Welcome!

March 17: With a Look Ahead,
Island Plan Series Concludes

For the past five Wednesday evenings, the Edgartown Library has been exploring the chapters of the Island Plan, the 200-page document which the Martha's Vineyard Commission calls "both a blueprint and a call to action" for the next 50 years. Panelists have discussed issues ranging from the natural environment to energy, from public transportation to housing and the local economy.

Now, on March 17, it's time to sum up and look ahead. At 7 p.m. in a makeshift studio set up in the children's room, Jim Athearn, chairman of the Island Plan steering committee, and Christina Brown, chairman of the Martha's Vineyard Commission, will discuss their hopes for what the Island Plan document calls the "implementation phase," looking ahead to the work of actually carrying out some of the 206 strategies listed in the Plan.

We want to thank all the panelists who have contributed their time so generously to enrich these discussions, and all those who took the time to attend our evening programs. This entire series is being filmed by producer Andrue Carr and aired on local access chanel 13 by Martha's Vineyard Community Television (MVTV). DVDs of completed programs are available for check-out by patrons here at the library.

Movies Continue on Tuesday Nights
With a New Series: Hitch & Grace

The actress Grace Kelly, also known as Her Serene Highness, the Princess of Monaco, made three famous films with director Alfred Hitchcock. We're showing them, on Tuesday nights through March 23, at 6 p.m. here at the library. Our projector and sound system are excellent, the company is good, and we're serving tasty desserts to go with the cinematic treats. What could be better?

Announcing a New Class: Speaking Portuguese,
Beginning Here on March 10

The Edgartown Public Library will offer a free weekly class in Brazilian Portuguese for English speakers, beginning on March 10 and meeting for an hour every Wednesday evening at 6.  

Eladio Falcao, the instructor, promises to weave teaching about Brazilian culture and history into the language classes.

Participants are welcome simply to attend the first session on March 10, when the class will be organized, but Mr. Falcao warns that he may have to limit the group’s size if there’s too much interest. To reserve a space in this class, call the library at 508-627-4221.

Crocuses Today, Daffodils Tomorrow?

The miserable stretch of rainy and snowy weather that lingered into early March seems finally to have lifted.

This week, clumps of crocuses are blooming merrily in the library's front garden.

Next on the scene, and not far away if this warm weather holds, will be the daffodils. Watch this space!

Library Association Presents
Winter Reading Series

The Martha's Vineyard Library Association, with a grant from the Vineyard Cultural Council, will present a Winter Reading Series on the four Thursdays of March at libraries around the Island.

Each program will feature poetry and fiction fellows from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, reading from their work and engaging in question-and-answer sessions with the public. FAWC, as the center is known, is the leading long-term residency program in the country for emerging artists and writers.

Programs will be held -- always at 5:30 p.m. -- on March 4 at the West Tisbury Library, on March 11 at the Oak Bluffs Library, on March 18 in Edgartown and on March 25 at the Vineyard Haven Library. Receptions will follow each reading. There's no charge, and the public is cordially invited to attend.

What Happens Now?

The Edgartown Library board of trustees, on Monday, Feb. 8, voted to withdraw from this year's annual town meeting warrant an article asking voters to borrow $4.1 million to build the new library. This decision was made after a round of work with estimators and architects, during which it was determined that the actual amount of borrowing that would be needed was some $5.4 million.

The trustees, working together with the board of selectmen and financial advisory committee, have submitted an article asking voters to appropriate $300,000 for the design work that will be needed to apply this October for another round of funding from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.

What does this mean? First of all, it means that the design for the new library which has $4.6 million in state funding attached to it -- the design that has been displayed for several years in a scale model in our front hallway -- is officially off the table. Without a vote to begin the project, that $4.6 million grant will expire on June 15.

Second, it means that Edgartown in the days and weeks ahead will be forming a committee to build a consensus around a plan for a new library that the entire town can support. The intention is to get back into the competition for state funding as quickly as possible -- specifically, in the round of applications that will be accepted in October. If this can be managed, construction of a new library can begin as early as the spring of 2012.

The Edgartown Library board and staff extend their gratitude to the Edgartown Library Foundation for all its hard work in raising nearly $1.5 million in cash and pledges -- the largest amount of private donations ever amassed for a municipal building project in the history of Edgartown. It is the hope of everyone involved that we will soon have a plan around which this whole community, including those who have already supported the library so generously, can rally.

