Davis
Memorial Library
928 Cape Road Limington,
ME 04049
(207) 637-2422
www.davismemoriallibrary.com
Hours: Mon. 12-8; Tues. 2-8; Thurs.
10-6; Fri. 2-6; Sat. 10-1
Trustees Mtg.: 2nd Thurs.
7pm Red Tent Book Group: 3rd Mon. 7pm
Classics Book Group: 1st Mon. 7pm
Pre-School Story Hour: Thurs. 10:15 am
Written by Mary R. Braley
May, 2007
Please take note of the new website address on our letterhead.
The program that supported our old website was very out-of-date. It was
getting harder and harder to work with, and impossible to get support
for, so Kay did her “homework” and found a new place for us to have a
website. This should be much easier for us to work with and stay
usable for a long time. The process of moving everything from the
old site to the new one is nearly done. We hope it will be all done
very soon. Check out our website for information on programs, new
books and other interesting things.
Just
a reminder: We will be closed on Monday, May 28th for Memorial
Day. We hope you all have a lovely holiday weekend.
Mark
your calendars for Saturday, June 2nd! That’s the day of the
Friends of the Library’s 11th annual Plant & Bake Sale. The
sale runs from 9-noon. It is always a wonderful time and is their
main fundraiser for the year. All the proceeds will benefit the
library. The Friends are looking for plant donations as well as
people to help out at the sale. The Plant Sale’s specialty is
tried and true plants from local gardens, so if you are thinning out
some plants, the friends would love to have them and will help you dig
them up if you need them to. Anyone interested can call Roxanne Cyr at
637-2322 for more information. The Friends will be holding a
special meeting on Thursday, May 10th at 6:45 at the library to work
out all the details. They would love to have anyone interested in
helping to come to that meeting. You do not have to be a member
of the Friends Group. The Bake Sale will be in the capable hands
of Patty Dearborn again, so you good cooks can expect a call from
her. Anyone who would like to cook will be welcome to
contribute. Home made goodies and home grown plants should make
for a wonderful shopping experience for everyone. Don’t forget :
June 2nd, 9-noon on the library lawn!
We
are busily putting together our annual 101 Best Summer Reads List. We
have done this for several years, and this “summer reading program” for
grownups is always popular. Most of our patrons look forward to
it every year. We hope to have it all ready sometime in June.
Right now we have just over half the titles we need for the list. We
rely a lot on recommendations from our patrons, so if you have read or
know of a great book, one that you think other people would enjoy,
please tell us about it. It can be any kind of book, fiction or
non-fiction. We have even had Young Adult books on the 101 List.
We really need your help and will appreciate your suggestions.
We
will be having our annual Spring Clean-Up Day on Saturday, May 19th at
the library, starting at 9am. All willing hands are welcome to do
yard work and the usual spring cleaning chores. The library will
provide coffee and doughnuts, helpers will provide the elbow
grease. In spite of the hard work, everyone who helps out at
these Clean-Up Days ends up having a good time. Please come along
and lend us a hand. Remember, “Many hands make light work”.
Our
May book display will be of our gardening books. This May
gardening book display is always one of the most popular of the whole
year. Here in Maine, May is when spring really arrives in full force,
and our minds turn to digging in the dirt, and raising pretty flowers
and delicious vegetables. We hope our gardening books will help
you dream, and then turn your dreams into reality.
The Sign-Up for our Summer Reading Program starts on Monday, May
21st. Kay has been working hard on the program. The theme is Get
a Clue at Your Library. Kids always have fun at our Summer
Reading Programs and we are sure this year’s will be no
exception. Watch for ads and posters with more information, and
be sure to sign up your youngsters.
Because of our crowded shelves, we are having to discard some older
books that don’t go out any more to make room for new ones. We
have put a few of the best ones out for a “mini book sale”. We
put them on a couple of shelves near the biographies and marked them
with very bright pink dots. They are certainly easy to
find! We are selling them at 50 cents each or 3/$1. This
mini book sale is temporary and will be all over by the end of
May. Since we don’t have room to store books for a large book
sale any more, we are donating our discarded books to 2 local libraries
for their book sales. One library lost many of their book sale
books due to a burst water pipe, and the other gets its entire book
budget from its book sale. We feel sharing our discarded books
with them helps us all. Remember to check those pink-dotted books
in our mini book sale before the end of May!
We
are looking for someone willing to volunteer to look after the
library’s gardens. They need some watering & weeding during
the summer, and some plants to fill in the few gaps there are in the
established plants, & then to be put to bed for the winter.
If there are any gardeners out there willing to volunteer a few hours a
month through the growing season to keep our gardens pretty, please
contact us at the library. We would really appreciate it.
