What Hilari has been reading

Kockroach by Tyler Knox, was an unusual book for me to choose. Although lured by several glowing reviews, including a starred review from Publishers Weekly, I anticipated that it just might be one of those books that I'd return to the library after the first chapter or two. But I was surprised to find a book so clever, so well-constructed and so funny that I'm now waiting for other family members to read it so just so that I'll have someone to discuss it with!

Here's a quote from the Publisher's Weekly review:

"Kafka's Metamorphosis is turned on its antennae in this roaringly entertaining noir novel. Knox's debut begins with a cockroach waking up to find he has been transformed into a man. Kockroach, however, doesn't lapse into despair, but instead demonstrates the relentless survival instinct of his species by learning how to get by in the human world. Helping him is pint-size Times Square hustler Mickey "Mite" Pimelia, who sees in Kockroach (or, as he's known to humans, Jerry Blatta) his ticket to the top. Sex, organized crime, violence, betrayal and success follow for Kockroach, whose insect's sense of amorality aids his ascent. Knox's inhuman antihero's tale is told in flawless noir style—Kockroach's coldness juxtaposed against Mite's bitter self-recrimination in a seedy, smoky 1950s New York—and Kockroach's insights into that New York are perversely delightful. The book's conceptual cleverness is ultimately eclipsed by the epic story line, making for a compelling story of greed and power that is more Chandler than Kafka. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Gift of Flowers

The crocus bulbs that were planted by The Master Gardeners are in full bloom and bringing smiles to our faces. What a delight to look at the many crocuses in the garden near the School Street entrance. Many perennials are pushing through the ground as well. Watch as the garden grows - it's magnificent. We owe this beauty to Jane Lendway and Georgia Valentine who organize Master Gardeners from the Washington-Orange Chapter of the Vermont Master Gardeners to plan, plant and weed our gardens. Thank you to the Master Gardeners for this gift.

This week in the Children’s Library

Storytime is taking a break this week. However, we do have two April Vacation Specials. On Tuesday, April 17 at 10:30am join us for Critter Kids with Carly. You will be inspired with stories, songs and games about nature. We welcome children ages 4 to 10 in the Hayes Room. Carly offers Critter Kids Summer Camp in Worcester, VT. Pamphlets can be found on the community board outside of the children's library.



On Friday, April 20 at 10:30am local musician Colin McCaffrey will help us celebrate Earth day. Colin and students from Union Elementary School will sing original songs from the CD “The River Gives to Me”, about the Winooski River. This program is open to children of all ages in the Hayes Room. Check out the children’s library programs on our website, here.

Did you know that the children’s library has a different phone number than the adult library? It’s 802-223-4665.
See you at the library!

An Evening at the Library - DVD

Linda Leehman from Video Activist Lab of Vermont videotaped and edited “An Evening At The Library, Honoring Vermont Author Katherine Paterson”, an event that was held at the Kellogg Hubbard Library in December. It definitely was an evening to remember.
Senator Patrick Leahy told stories about living in Montpelier and using the library as a five year old. Katherine Paterson read from her new book “Bread and Roses,Too”. If you were here for the celebration December 2, 2006, you’ll want to watch the DVD to be reminded of what the speakers said, of how the music sounded and the magical feeling that everyone seemed to catch. If you were not able to attend you will now be able to see what it was all about.
This 45 minute DVD is available to check out at the library and was produced by ORCA, Onion River Community Access.
This year An Evening at the Library will be held on Saturday, December 1, 2007!
DVD review by Claire, KHL Librarian.