Look for updates in this space as more information on plans for the new library becomes available.

Language Learning Service Adds Interactive Features

At the Edgartown Public Library, on behalf of our patrons, we recently expanded our subscription to the online language-learning service, Mango. And now the folks at Mango, who continue to win prizes for their service, have added a rich set of new features for all our language-learners to enjoy.

We've been offering the Mango Languages service free to our all our patrons since early in 2009. This January we expanded our contract with Mango so that our patrons now have access to all 36 language courses offered by the service.

More recently, the Mango Languages team has announced the launch of a new feature called Voice Comparison, which is available to all users. Here's how it works, according to the announcement from Mango: "After a user completes a slide, the voice compare button will appear.  They can then record their voice and play it back to hear themselves speak.  In addition, they can align a visual representation of their recording with the native speaker’s version for comparison.  Users may adjust their pronunciation until it lines up with ours–they’ll be speaking like a native in no time!"

This service is available to you, as a library patron, from any internet connection — at the library, a coffee shop, or at home. All you need to log in is your 13-digit library card number.

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Don't Shoot the Messenger, But It's That Time of Year

The black wire frame is back out of storage, conveniently located near our computer banks and nicely filled with useful forms for capital gains, IRA contributions and earned income credits.

Yes, folks -- it's time for all the paperwork involved in tallying what Franklin Delano Roosevelt once called "the dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society."

If you're having a bit of trouble getting into the right mood for all the festivities of tax season, may we suggest a visit to the IRS Youtube page? There you can find entertaining video snippets on subjects from homebuyer credits to the vehicle tax deduction. Enjoy!

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What's New at the Library? Look to the Shelf-tops

Here on the website, it's impossible to keep up with the flood of new material being catalogued and put into circulation each week at the Edgartown Library. A sampling of our new arrivals is posted on the link in the right-hand column of this page, "New Stuff You Can Request," but there's much more, arrayed atop the shelves in the central space beneath the skylight.

This week we've launched yet another display. On the shelves across the back of the circulation desk, we're putting up the newest of the new: Items here are fresh out of the shipping boxes, and this display will be refreshed every week. Next time you're at the library, draw yourself a cup of hot coffee and be sure to peruse these displays.

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DVDS for a Winter Night

The Edgartown Library, after the closing of Hollywood Video at the post office square in early November, suddenly found itself the largest source of movies in town. (Our prices have always been the best, but now our selection is, too.) The closing had the almost immediate effect of boosting our circulation of DVDs and games.

Recently, we've begun acquiring a few video titles in the new, super-sharp Blu-Ray format. Patrons who've watched them tell us the picture quality and sound are amazing, if you have the right equipment. And there's the rub: if you take your disk home and try to play it on a conventional DVD player, you'll find that Blu-Ray discs are incompatible with regular DVD machines.

We're being conservative at this point about investing in Blu-Ray titles, since few of our patrons have upgraded to this new format. Meanwhile, time marches on, and we're marching  our collection of older VHS tapes gradually out the door. Look for them on the give-away shelves in the entrance hallway next time you visit.

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In Our Stairwell: Artist at Work

At the bottom of the stairway leading down to the Children's Room, a graceful monarch butterfly takes flight, and bright summer flowers bloom. It's all the work of librarian and artist Donna Blackburn, who puts in an hour here, an hour there, making this entryway more attractive.

This mural project is very much a work in progress, Donna says. But we think it has already brightened up its corner of our library considerably. And we invite you to drop by from time to time this winter to see how Donna's painted garden is growing.

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Morning Coffee Is Served

The rush of summer is past, and for the duration of this cooler, quieter season in Edgartown, we've revived the tradition of morning coffee at the Library. Just bring your mug (or we'll provide a cup) and find yourself a comfy chair for some quiet time amid our collections.

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We Have Fish

This handsome new aquarium in our Children's Department, a gift from the Edgartown Wastewater Treatment Plant, was installed last week and now has been stocked with a variety of fish.