We are very grateful to Roxanne Cyr who has cared lovingly for those
gardens for several years. Thank you so much, Roxanne!
Davis
Memorial Library
928 Cape Road
Limington, ME 04049
(207) 637-2422
www.davismemoriallibrary.com
Hours: Mon. 12-8; Tues. 2-8;
Thurs. 10-6; Fri. 2-6; Sat. 10-1
Trustees Mtg.: 2nd Thurs.
7pm Red Tent Book Group: 3rd Mon. 7pm
Classics Book Group: 1st Mon. 7pm
Pre-School Story Hour: Thurs.
10:15 am
Written by Mary R. Braley
June, 2007
“What is so rare as a day in June”. This is the month that
students, and their teachers, have been looking forward to.
School gets out! All the gardeners are busy with flowers &
vegetables, and can sit back to admire their handiwork, at least till
it’s time to start weeding! The warm days are the longest of the
year. Kids are looking forward to school-free days, working folks
are planning vacations, and everyone is in summer mode. No wonder we
love June!
The
Friends of the Library held their 11th Annual Plant, Bake & Book
Sale on June 2nd. There was the usual good turnout and most of
the plants and baked goods were sold well before noon. The bake
sale made nearly $100, and the plant sale over $1,000! All of
that money gets used by the Friends for the benefit of the
library. We hadn’t planned to have a Book Sale this year, but
some of our patrons suggested we have a table or 2 at the sale, so we
did. We have had to “weed” out unread books to make room for new
ones, so we have a pretty good selection of adult fiction to
sell. We sold about $40 worth of books at bargain prices.
There are still plenty left over and we plan to send some to St.
Matthew’s Church for their big Funshine Fair later this summer.
We had already donated some of our discarded books to other library’s
book sales. Now, for a while at least, we have room on our shelves for
our new books. Boy Scout Troop 315 lent their awning to shade us
and protect us from sudden showers. The Scouts themselves were
here to help us set up and lug plants and books to people’s cars for
them. This troop of Scouts has helped us at the Plant, Bake & Book
Sale for many years and we really appreciate it. The Friends want
to thank the various businesses who donated plants & other items to
the sale: Tranquility Gardens from right next door to the library;
Uncle Bob’s; Steeplebush Farms, both from here in Limington; Ossipee
Trail Garden Center in Gorham; Blooming Knoll of Hollis; Rippling
Waters in Standish; and Waterhouse Nursery of Scarborough. We would
have had a much smaller plant sale without their donations. Their
generosity is very much appreciated. Also we want to thank the
people who dug plants from their gardens, baked goodies for the bake
sale, worked setting up & running the sales, and all the folks who
came to buy. Most of all we want to thank the Friends for their
very hard work & dedication, both this year and over the last 11
years. We owe you all a big debt of gratitude.
Our
book display this month will feature fathers, in honor of Father’s
Day. We don’t have a lot on the subject, but being a dad is an
important thing, and it seems right for us to have books about
them. Come see what we have for dads, and you may find something
you will enjoy.
On
Thursday, May 10th, Girl Scout Troop #24, & Brownie Troop #40 came
to the library to clean up all the debris that had accumulated under
& around our old portable building. Once the building was
gone, we could see what a mess it was. Those little girls put on rubber
gloves, took trash bags & boxes, and cleaned up every bit of the
mess. They set out all the trash by the road for the next
morning’s trash collection. Then they raked it all smooth and
even swept off the cement pads the supports had rested on! It was a lot
of hard, dirty work, but they smiled & laughed all the way
through. We enjoyed their seeing their happy, cheerful
faces. Troop leader Rena Kinney and the other adult helpers
organized the whole thing perfectly. They did such a good job
that when the Friends Group had their Plant sale, they used the area
the girls had cleared to set up the sale. They certainly couldn’t have
done it before those Scouts & Brownies lit into it. Thanks a
million, girls. We really appreciate it.
Sign-up for Summer Reading has started, so bring your kids in to
register. Kids get to choose how much they want to read, and if they
reach their goal, they get a certificate & a prize. The
program starts right after the 4th of July, and runs for 6 weeks. There
will be a special activity at the library each week, but kids do not
have to attend to be part of the Summer Reading Program. This
year’s theme is Get a Clue at your Library. Sounds like a mystery,
doesn’t it? Should be fun!
The
Spring Clean-Up Day on May 19th accomplished a lot in spite of being
very rainy. The hard-working crew put on the screen doors, re-installed
the air conditioner, cleaned the storm windows, & got the
de-humidifier in the cellar up and running again. Trustee Candy
Bradbury took down the broken mini blind from one of our east windows,
got a new one, & hung it up for us. It’s great to have it
working again. The library is all spruced up for summer, and
looks much better. Thanks, all of you!
