Stories from the Stacks
The Monthly Liaison: February 2022
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"I don't know if you can truly love a place until it's beaten you around a little and shown you all its sides," writes Heather Hansman at the end of Downriver, a book that feels as adventurous in its exploration of western water law as it is of the rapids of the Green River. Hansman rafts down the river, often alone, and follows its threads and tangents in order to understand how the river she loves is actually many rivers known in different ways to different people.
At our February Library staff meeting, in the spirit of this year's Winter Read, A River Runs through It, we each told a connection we had with a river. I expected quick snapshots, but what emerged was a confluence of stories. One of us told of taking an aged dog to Heagle Park where he could lay in the cool water and cool his rickety bones. Another described walking through Draper Preserve and listening to water and cottonwood leaves as a solace through the pandemic. Another shared how a friend had helped her to see the shift in evening light as it glanced off the water near River Run.
One story flowed into another; each person and the river itself became more nuanced as we all imagined one person setting a lawn chair on a beach below Carbonate and another person casting a line for a rainbow near Boxcar Bend. There grew a sense of many quiet, personal moments and also a larger narrative of community flowing through them. We latch on to love at different places and different moments, but surely there are lines of connection.
"Eventually, all things merge into one," writes Norman Maclean at the end of his novella, "and a river runs through it."
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Jenny Emery Davidson, Ph.D.
Executive Director
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By Will Duke
Information Systems Manager
"This is place of many things. But before all else, it is a place where we connect through stories and to one another.”
~From The Community Library Manifesto
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Valentine's Day happened this month, and our world was saturated, once again, with pronouncements of romantic love: flowers, chocolates, poetry, and fancy dinners.
I am not suggesting that romantic love only exists on Valentine’s Day, but the celebration certainly ravages the countryside. So, today, let us amble down the quiet paths of other loves.
I love walking through the Children’s Library. I enjoy watching a parent wrangle more than one child, as inevitably at least one of them escapes into the stacks on their own.
After all, the Library is a safe place for a child to grab their first taste of freedom.
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Will Duke has the mind of an
IT guy and the heart of a poet
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As they roam, children instinctively touch every book they pass. They open books to look at the pictures or puzzle out the words. They explore the displays and, sometimes, a child will even approach a librarian. This is no accident, as the librarians know how to make themselves available...without intruding on the child’s adventure.
Next to the Children’s Library, roving packs of teenagers come, as teenagers must, to explore larger realms. They descend upon the study room, where studying can happen, but hijinks and shenanigans are not unknown. Homework can be done on the laptops in the Juice Box, but plenty of Minecraft and Roblox get played as well. Friends help and tease one another in turn. Sometimes one peels off solo and settles into what I think of as a “portal chair” by the window on their way to the Old West, or Mars, or the future.
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There are other portals in the Library, and they are not just for youth. I see plenty of adults staring into the pages of their imagination around the fire, or on the couch, or in the sunshine by a window. Traditionally, reading is portrayed as a solo occupation, but here at the Library, I see a lot of people sharing books together.
A couple of weeks ago I was in the Lecture Hall listening to conductor Alasdair Neale explain how he reads a musical score and communicates what he hears in his head with the whole orchestra. He taught us what the waving hands mean, and then used a laser pointer to show us how he reads a musical score. Dozens of people were with me that night, carried away by the music.
A few days later, I listened to writer John Maclean reminisce about a river, his father, his family, and fishing in Montana. I remembered a beautiful movie and overlaid it with the pictures that John shared of his family and the cabin in the woods. As the camera operator, I even had the privilege of watching John react to Jenny Emery Davidson’s introduction. It was a beautiful moment.
Off the beaten path, back where only the staff roams, I have had the honor of getting to know Cathy, the collections manager. Cathy, who loves Sci-Fi even more than I do, purchases and places every new book in the Library. She invites them in, and ushers them out when it is their time to go. She places books that she loves, and others that she vehemently disagrees with in order to shape a wide-ranging collection. She balances books that capture the past, and that define the now. If “The Collection” is truly a living breathing creature, Cathy is the game warden.
My friend Buffy works at the reference desk with an unlimited pool of patience. Buffy—let’s call her a park ranger—helps you find a book, or get it from another library, use our digital services, and can even make the printer work from your phone. She does this all day, every day, sometimes repeatedly for the same patron. Somehow Buffy always has time for everyone. It is impossible to interrupt her; she always seems to have been waiting just for you.
There is a lush garden at the Library, and you might not know much about it; I didn’t before I started working here. The regional history team collects artifacts—seeds if you will—from our past and present, to preserve for the future. If you have ever eyeballed one of the amazing exhibits in the foyer, you have enjoyed the fruits of Mary, Kelley, and Olivia’s efforts. There are even more exhibits at the Museum in Forest Service Park on the south side of Ketchum. The variety of the collection is remarkable.
I could go on about everyone who works and/or adventures here, but I invite you to come explore on your own. I love working at the Library. I love the people I work with. And I love the people we work for, our patrons.
