VTLIB staff had an extremely busy September attending a variety of events around the state, including the:
- 2019 Association for Small & Rural Libraries Conference in Burlington (Sep. 5-7)
- 2019 Burlington Pride Festival (Sep. 8)
- Children's Literacy Foundation (CLiF) Rural Libraries Conference in White River Junction (Sep. 20)
- 2019 Vermont Fairy Tale Festival in Killington (Sep. 21)
- 2019 Burlington Book Festival (Sep. 27-28)
VTLIB consultants also traveled to different parts of the state to conduct trainings and discussions, and State Librarian Jason Broughton participated in Governor Scott's "Capitol for a Day" initiative in Bennington County on September 24.
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A group shot of the fantastic Vermont librarians who attended the 2019 ARSL Conference in Burlington!
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VTLIB's Jennifer Johnson & Vin Livoti represent the department at Burlington's Pride Festival on September 8.
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VTLIB Special Populations Consultant Vin Livoti, PhD, presents with Pride Center of Vermont's Director of Health & Wellness Taylor Small about Drag Queen Story Hour at CLiF's Rural Libraries Conference in White River Junction on September 20.
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Librarian Michelle Beaulieu of the Highgate Library & Community Center and State Librarian Jason Broughton pose as Queen & King at the Vermont Fairy Tale Festival at Sherburne Memorial Library (Killington) on September 21.
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State Librarian Jason Broughton addressing the crowd at the Burlington Book Festival on September 27. (
Photo courtesy of Phoenix Books' Facebook page.)
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State Librarian Receives Fellowship
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State Librarian Jason Broughton has been selected to join the inaugural class of the University of South Carolina's School of Library & Information Science Fellows program. Along with three other fellows, Jason will help develop USC's LIS curriculum, advise students and faculty, and support the program in other ways with speaking appearances and classroom visits.
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VTLIB presents another speaker for the state employee speaker series Tuesday Talks. This month the event will be on October 15 from 12:00-1:00pm at the Pavilion Auditorium. Recordings of Tuesday Talks will now be made available through a partnership with ORCA. Previous months recordings and information about future Tuesday Talk programs is available on our website:
https://bit.ly/2jYZma1
.
The October program is Raising Spirits: Spooky Stories from Vermont Public Records, and features four speakers from the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration (VSARA). Public records hold clues to many tales, including those of grisly murders, the special powers of spirit mediums, tragic disasters, and mysterious disappearances. In the spirit of Archives Month – and Halloween – staff and friends of the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration will share what they discovered in the state archives that put some meat on the bare-boned facts. The speakers will be: Sally Blanchard-O’Brien (Archivist), Mariessa Dobrick (Archivist), Brian Lindner (Historian), and Chris Winters (Deputy Secretary of State).
For more information, please see the event poster here:
https://bit.ly/2nmc6cF
. Please feel free to share the poster and event information in your departments. For more information please contact April Shaw (
a
pril.shaw@vermont.gov
).
Tuesday Talks is a speaker series presented by VTLIB during the lunch hour one Tuesday each month. The topic and speaker will change each month, but will always be relevant to events or trends in Vermont that affect State Employees. All Tuesday Talks are open to members of the public as well.
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News from CLIC, the Public Law Library
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A CLIC tip!
To Bookmark: The Vermont Law Research Guide
This guide highlights free electronic resources available to the public, as well as print format and subscription options that are available to access on-site at the Julien & Virginia Cornell Library.
The free electronic resources include access to:
- Vermont Constitutions (unannotated);
- Vermont Cases & Judiciary;
- Vermont Legislation (current and historic);
- Vermont Administrative Law, including regulations, decisions, and documents; and
- Vermont Local Law and Municipal Government.
And remember, if you need assistance getting started with legal research, you can Ask a Law Librarian by calling 802-831-1313 or emailing
reference@vermontlaw.edu
. We are happy to provide assistance.
Please note:
The Julien & Virginia Cornell Library and CLIC will be closed October 12 & 13.
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Special Event!
Kassie Tibbott of VTLIB's CLIC will be speaking on a panel discussing the topic of women's incarceration. The panel will be held at Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier on Wednesday, October 9 from 7:00-8:30pm.
This event is part of The League of Women Voters & Kellogg-Hubbard's Library's 2019-20 Speaker Series on "Criminal Justice in Vermont." Like all of the events in this series, it is free and open to the public.