Our
101 Best Summer Reads list is nearly ready, and the books should be on
display by mid-month. The staff and patrons put together this
list of books, old & new, that they feel would be fun for folks to
read this summer. Take a copy of the list, and browse through the
books to find some good reading this summer. We hope you can find
something to enjoy. We add to our 101 list all year long, so if
you read a book that you think should be on next year’s 101s, tell us
about it. We will start the 2008 list as soon as the 2007 one is
printed and put on display. We like to get all the input we can.
Quote for the month: “I cannot live without books” – Thomas
Davis
Memorial Library
928 Cape Road Limington,
ME 04049
(207) 637-2422
www.davismemoriallibrary.com
Hours: Mon. 12-8; Tues. 2-8; Thurs.
10-6; Fri. 2-6; Sat. 10-1
Trustees Mtg.: 2nd Thurs.
7pm Red Tent Book Group: 3rd Mon. 7pm
Classics Book Group: 1st Mon. 7pm
Pre-School Story Hour: Thurs. 10:15 am
Written by Mary R. Braley
July, 2007
Happy Summer, everybody! We hope you all have a great time with
the summer activities we look forward to all year. Please make
some visits to the library part of your summer plans.
Our
101 Best Summer Reads went on display in mid-June. Young
volunteer, Taylor Braley, helped set them up. The job took most
of an afternoon’s work by 2 people. There are lists of the 101s
available for anybody who wants one. Each book on the list was
chosen by a patron or staff member who read and loved it. You can
tell the 101s because they have a peach colored dot sticker on the
spine with “101” written on it. By now, there are less than 101 books
on display because they have been very popular! Take a list and
also browse through the books. There’s some great reading there.
If any of you have a recommendation for next year’s list, let us
know. We already have 3 or 4 books the 2008 list, and are always
ready to add to it.
Our
Summer Reading Program is getting going this month. After a
rather slow start with registrations, things picked up and we had about
25 kids signed up by the end of registration on July 5th. The
first special activity will be on Tuesday, July 10th at 6:30 at the
library. There will be one every Tuesday till the end of the
program on August 14th. These special activities will only last about
30-45 minutes. Kids do not have to attend the activities to be part of
the Reading Program. They are just a bit of extra fun for them.
The Friends of the Library group will provide a little prize for the
youngsters who meet their self-set reading goals. The real prize,
of course, is the reading they do through the summer.
Our
book display for the duration of the Summer Reading Program will be
juvenile & young adult mysteries. The Reading Program theme
this year is “Get a Clue at Your Library”, so mysteries seemed
appropriate. Of course, you can get a clue about many different
things at a library. Anything that’s a mystery to you may have an
answer, or at least a clue, in a book from a library.
Don’t forget that we have passes to the Maine Wildlife Park in Gray,
and to the Willowbrook Museum in Newfield. These are both
wonderful places to visit, for children and adults. The Wildlife
Park pass admits up to 7 people for $1 each. The Willowbrook pass
admits 2 adults & 2 children free. They are both a real
bargain! These passes have been very popular with our patrons.
You can just come in and tell us what day you need it, and we will give
you a dated pass, free! Think of them when you want something fun
to do this summer.
Dolores Harmon has recently given us several quilting books. We are
adding them to the collection a few at a time, so if you like to quilt,
keep watching the non-fiction “new book” shelf for them. They are
very nice books with lots of great ideas in them. Thank you very
much, Dolores.
People tend to think of libraries as places where people go in to get a
book to read, and that’s it. But, your library is much more
than that. Of course, lots of people do come in to get books to
read, but here are some of the other things going on. We
have 2 tutors in here once or twice a week with young people who need
extra help with school. We have had aides who work with
developmentally disabled children come in here to read to them and
teach them to deal with social situations. The library is a safe,
pleasant place for these kids to adjust and learn. We try to help them
feel as comfortable and welcome as possible. Our computer
usage keeps climbing. Of course, kids use it for school projects,
but vacationers come in to check their e-mail, do on-line banking &
pay their bills. Others use it to download tax forms, to research
job openings, get legal information, to buy hunting & fishing
licenses, and many, many other things. Because we are now WI-FI
(wireless internet), we even have folks in the parking lot when we’re
closed, using their laptops. One vacationing professor from CT
even downloaded all the information there for a course he’s teaching in
the fall! Every year, especially in the summer, we get lots
of people researching their family trees & using our resources to
find their ancestors who lived around here. They all seem very
impressed by our material and helpfulness. We have a Weight
Watchers group meeting here before the library opens on Saturday
mornings. They have become some of the library’s greatest
supporters. Our local Boy Scout troops get lots of use from their
library. Last month we had some of them using our computer for
work on their computer badges. Another Scout did genealogy research
here for his family history badge. Four of the Scouts are working
on their Reading badge this summer. Along with getting books
here, they needed to learn about using the card catalogue, the
different kinds of books there are, & other things we were happy to
show them. Earlier this year, a Girl Scout troop worked on a
badge about their home town here at the library. We have 2
active Book Groups who get books through the library & meet here
each month to talk about them. These groups are so popular that a
3rd one may start. Many people with a long commute or heading out
on long car trips, get audio tapes or CDs of books, not to read, but to
listen to. All of these things are much different from the basic
idea of folks just taking out a book to read. If that ever was
all that a library did, it certainly isn’t any more! We just love
all the interesting things we do as a vital part of this community.