Mostly I love the infinite possibilities that unfold here every day.
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With print, ebooks, audiobooks, film titles, the Library of Things, and the Music Station, The Community Library is love made manifest, with an endless supply of resources to expand the heart and blow the mind.
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The Love Story of Missy Carmichael is
"...a celebration of how ordinary days are made extraordinary through friendship, family, and the power of forgiving yourself—
at any age."
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American Philosophy: A Love Story is the story of a disillusioned philosopher who discovers an untouched library of rare books that were gathered nearly one hundred years before by William Ernest Hocking, Harvard's last true giant of American philosophical thought. The author delves into the philosophy underpinning pragmatism, wisdom, freedom, transcendentalism, and entwining love.
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A Brightness Long Ago
Guy Gavriel Kay writes intricate and immersive historical fiction, laced with just a touch of magic—A Brightness Long Ago explores love, ambition and destiny in the maritime waterways of perilous Renaissance Italy.
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Web designer Chloe Brown vows to finally break some rules and “get a life.” She makes a to-do list of “bad” things she’s always wanted to try – and that list does not include a relationship with her artist/handyman neighbor, Red Morgan. Witty banter and steamy (adult) love scenes make this a delightful romance novel.
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Juliet, Naked
starring Rose Byrne and Ethan Hawke.
Annie’s ex-boyfriend is obsessed with the reclusive, one-album wonder Tucker Crowe. Annie leaves a scathing review of Tucker’s music on his website. He responds, and a surprising chemistry develops between them. Based on the book
by Nick Hornby.
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Games, Puzzles,
and Instruments
What can connect you to others more than a rousing game of Scrabble? Or playing a guitar by the fire? Our Library of Things
has games, puzzles, and musical instruments that you can borrow.
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Writers-in-Residence Elliot Ackerman and Lea Carpenter |
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Hemingway Writers-in-Residence Elliot Ackerman and Lea Carpenter will join us for a conversation about their writing on March 22.
Elliot's books, including the recent military thriller 2034, have been nominated for many awards, including the National Book Award, Andrew Carnegie Medal, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, among others.
Lea's first book, Eleven Days, about a son who goes missing during a 2011 Special Operations Forces mission, was hailed in The New York Times as “the debut of an extraordinarily gifted writer.” She is a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School where she teaches Truth And Story in the Language of Justice.
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The Hemingway Writers-in-Residence program supports creative work in a place Hemingway loved and lived. Unique in the intermountain West, this residency provides an allowance of time and space in an historic house and a spectacular natural landscape for writers to work.
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THANK YOU to Our January Donors
for Supporting the Stories of the Library
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Anonymous - 1
Delvin and Joseph Ash
Mary Bachman and William Downing
Judi and Richard Bartoccini
Berry Family Fund, American Endowment Foundation
Annabelle and Benjamin Bierbaum
Broschofsky Galleries
Edith Cary
Nancy and Charles Cord
Nancy M. Crandall and Stephen E. Wall
Michael Fallon
Dr. Kenneth A. Fox
Chris Gertschen
Barbara and Bob Grabowski
Susan and Ronald Green
Jenna and Dr. Robert W. Hall
Lise and Clyde Holt
Ellen F. James
James and Barbara Cimino Foundation
The Susan and Ronald Green Fund of the Jewish Foundation of Greensboro
Katherine and McKay Johnson
Pamela Kae and Dr. David Weaver
Tracy and Eric Kanowsky
Cathleen A. Leamy
Susan and Steven Marzolf
Penny and Chris Mazzola
Bettina McAdoo and Gordon Russell
Tim Mott
Carmen and Edward Northen
Mary Tess O'Sullivan and Jeremy Fryberger
Debbie Park and Jeff Williams
Albina and Jeffrey Parks
Andrea Pollock Wood and Robert Pollock
Viki and Al Rankin
Kathryn and Kirk Riedinger
Jennifer and Peter Roberts
Laura Rose-Lewis and Scott Lewis
Roy A. Hunt Foundation - Jodie and Dan Hunt
Lynda and Robert Safron
Joan Swift
The Woods Foundation
Jane Tillotson
Calvin Turley
The Ward Family
Maryanne and Jerry Whitcomb
Lisa Wild
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Page Turner Society
Robyn and Todd Achilles
Big Wood Landscape
Kathleen Diepenbrock and Kelley Weston
Claudia and John D. Gaeddert
Kyla Merwin
Elaine H. and Michael T. Phillips
Narda Pitkethly
Gay Weake
Anita Weissberg
Susan Woodruff
Tribute Gifts
Katherine Lyle in honor of Graham Lyle
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The Community Library is supported by people who believe in the free flow of news, entertainment, and information. You can make a one-time gift in any amount, large or small. As a member of the Page Turner Society, your recurring monthly gift helps sustain the Library's programming. There are many ways you can choose to give, and Carter Hedberg is here to assist you.
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