THE SNOW WALKER

Directed by Charles Martin Smith
Starring Barry Pepper and Annabella Piugattuk
2003 - a DVD Review
This wonderful film is based on the short story, "Walk Well, My Brother", which appears in an anthology of short stories titled, "The Snow Walker", written by Canadian icon, Farley Mowat. (We have this book at the library.) This story takes place in 1953 in northern Canada. We’re introduced to the main character, Charlie Halliday, in a rowdy bar. Charlie, played by Barry Pepper, is an arrogant, loud, heavy drinking, bush pilot. After a night of carousing he’s off on a job flying two businessmen to a remote location. On his return, Charlie lands on an island where an Inuit family convinces him to fly a young woman, sick with tuberculosis, to Yellow Knife. He agrees only after being paid with ivory tusks. Charlie and Kanaalaq, played by Annabella Piugattuk, crash in an uncharted lake on the frozen tundra. As the story unfolds, we are treated to the beautiful, spare, landscape of the arctic. Charlie is at a total loss in this wilderness. Kanaalaq, in her weakened state, demonstrates her skill for survival, saving Charlie’s life as he is overcome by nature’s cold winds, deep mud, swarms of mosquitoes, and starvation. With grace and wisdom Kanaalaq teaches Charlie how to live on the tundra, by hunting and fishing for food, sewing clothes, and working with nature. Charlie comes to admire and respect Kanaalaq and the customs and beliefs of the Inuit, a sharp change from his previous stance. The story is very moving, powerful and visually stunning. Check it out at the library! The call number is DVD 791.43 S.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 1922-2007

I Love You, Madame Librarian
by Kurt Vonnegut / In These Times

"I, like probably most of you, have seen Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Its title is a parody of the title of Ray Bradbury’s great science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. This temperature 451° Fahrenheit, is the combustion point, incidentally, of paper, of which books are composed. The hero of Bradbury’s novel is a municipal worker whose job is burning books.

And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries. "

Library funding update

As noted in an earlier post, Kellogg-Hubbard was largely successful on town meeting day. We asked the six towns in our service area for $318,000, and $304,000 was approved. Hilari Farrington and I will propose to the board changes to the budget to make up for the $14,000 shortfall. At this point we do not expect that we will have to reduce hours to make up the lost revenue.

A critical source of support for the library is charitable contributions. In 2007, we have budgeted $147,000 in gifts from individuals and businesses. To-date we have raised $37,675 compared to $23,570 for the same period in 2006.

We are ahead of last year for a couple of reasons. First, a business that gave us $5,000 last year gave us the same amount this year, but earlier in the year. Second, we received two major gifts: $6,000 from a relatively new donor, and $10,000 from a donor who gave us $5,000 last year. Third, and sadly, a number of long-time patrons have died and we have received gifts in their memory.

I am inspired by the generosity of these donors. I have been involved in fundraising for some time, and Kellogg-Hubbard has an unusually high number of dependable donors – people who give year after year – and also a number of major donors who give willingly and at increasing levels.

Don’t forget, you can make a donation to Kellogg-Hubbard online.

Community outreach

The library’s community advisory committee met yesterday. This is a board committee with representatives from all the towns in our service area; they guide our annual requests to taxpayers.

We have begun planning for 2008 and one of our goals is to increase communication with town residents on library funding issues through community newspapers and newsletters:

Times Argus
Montpelier Bridge
Washington World
Middlesex Newspaper
The Grapevine, Worcester
East Montpelier Signpost
Maple Cornet Net (e-newsletter)
School newsletters

Periodically, I will use this weblog to provide updates on Kellogg-Hubbard's finances, which will then provide us with narrative to submit to these publications. I welcome you input on the content and tone of these posts. (We know there are a few readers of our blog out there. We subscribe to Sitemeter which counts the numbers of “hits” to our blog. For the week April 2-8, we had 79 visits. Of course many of these visits are posters and our family members who log on to admire our wit and wisdom. But I suspect there may be a few readers outside of the library, and we welcome your comments.)

Susan Weber - Lucky Winner!