Davis
Memorial Library
928 Cape Road Limington,
ME 04049
(207) 637-2422
www.davismemoriallibrary.com
Hours: Mon. 12-8; Tues. 2-8; Thurs.
10-6; Fri. 2-6; Sat. 10-1
Trustees Mtg.: 2nd Thurs.
7pm Red Tent Book Group: 3rd Mon. 7pm
Classics Book Group: 1st Mon. 7pm
Pre-School Story Hour: Thurs. 10:15 am
Written by Mary R. Braley
September 2007
Fall arrives this month. School has started, and we here at the
library are looking forward to having classes from H.B. Emery School
coming up here regularly. Coming to the library is a highlight of
the school week for these youngsters, and it’s something that we look
forward to as well. The delight the kids take in visiting here
reminds us of just what a special a place a library is.
Jake Plummer, our teenage helper on Thursday mornings, is leaving us to
move on to an early studies program at USM. We are very proud of
him, but will certainly miss his help. Now we will have to learn
to repair CD and DVD scratches ourselves. Jake was a whiz at
that! Good luck, Jake. We are sure you will do well.
Our librarian, Kay, put in a nice, big book order in late August.
Doris Powers and Mary Braley, who do what is necessary to get the books
ready to go out, are working hard to get them done. Very soon there
should be lots of shiny, new books for our patrons of all ages to
enjoy.
New books by Dick Francis, Ken Follett and James Patterson are due out
in the next month or so. Kay is planning to order them. If you
would like to have your name put on a waiting list for one of these,
call or come in and we will put you on the list.
Our Pre-School Story Hour starts up again this month on Thursday,
September 13th at 10:15. The approximate age range is 2-4, but we
are flexible. The Story Hour is held every Thursday except
during scheduled school vacations, or on very stormy days when we would
be closed anyway. Kay reads a couple of stories and does a simple
craft or game with the children. The kids love it and get to feel happy
and comfortable in the library. Being read to is good for
children, and sharing a happy time with other children is good for
them, too. Please bring your little ones here for stories and
fun.
Our book display for September is of dog and cat stories. We may even
include some about horses or other pets. Our animal companions
are an important part of the lives of many of us, and even those
without pets like stories about them. Look our selection over
when you come in. You may find a great animal tale to take home.
Our wonderful Friends of the Library Group are having their quarterly
meeting on Monday, September 24th at 6:45 here at the library.
They do so much for the library that we can’t really thank them enough,
though we try. We really appreciate all that they do. Their
latest good deed was providing coupons from Midge’s Ice Cream for free
ice cream cones for the kids in the Summer Reading Program. Lots
of children had a nice treat thanks to them. The meeting on the
24th will be to plan future activities. They would love to have
some new people join them, so if you are at all interested in helping
the library, mark your calendars and come to the Friends meeting on
Monday the 24th.
We will be having a Fall Cleanup Day late next month, and especially
need people to clean up our flower gardens. They have gotten
somewhat weedy and overgrown this summer. If you would be willing to
help us with that, please let us know. We would be very grateful.
The library trustees are holding their regular monthly meeting on
Thursday, September 13th at 7pm at the library. They want to
remind everyone that their meetings are open to the public and that
anyone is welcome to attend.
We have a pretty good selection of magazines for our patrons to take
out, but they don’t seem to go out as much as they ought to. Kay
had the idea of putting them out on the big table near where we put
interesting books for people to look at when they come in. She
laid out a sample of our magazines, and sure enough, people started
noticing them and taking more of them out. We have 2 nice
magazine racks, but apparently the magazines aren’t as noticeable there
as they are on the big table. We are happy to have found a way to
get them to folks’ attention. We have Down East, National
Geographic, McCall’s Quilting, This Old House, Family Fun and several
others. Look on the big table, or on the magazine racks for some
really interesting reading. Unlike some libraries, we let our
magazines circulate just like books. They go out for 2 weeks at a
time and can be renewed.
Heidi Libby will be taking Mary Braley’s place for a couple of weeks
while Mary and her husband visit their children in Virginia.
Heidi does a great job of filling in when we need her and handles
everything beautifully.