Director's Blog

I'm very, very pleased to announce that the library's recent air conditioning problems now appear to be a thing of the past. Today the condenser coil that broke on January 1 and meant that there had been no air conditioning possible for the entire main floor was repaired. A temporary problem that meant there was no A/C for the second floor and the lower level yesterday was actually fixed yesterday while we were closed. The good news is that the entire library and technology center are once again cool, comfortable and pleasant. We appreciate your patience under unpleasant circumstances and hope you'll return soon to take advantage of our great collections and programs, including this year's Summer Reading Program. Special thanks go to the members of the city's Public Buildings Department and the workmen of the Otto Company for their efforts. Together, they've made us all cool again.

Posted by Mark at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently National Public Radio broadcast a piece about looking through old issues of Publishers Weekly, the trade magazine that’s been around since 1852. Maureen Corrigan studied issues from 1933 to see what impact the Great Depression was having on readers of the day. As is the case now during our severe recession, public library circulation was up, and library users were reading similar types of books to today’s best sellers. For example, in place of today’s hot vampire books, such as the Twilight series, there was The Werewolf of Paris. Books about the economy were hot, too, and included Maryland Senator Tydings’ Counter-Attack, "a bold, sound, feasible plan" to end the Depression. One disturbing ad from July of that year was for Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf, listed as a "stirring autobiography [in which] you will find Hitler's own story of his meteoric rise from obscurity to world-wide fame." Click here for the full audio.

Posted by Mark at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)