This aquarium has an important teaching point about the importance of water treatment. It is filled entirely with water that is the final product of the cleaning process at our Edgartown plant. The Edgartown Wastewater Treatment Plant performs what is called tertiary treatment, which means that its effluent meets basic drinking water standards. The Edgartown plant's effluent typically tests at less than 5 mg of nitrogen per liter, although it's permitted to release effluent at levels of up to 10 mg. The plant's suspended solids also test at less than 5 mg per liter, even though the state permit allows as much as 30 mg.

How they accomplish all this is pretty technical -- on the plant's website, you can read about the primary clarifiers, activated sludge process with separate anoxic and aerobic basins (the Modified Ludzack-Ettinger process), secondary clarifiers, ultraviolet disinfection, rapid infiltration basins, sludge processing facilities, and odor control collection and treatment systems.

Or if you prefer, just stop by the library and visit our happy tankful of fish.

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New Shipment of Audio Players: They're Tiny, and They're Cool Blue

Overdrive, the service used by the CLAMS library network to connect our patrons with free audiobooks, has released version 3.2 of its software, Overdrive Media Console. The upgrade includes several slick new features, but most importantly, Overdrive Media Console now lets you transfer most audiobooks to your iPod® and iPhone™. You can use any PC loaded with the iTunes software to load books into your portable player or phone; the Overdrive media wizard may ask you to adjust your file settings to allow faster transfer, but will always politely remind you to set them back afterwards.

Our initiative of selling inexpensive WMA audio players here at the library, begun back in March, continues to be a thumping success. We've connected more than 70 patrons with this new audiobook service since early spring. The Sansa Clip players in our latest shipment have a storage capacity of 2 gigabytes each, and we're still offering them for the same $30 donation to the Edgartown Library Foundation. This bargain includes a free tutorial, here at the library, on using the Overdrive service to download books and music to your home computer. If you bring in your laptop, we'll even help you install the software.

To learn more about the Overdrive service, visit this link

Knitting Group Meets Friday Mornings:
Donations of Yarn Are Welcomed

One of our favorite signs of the changing seasons here at the Edgartown Library is the reappearance, after the busy summer, of our Friday morning knitting group. These ladies begin arriving at about nine, before we're officially open (we let them in by the side door), and they share conversation and knitting tips until late in the morning. Over the last two years, our knitters have made dozens of creative costumes for the teddy-bears we have for sale in our front lobby, adding hundreds of dollars to the library building fund.

We wanted you to know about this group, both because it's open to new knitters -- you'll find these veterans both knowledgeable and friendly -- and because we'd like to encourage patrons to donate any spare yarn they may have at home. It will be put to good use clothing our teddy bears.

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Introducing Our Newest Resource:
Free Access to Online Map Database

On behalf of all our patrons, the Edgartown Library has subscribed to a new service, A to Z Maps Online. This service has compiled more than 60,000 maps -- all of which are available for personal use, without concerns over royalties or copyright infringement.

When you visit A to Z Maps, just enter your 13-digit library card number in the window entitled "Library Bar Code Login," and you'll have access to an amazing number and variety of map resources. Even the historic birds-eye map of Edgartown that hangs in our library's front hallway is available in high-resolution from this site.

If you have any questions about using A to Z Maps, please ask at the library desk and we'll try to help. (And if you're curious about that image at left, it's a precipitation map of Italy.)

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Recycling Project Raises $14,000

A volunteer program begun in 2007 has now passed the $14,000 mark in funds raised for the campaign to build the new Edgartown Public Library -- all of it raised by recycling cans and bottles, five cents at a time. If there's a better example of how little efforts can add a lot to advance the campaign for a new Edgartown Library, we'd like to hear it!

A friend of the library expansion project has kindly volunteered to manage this program, with collection bins set up at sites around the Island for returnable bottles and cans, and all proceeds going toward the new building fund.

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Circulation Numbers Tell Story of Library's Busy Year

Fifty-eight thousand, six hundred and two: That's the number of books circulated by the Edgartown Public Library in the fiscal year that began July 1, 2008 and ended June 30, 2009.

Fiction and nonfiction titles are about equally represented in the year's circulation statistics. In the nonfiction category, biographies and history continue to be among the most popular books. Books on cooking are also big -- we lent out more than a thousand cookbooks over the course of the year, and another 752 in the related category of home economics.