Susan Weber is the lucky raffle winner of a 14-Course Chinese Banquet for 10 people at A Single Pebble Restaurant in Burlington. This wonderful gift was donated by Steve and Deb Bogart, owners of the best restaurant in Vermont! Susan just got back from Florida, coming home in the snow storm. Susan was pleasantly surprised when she listened to her answering maching and learned that she was the winner of this great prize! Susan said that she bought lots of tickets with this raffle, more than her usual $10 worth. The Kellogg-Hubbard Library made $2,191 on this raffle, twice as much as our next highest yielding raffle! The Bogart's gift is truly appreciated. The library relies on the community's generosity for our perpetual raffles and other fundraising efforts. (To make an online donation click here.) The donors of items and the buyers of raffle tickets truly make a difference in our budget! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

An evening at the library

Morgan Brown single-handedly led the staff at Kellogg-Hubbard to create this blog, and he has helped me and Rachel learn our way around the blogasphere. (Morgan administers the blogs Montpelier Matters and Norsehorse's Home Turf.)

This afternoon he is helping me to learn how to format and place photos and graphics in a blog posting, and this is our trial post.

Here are some photos from An Evening at the Library, a reception on December 2, 2006 to honor author Katherine Paterson and hosted by Sen. Patrick Leahy.

Your Choice Raffle

For the month of April the Kellogg-Hubbard's raffle is "Your Choice." We have several different items as part of this raffle. You buy the raffle tickets at the circulation desk and put the tickets in the containers of the items you would like to win! Hence the name, Your Choice.


The prizes include:
1. A Puppy Training Video and Clicker
2. CompuStar Remote Car Starter system
3.&4. Two separate gift certificates to Stairway to Style,
One for services by Danette Fuller and one by Celeste Moulton
5. Unique Chinese Tea Pot donated by KH Librarian, Becky McCullough
6. Delano Designs Lamp Shade and lamp, by Beth Delano


7. Overflowing Bagful of “Sisters in Crime” Mystery Collection, signed by the authors. Books include:
Sarah Strohmeyer, Bubbles All the Way
Lisa Scottoline, Dirty Blonde
Carla Neggers, Cut & Run, The Widow, Dark Sky
Nancy Means Wright, Stolen Honey, Poison Apples, Mad Season,Mad Cow Nightmare
Sarah Stewart Taylor, O’Artful Death, Mansions of the Dead, Judgement of the Grave, Still as Death
G. H. Ephron, Addiction, Amnesia



8. Collection of Pat Conroy books, also autographed by the author:
The Water is Wide, the Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline,
My Losing Season, The Prince of Tides, Beach Music
9. $50 Gift Certificate for AVON products donated by Jessica Bernard
10. Three David Harp Musical Instruction Kits
11. Book, Events of This Day: Facts of Interest to Montpelier compiled and donated
by Michael Doyle, owner of Doyle's Guest House
12. Gorgeous Photo of the Vermont State House by Jim Sheridan, Montpelier City Council member.
13. Used women’s bike, as is. Red, Versato Riviera

Tickets are $1 each, six for $5, fifteen for $10.
Drawing is April 30th.

State funding initiative

I’m just getting back from ten days of vacation, and I’m disappointed to learn that the initiative to obtain state funding of public libraries has taken a large step backwards.

The House General Committee voted out a bill, H-99, to create a legislative study committee that would, in part, “document the full range of services provided by public libraries and the impact that these services have on their patrons and communities; and consider at what level financial support is needed for public libraries so that they can meet the increased demands of Vermont’s citizens.”

The legislation also created a “public library special fund,” with initial funding of $10,000. A $10,000 state-wide appropriation was not going to have a meaningful impact, but the creation of the “special fund” was something tangible to advocate for with the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.

The bill was referred to the House Appropriations Committee which then stripped the bill of funding and substance. The bill, as passed by the full House, reads,

(a) The Joint Fiscal Office and the Legislative Council, with the cooperation of the State department of libraries, and in consultation with the Vermont Library Association, shall identify other states that are comparable to Vermont in terms of population or population density. The study shall examine the number of libraries per capita, funding mechanisms, governance structures, and the services provided from the state library.

(b) A report detailing the results of the study shall be submitted to the general assembly by January 15, 2008.

Our attention will now turn to the Senate Education and Appropriations Committees.

The Times Argus ran an article on state funding on March 28^th.