Title: Friday, the day
Location: Winchell Room
Description: Dance party
Start Time: 17:00
Date: 2008-06-27
End Time: 18:00
There are some great photo-sharing and photo-manipulating opportunities out there on Web 2.0
Here’s a link to a colleague’s blog (Brian Herzog @ Chelmsford Library) which lists some good ones.
By Jay
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April 9, 2008 – 11:58 am
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The Material Girls are a group of quilters who came together in 1999 in Mount Washington Valley under the direction of Gail McClure (Gail’s quilt is to the left.) They get together once a month to create quilts for various charities. Their second meeting of the month is their social “show and tell” afternoon. The group falls under the RSVP (Retired Senior and Volunteer Program) umbrella, and is dedicated to quilting for not only this community, but for anywhere in the world there is a need for the comfort and nurturing quilts can bring. To date, quilts have been donated to the following organizations: Starting Point, Memorial & Huggins Hospitals, North Conway & Ossipee Day Care, Sunbridge Nursing Home, Meriam House, Mountain View Nursing Home, Camp Sunshine, Rotoplast Journey of Home (worldwide), Head Start, Kidney Camp (Virginia), Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans), VNA Hospice, and the VA Medical Center in Manchester. And the list will continue to grow.
Every year the group creates a queen size bed quilt that is raffled off. The proceeds of the raffle go to the RSVP group for funding mileage reimbursement to volunteers who drive for Meals on Wheels and take people to their appointments. One member of the group has single-handedly raised over $1,000 for Alzheimers’ research by donating quilts that she has made for auction on the internet. To learn more about this cause, go to www.alzquilts.org.
When not making quilts for others, Material Girls members create quilts for themselves, to give as gifts, and just for fun. These are the quilts you will see at the library during January. The group also meets monthly for a “show and tell” session, to have lunch, and lots of laughs. The group’s motto when creating their own quilts is “You’re in Charge!” Through the years, this motto has challenged members to learn and grow in their quilting abilities.
On display at the library are wall hangings created by group members on their own time as well as a charity quilt the group recently completed. To learn more about the group, contact Gail McClure at 356-5085.
By Jay
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April 9, 2008 – 11:54 am
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While answering a reference question from a patron about our art book collection, I wanted to share what we discovered. If you type “art” as a search term, and then scroll down looking at the right side of the page, you can break down your search further by choosing a more specific subject like art appreciation or drawing or 20th century or biography. If you search for artists, you get a slightly different result.
By Jay
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April 9, 2008 – 11:51 am
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Looking through a file of clippings I throw things into, I found an interview with David McCullough the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and historian. When asked by Jonathan Soroff, “What a library’s role in a democracy?,” he said the following,
Without a doubt, public libraries are one of the greatest of American institutions, and if you’ve ever lived or worked abroad you’ll know this. Free access to literature, history, philosophy, mathematics, the works - civilization’s entire treasure house of ideas - is open to everyone. It’s pure democracy at work. The portals of a great library are the portals to freedom. Thomas Jefferson said, “Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free expects what never was and never will be.” There’s no excuse to be ignorant in a community where there’s a public library, and there’s one in virtually every community in the land. I like to tell people that if you get down about the state of education, learning, the arts, etc. in our country today, remember that there are still more public libraries than there are McDonalds….We must never, ever take our public libraries for granted. People just assume that these things are looked after properly, but they’re not. I’m not blaming anyone. We’re all to blame, and we must change it.
David McCullough, libraries, democracy, portals to freedom
By Jay
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April 3, 2008 – 11:26 am
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Robert Frost cultivated the image of a rural New England poet with a pleasant disposition, but he was a bit of a curmudgeon, and born on March 26th, 1874 on the west coast, in San Francisco. His personal life was full of tragedy and mayhem, and he suffered from dark depressions.
According to Writer’s Almanac 3/26/08:
He graduated from high school at the top of his class but dropped out of Dartmouth after a semester and tried to convince his high school co-valedictorian, Elinor White, to marry him immediately. She refused and insisted on finishing college first. They did marry after she graduated, and it was a union that would be filled with losses and feelings of alienation. Their first son died from cholera at age three; Frost blamed himself for not calling a doctor earlier and believed that God was punishing him for it. His health declined, and his wife became depressed. In 1907, they had a daughter who died three days after birth, and a few years later Elinor had a miscarriage. Within a couple years, his sister Jeanie died in a mental hospital, and his daughter Marjorie, of whom he was extremely fond, was hospitalized with tuberculosis. Marjorie died a slow death after getting married and giving birth, and a few years later, Frost’s wife died from heart failure. His adult son, Carol, had become increasingly distraught, and Frost went to visit him and to talk him out of suicide. Thinking the crisis had passed, he returned home, and shortly afterward his son shot himself. He also had to commit his daughter Irma to a mental hospital.
And through all of this, Robert Frost still became one of the most famous poets in the United States. He said, “A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching out toward expression, an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the word.”
And, “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
By Amy
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March 26, 2008 – 3:01 pm
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I know it snowed a bit last night and that more snow is forecast for the weekend, but really, winter is almost over. Another few weeks and the snow will be gone. It’s already melting - just look at these pictures taken in early March. I’m sure we have less snow now. I’m sure of it. And underneath the snow, there is grass waiting. And flowers. We just have to be patient. 
By Jay
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March 26, 2008 – 2:17 pm
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Book Arts Workshop on Saturday, April 19th, 12-4 p.m.
One-day workshop in flag books
For examples of flag books, click here.
Bring drawings, cartoons, photos or whatever you want to use for flags (can be collaged to thicker paper for stability as a flag. Or copy whatever you want to use on card stock for stability. I will bring book board for covers and heavy paper for the accordion-folded spine. Email me or call the library or come in to sign up.Open hours: Tues & Wed 10-8, Fri & Sat 10-4. Limited to 12 participants.
By Jay
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March 25, 2008 – 8:22 am
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NH Humanities Council program with Marcia Schmidt Blaine from PSU present a talk about, “A Woman Who Keeps Good Orders,” her book about women tavern-keepers in NH. 7 p.m.
By Jay
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March 23, 2008 – 12:25 pm
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Wednesday, March 26th at 7:00.
The NH Humanities Council sponsors a thought-provoking public program titled Galileo Galilei:1564-1642, featuring Paul Manning as Galileo. Manning has been a portrayer of historical characters for six years at venues all over New England. Listen as Galileo presents his life, discoveries, and experiments, his engagement with mathematics, physics, astronomy, and the Church. You will take part in helping prove some of his theories in a colorful presentation suited for all ages.
programs, kids programs, Galileo, NH Humanities Council, astronomy
By Jay
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March 23, 2008 – 11:36 am
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