Not surprisingly given the sort of year we've just lived through, books on economics were quite popular, with 313 titles going out. And plenty of people just wanted to get away from it all: We circulated 907 science-fiction and fantasy titles, and our more than a thousand travel books. In addition, the year saw continued growth in circulation in what we call the "nonbook" categories. More than 4,000 audio books were checked out, and our circulation of DVD titles topped the 25,000 mark.

One of the most dramatic statistics is in our lending of materials to patrons of other libraries in the CLAMS network. Over the course of the year, we shipped out 10,187 copies to other libraries. That's about 40 books for every day the Edgartown Library was open. What a change from just a generation ago, in 1976, when the library trustees proudly announced in their annual report that the Edgartown Library filled 38 interlibrary loan requests that year.

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Learning Express Gets an Overhaul, And It's Free to Our Patrons

No matter which acronym you're studying for -- ACT, SAT, GRE or any of the others -- you’ll want to sign up for the online test-preparation service, Learning Express.

The Edgartown Library subscribes to this service, which on Feb. 9 launched a major site redesign and now is much friendlier for users. Now all our patrons can enjoy free access to practice tools to help prepare for dozens of important tests, from real estate exams to the U.S. citizenship test.

Learning Express also offers free online courses which you can take at your own pace, in academic subjects from math to writing, reading comprehension and even English language skills. It only takes a minute to register -- just use your library card number as your user name, and your four-digit library PIN as a password.

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Budget Cuts Threaten Libraries Statewide

On Martha's Vineyard, one of the favorite subjects for political debate is local control versus regional cooperation. We like to think our public libraries have found the perfect sweet spot -- lively community centers on one hand, yet knit together in an efficient network, CLAMS, that gives our patrons access to more than a million and a half titles at the click of a computer keyboard.

But now, even as people turn increasingly to libraries for free materials and services in these tough economic times, cuts to library budgets are endangering their certification with the state -- and without certification, it's not possible for patrons to borrow outside their own systems. The state's reasoning is simple: It wouldn't be fair to let one town gut its library budget, then let that town's patrons get a free ride by ordering their books, videos and music from communities that are being more responsible.

Could loss of accreditation happen here? Not any time soon. But as this excellent story in the Boston Globe reports, one state requirement is that towns must increase their library budgets each year by 2.5 percent, compared with the average spent in the three previous years.

The Edgartown Library budget is flat-funded this year, at the request of town leaders. We're still above the state's minimum threshold -- but each year of flat funding brings us closer to the brink.

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You'll Be Styling with Our Prize-Winning Logo

Not long ago, the Edgartown Library's logo won top honors in a statewide competition held by the Massachusetts Library Association. Now you can be styling in a comfortable cotton polo shirt with the library logo embroidered on the front. Just visit the library and contribute $30 to the Edgartown Library Foundation, and one of these handsome shirts can be yours.

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Our New Microfilm Scanner
Is Ready to Assist You

The furnace puffback that closed our main library building for the first half of 2008 took its toll on our electronic equipment, and one of the machines we didn't replace until recently was the microfilm reader.

Now, we're pleased to report, the Edgartown Library has a slick new Canon microfilm scanner, driven by an attached PC, that can make digital files with just a few clicks from our collection of Island newspapers dating back to 1846. These files are perfect for printing, for storage or for emailing to your computer at home. For help with your microfilm research projects, just visit the library front desk and we'll get you started.

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We Gladly Accept Reservations

On the side wall of our main service desk at the Edgartown Library is a vivid illustration of perhaps the most dramatic paradigm shift the last decade has seen in the world of public libraries. Here, a set of red steel shelving is packed, from floor to ceiling, with books, videos and music requested by our patrons and delivered here from other libraries in the CLAMS network, from across Massachusetts and even from across the United States.

It's fortunate -- especially since thanks to our space constraints, the Edgartown Library's collection has grown by fewer than a thousand volumes over the past 30 years -- that our patrons are becoming ever more savvy about requesting the materials they want, and letting our staff deliver it for them.

If you want a particular title, simply look it up in the CLAMS catalog and request it. Our busy network of drivers will deliver it to Edgartown, and on the day it arrives, you'll get a call or an email from us. This service is free, and it's growing -- last year, Edgartown handled more than 20,000 interlibrary loan requests.

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