 as it turns out - was a productive one. There was a comfortable space just waiting for me and I was able to get a lot of work done. Gives one a good feeling about the library. Library Land Score: 4.36.
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The last library of the year. It’s funny to look back at our travels in an around Library Land over the course of 2019. It was the year we officially launched the project. It was the year we managed to visit 165 individual libraries around Massachusetts and another 25 around the country - 190, and that’s not counting the many libraries we visited multiple times. It was a pretty wonderful year in Library Land and 2020 is going to be even better!