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Do you know what a locale code is? Don’t worry if you don’t! It’s a two digit code that is assigned by the federal government, and quantifies how urban or rural the location of your library is. You won’t need to know it 95% of the time, but if you’re applying for a federal funding opportunity, it may well determine your eligibility. Codes vary from 11 (Large City) to 43 (Rural Remote), and are based on a somewhat arcane system of distance from population centers. You can find out more than you ever wanted to know at our website -
https://bit.ly/2pliFwG
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A Brief History of Library Bookwagons!
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At the turn of the twentieth century, funds were low, winters were long, and libraries were only open 2-4 hours a week in Vermont – in the summer. This created quite a challenge for many rural librarians in their efforts to make books their patrons. In 1904 the first Secretary of the Vermont Free Public Library Commission, Miss Mary L. Titcomb, had the idea of using a horse drawn wagon to carry books out to small libraries and farming families. Not able to find traction initially in Vermont, she moved to Hagerstown, Maryland, where she was able to implement the idea, creating the first Washington County Free Library Book-Wagon [image 1].
The idea began picking up steam in New England, and on May 25, 1922, the Vermont Free Public Library Commission became the first New England State Commission to own a motorized bookmobile. The “Alice Cooper Bookwagon” was given to the Commission by the Vermont Federation of Women’s Clubs, and was named for Mrs. Omeron H. Coolidge of Rutland, first president of the Federation and was a friend of Mary Titcomb. The bookmobile was a Dodge truck that cost about $1100 to complete and was outfitted with shelves to hold about 300 books [image 2]!
The bookmobiles were updated with newer models over the years. Through the 1930s, the St. Johnsbury region bookmobiles were run by Miss Margaret Knight and “The Professor,” Arthur J. Knight, and several men employed by the WPA [image 3].
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[Image 1]
The Washington County Free Library Book Wagon (Washington County, Maryland) – Date unknown
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[Image 2]
The “Alice Cooper Bookwagon” – 1922
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[Image 3]
Miss Margaret and the Professor delivering books in the St. Johnsbury region – 1937
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[Image 4]
The brand-new Vermont Bookwagon for the Brattleboro region - 1959
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[Image 5 & 6]
The first issue of Vermont Bookfetch – 1971
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In 1959, the Vermont Free Public Library Commission purchased 5 new bookmobiles, which were able to carry 1,400 more books per vehicle! They delivered books to and from various libraries across the state [image 4].
Due to the soaring gas prices of the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, Vermont’s Librarians were once again forced to be creative in reaching patrons in rural areas of the state. In 1971, Vermont Bookfetch was launched [image 5 & 6]. From 1971-1982, the Department of Libraries published their catalog, with supplements from participating libraries in local newspapers, beginning with the Times Argus. Patrons could then mail in requests to the State Library, and materials would be mailed back to libraries and patrons! The BookFetch program (later known as Books-By-Mail), was the precursor to what we now know as Inter Library Loan!
Sources:
Donovan, Paul.
History of the Vermont State Library
. Vermont: Paul Donovan, 2018.
Hobson, Jane B. “Regional Service in Vermont.”
North Country Libraries.
Vol. 1 No. 3. (February 1958): 1-5.
Hyzer, Muriel. “Rutland Regional Bookwagon”
Rural Vermonter.
Vol. 3 No. 2. (Winter 1965): 38-40.
Klinck, Patricia. “All is not lost!”
Vermont Department of Libraries: News
. No. 28. (September 1981): 1.
Page, Priscilla. “All is not lost!”
Vermont Department of Libraries: News
. No. 29. (October 1981): 7-8.
Report of Library Services to Rural Areas: March 18, 1957 to June 30, 1959
. Montpelier, Vermont: Vermont Free Public Library Commission, 1959.
Richards, Helen M. “Vermont’s New Book-Wagon.”
Bulletin of the Free Public Library Commission
. Vol. 14 No. 4. (March 1919): 9.
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Total number of interlibrary loan requests made in August 2019
: 5461
Books: 4847
Videos: 376
Audiobooks: 214
Articles: 10
Music CDs: 13
Music Scores: 1
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Fun fact
: Books about “The art of” were very popular this month! We had
The Art of Dying Well
,
The Art of Racing in the Rain
,
The Art of Raising a Puppy
,
The Art of Scandal
, and
The Art of War
.
