Director's Blog

Danbury's second city-wide reading event, One Book, One Community, came to a successful conclusion on October 28, with the appearance by Michael Greenberg, the author of this year's book, Hurry Down Sunshine, his harrowing account of the summer his 15-year-old daughter first experienced bi-polar disorder. During October the Danbury Library, Danbury High School and WCSU presented 21 programs, ranging from book discussions to films to author talks, attended by 1,482 people. The library's 125 copies of the book circulated 371 times between mid-August and the end of October, and 1,789 copies of the book were distributed to WestConn students, faculty and staff. We need to thank our event sponsors for their generous support of OBOC: Friends of the Danbury Library, Savings Bank of Danbury, Danbury Cultural Commission, Union Savings Bank, Danbury Hospital, and Ethan Allen Hotel; and also mention our media sponsors for their help in advertising it: Tribuna, Pennysaver, The News-Times, and El Canillita. But mostly we want to thank everyone who participated by reading the book and/or attending any of the programs for making our second annual reading event such a big success and for shedding some much-needed light on the subject of mental illness. We're already working hard to choose a novel for 2010, so stay tuned...

Posted by Mark at 04:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I realize that I missed the date by three full weeks, but I wanted to make note of National Punctuation Day, which promotes the proper use of punctuation and was celebrated this year on September 24. I often joke that my ability to spot most punctuation mistakes is a combination of genetics (both of my parents were very careful writers) and excellent English teachers during junior and senior high. In any case, the web site for National Punctuation Day gives helpful hints about how to use common and less-common punctuation marks. My punctuation pet peeve has always been the apostrophe, especially when it's misused to incorrectly make a word plural but instead makes it possessive. My favorite example was a sign on a tire store on Route 7 in Georgetown. For years it proclaimed "Buy Tire's Online," and for years it drove me nuts. What were we buying online for Tire? A new sign finally got it right, and I felt briefly disappointed. Closer to home, downtown Danbury used to be filled with fliers for the former hockey team, the Mad Hatters, which stated "Hockey at it's best" -- and which could have added "Punctuation at its worst!" In addition to the National Punctuation Day site, you can of course revisit Lynne Truss' former bestseller Eats, Shoots and Leaves to brush up on your punctuation marks.

Posted by Mark at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you recognize that quotation, then chances are good that you spent 16 Saturday nights during the summer of 1968 watching The Prisoner on TV, waiting with anticipation for each new episode of what was seen by CBS merely as a summer replacement.

Now 41 years old, this British import remains one of the most unique, original and best series in TV history. Patrick McGoohan (the first choice to play James Bond before Sean Connery, but who turned down the role because he thought it was demeaning to women) created the concept, wrote and directed several episodes, and starred as a British secret agent who resigns from the service and, with travel brochures in hand, is immediately rendered unconscious and kidnapped. He awakens in The Village, remote, isolated and possibly an island, bounded by mountains on one side and ocean on the other. Various people, all known as Number Two, interrogate him about why he left the service, but he refuses to cooperate with them unless they tell him why they want to know and who they work for -- which, of course, they refuse to do.

This brief summary can't really do justice to the enigmatic and surreal nature of each episode. One critic called it the "ultimate puzzle without a solution." The common thread was that McGoohan's unnamed character, referred to by everyone in The Village as Number Six (and to which his response was always "I am not a number, I am a free man!"), plotted to escape whenever he could, only to be captured by a giant, opaque white balloon/ball known as the Rover.

Recently we added the entire series on DVD to our collection, and the set includes lots of extra features, including an episode that was only aired in England. For a truly unique viewing experience, check out The Prisoner, one of the most unusual espionage thrillers ever created.

Posted by Mark at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After the first successful city-wide reading event last fall, the Danbury Library, Danbury High School and Western CT State University are happy to announce Danbury's second One Book, One Community event. In a dramatic change of gears, the 2009 Steering Committee has chosen a work of nonfiction (after last year's novel The Namesake), Michael Greenberg's memoir Hurry Down Sunshine. It tells the story of the extraordinary summer when, at the age of fifteen, Greenberg's daughter Sally was struck mad. It begins with her visionary crack-up on the streets of Greenwich Village, and continues, among other places, in the out-of-time world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city's most sweltering months. A variety of programs that focus on the book itself and the broader topic of mental health will be presented during the month of October, including book discussions, movies, a health fair, and an apprearance by Greenberg himself. For full details, visit the OBOC website. And be sure to check out a copy of the book from our special OBOC display at the front of the library (we actually recommend that you place a hold on a copy, since only 9 of our 100 copies are on the shelf today), which includes books as well as the full-color brochure that lists all of the events.

Posted by Mark at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently the News-Times published the results of its first annual Readers' Choice Awards, in which more than 20,000 votes were cast in 145 categories. Thanks to a majority of those voters, the Danbury Library was chosen Best Public Library. We're very proud to have earned this recognition, and it's the result of dedicated and hard work by every member of the library staff. We'll continue to provide great public library service, even during these tough economic times. Now is a good time to share with you the library's newest mission statement, since it drives everything that we do here: As an essential city asset, the Danbury Library is committed to being: a welcoming destination; a convenient gateway to the best sources of information, cultural enrichment and possibility; and responsive to the varied needs of our city's diverse population.

We also earned another distinction by coming in third for Worst New Idea: Closing the Danbury Library on Fridays. As you already know by now, we resumed our Friday hours at the end of May, long before the results of the voting were published. So we'll ignore that distinction and focus on trying to stay the best.

Posted by Mark at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)