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Top 10 most requested book titles (with most requested at the top):
- Where the Crawdads Sing (Owens)
- The Library Book (Orlean)
- Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (Grann)
- Educated: A Memoir (Westover)
- Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Chast)
- Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (Mayer)
- The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (Wilkerson)
- There There (Orange)
- Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (Honeyman)
- Long Way Down (Reynolds)
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CSLP Annual Meeting Recap
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Library Advancement Assistant Jennifer Johnson spent three days in Indianapolis in September at the Collaborative Summer Library Program's (CSLP) Annual Meeting. Through our membership with CSLP (
www.cslpreads.org
), Vermont public libraries have access to the summer reading programs that CSLP staff and volunteers create for each summer.
At the meeting, representatives from all over the country come together to brainstorm how to make our summer reading programs serve the most people in the most effective way. Jennifer will provide more insights from this meeting as we move into October, but for now, get excited for summer 2020; the theme is fairy tales/mythology/fantasy, and the slogan is "Imagine Your Story!"
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Don't forget: voting for Vermont's Green Mountain Book Award (GMBA) is now open all-year long! Teens in grades 9-12 are invited to read as many of the fifteen 2019-2020 nominees as they can, and then rate the books they read on a scale of one to ten. The book with the highest rating at the end of the voting period in spring 2020 will be crowned the winner!
All teens who vote will receive a FREE, brand-new book (as supplies last)! Go to this page on our website to learn more about GMBA and to vote:
https://bit.ly/2LdUU2u
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Special Populations & ABLE Library
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Through a partnership with Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports (
www.vermontadaptive.org
), the ABLE Library's "ABLE Athletes" took to the lake for a sailing trip on September 21!
The ABLE Athletes are the ABLE Library's liaisons to Vermont Adaptive, which offers accessible (and often free) outdoor and sports programming for Vermonters with disabilities. We hope this is the first of many excursions our ABLE Athletes take with Vermont Adaptive!
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Libraries as Leaders in Connection and Community Engagement
When you think about your public library, do you envision it as a community resource that brings people together and helps people connect with friends, neighbors, and others in their community? In her travels around the state, VT Dept. of Libraries’ Governance and Management Consultant Lara Keenan participates in discussions with library trustees and directors about how library workers create “community hubs” that connect people who might not regularly interact. More and more libraries believe that their future lies in this “connection,” not the “collection.” While the materials available at your public library will always be important, more important will be the ways your materials, services, staff, and volunteers bring the community together in innovative, meaningful ways – both inside and outside the library building.
Lara invites library directors, trustees, and friends to consider engaging deeply with their community – through 1-on-1 conversations and small group discussions - to discover ways in which the library can help identify, explore, and address the community’s missing connections – oftentimes called a “community needs assessment” or a “community aspirations assessment.” And engaging the community in discussions around its needs/aspirations doesn’t only consist of asking questions, listening to the answers, and then creating solutions. It’s a more iterative process that
- returns to the community after the conversation to let them know what was heard and ask them if that is what they meant,
- returns to the community to ask for assistance in developing ways to meet the needs they have identified,
- returns to the community to engage them in implementing possible programs, ideas, and plans that address the needs they have identified,
- returns to the community for help in assessing whether the programs, ideas, and plans that they helped implement can be modified to better meet the community’s needs,
- returns to the community to continue discussing future needs, identify future partners, develop future leaders, etc.
This process requires a fundamental shift in our thinking around community engagement. It requires us to continuously “Turn Outward” and rely on what the Harwood Institute calls “Public Knowledge” vs. our own “Expert Knowledge.” This shift can seem overwhelming and time consuming at first, but as we build community engagement into all aspects of our work, we often discover that the process of community engagement simultaneously serves many purposes:
- It makes the library more relevant to the community it serves.
- It helps the library reach underserved populations.
- It turns both users and nonusers into advocates for the library.
- It develops future donors.
- It allows the library to do more with its limited resources because library workers are partnering with community members and organizations to meet larger community goals rather than trying to do everything solo.
- It allows the library’s efforts to have a wider impact.
The Harwood Institute partnered with the American Library Association (ALA) to develop the Libraries Transforming Communities materials for libraries who want to “Turn Outward” and dive into deep, meaningful community engagement. These materials are available for free online here:
https://bit.ly/2ziEHQ9
***
Lara is available for regional trainings and phone/email consultations with library boards and directors on the Harwood/ALA materials. She has two upcoming regional trainings (see below). If neither of these trainings work for your library, please feel free to reach out to Lara to talk about scheduling a possible training in your area:
lara.keenan@vermont.gov
; - 802-636-0026.
Regional Trustee Trainings:
- 10/12/19, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Rutland Free Library in Rutland, VT (with a break for lunch)
- 10/21/19, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Cobleigh Public Library in Lyndonville, VT
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Continuing Education & Small/Rural Libraries
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2019 Public Library Director Summit
October 23, 2019 - 9:00am-4:30pm
Vermont State House, Montpelier
The Public Library Director Summit will be an interactive, intimate experience for public library directors, senior managers, and leaders to discuss library services, listen to updates and notifications, connect with VTLIB employees, and meet fellow colleagues from across Vermont. During the summit public library administrators and top managers will be exposed to some exciting new projects, state government information, and hear from fellow directors who are doing innovative things within their communities.
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VTLIB Continuing Education
The CE calendar continues to fill so check the website periodically to see if things have been added. We have some workshops that are grouped together with at least somewhat of a common theme, for example, a pair of workshops on Implicit Bias and Equity & Diversity in Library Services, and a “Storytelling Workshop Trio” featuring workshops that focus on storytelling as an inclusive practice using multilingual storytelling, adaptive storytelling, and drag-queen storytelling as models. People are always welcome to attend only one part of a sequence unless specifically noted otherwise, but it would also really enhance discussions if we had some carryover in participants.
VTLIB is hopeful that the October 7 workshop led by Girls Who Code
Community Partnerships & Outreach Associate Hayley Mojica will encourage folks to begin more coding clubs in Vermont. This workshop will include ways to start a club and replicable hands-on activities. It’s important to remember that you don’t need to have great technology prowess for your library to host a club! Girls Who Code offers loads of resources and support, and it’s free to be involved!
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In a late summer and early fall filled with professional development, here are two of the most impactful people/resources Joy learned about. It can require a little imagination or translation to read some of the content with a Vermont public library lens. Then again, maybe among the other mind-expanding ideas expressed, there’s also a takeaway about not getting too cozy in the coziness of our libraries. See what you think!
All are invited to VTLIB for a post-ARSL Conference reflection/round table discussion December 4 from 1-4pm. We will share ideas and resources learned at the conference and talk about new programs or other initiatives implemented because of conference sessions. Open to both people who attended and those who did not, the idea is for people who attended to share some of what they brought back with a wider audience and offer insight on the value of attending. This is also a chance to share feedback about the VTLIB ARSL grant process to be taken into consideration for future CE grants. It being December, there will be baked goods and hot beverages.
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From Our Neighbors at the Vermont Historical Society
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Sam B. Hand Annual Lecture
October 10, 7:00 pm
Waterman Lounge, UVM, Burlington, VT
How a farmer from Putney came to have an outsize influence on the United States: The Story of Sen. George Aiken
with Stephen C. Terry & Louis Augeri
In this talk Stephen Terry, a former staffer with Sen. Aiken, and Louis Augeri, a Political Science/History Major detail Aiken’s life and rise to prominence in the U.S. Senate – examining how his approach to politics stems from his early life as a farmer and horticulturist in Putney, Vermont. Co-sponsored by the Center for Research on Vermont, the Vermont Historical Society, the Silver Special Collections Library at the University of Vermont and the UVM Department of History.
Saturday Museum Program: Dairy Delights
October 12, 1:00 pm
Vermont History Museum, Montpelier, VT
Did you know that Vermont is the largest dairy-producing state in New England? Please join us for an exciting afternoon of Vermont dairy-themed fun. Activities include a read aloud, a dairy-themed craft, and delicious samples of Vermont-made cheeses. All ages welcome to join! Program is included with the price of admission to the Vermont History Museum (free for members!)
Third Thursday: What Say You, Elder? The Life and Lore of Rev. Daniel Field
October 17, 12:00 pm
Vermont History Museum, Montpelier, VT
Rev. Daniel “Elder” Field (1805-1883) was born in Springfield, Vermont. Rev. Field retired from the full-time ministry in 1863 to a small farm in Williamstown, Vermont, where he spent the remainder of his life, occasionally filling in at local churches as a “supply” minister. It was during this time that many stories about “Elder” Field, as he was known, began to accumulate, showing his droll, wise, and sometimes eccentric ways. Adam Boyce relates stories handed down from his family and other sources about the pithy parson. Free & open to everyone.
Before Your Time: After the Crossing
Many different groups of people, from many different continents, have helped build our state. But from the 19th century through 2019, the stories of immigrants have largely been excluded from the popular image of Vermont. Our latest "Before Your Time" podcast episode, created in conjunction with the Vermont Humanities Council, explores everything from food history, to migrant workers, to attracting the "right" kind of Vermonters. Listen at
www.beforeyourtime.org
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