Julie Johnson's blog

Two-and-a-half-year-old Ella shared this song with us today here at the library.  It is her own composition and expresses the joy she feels upon visiting the Kinderhook Memorial Library.  We should all be so inspired!

Wait…what?!

It’s true—with help from the Friends of the Kinderhook Memorial Library, we have purchased museum passes to a number of museums in Columbia County, the Capital District and western Massachusetts for patrons to use. You can now borrow museum passes for a one day loan and visit:

• The Berkshire Museum (admits 4 people)
• The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Estate and Gardens (admits 2 adults and all children)
• The Norman Rockwell Museum (admits 4 people)
• Mass/MoCA (admits 2 adults and 2 children)
• The Eric Carle Museum (admits 2 adults and up to 4 children)
• Hancock Shaker Village (admits 2 adults and 2 children)
• Schenectady Museum and Planetarium (admits 2 adults and all children)
• Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (2 adults and all children)

We are hoping to add a number of historic sites to this list, too. During our test run of this program during the summer of 2009 (with a much smaller selection of passes), the library saved our community over $700 in museum admission fees. This year to date, we have saved our community almost $1,200 in admission fees! That is MORE than what it cost us to purchase all the passes combined!

Whether you plan to travel 3,000 miles away from home or 30 the library has something for you! A new web site devoted to helping you plan, prepare and enjoy traveling is now available through the library’s web site: Quick Answers for Patrons on the Go: Travel

You probably noticed the flurry of activity around the library on Saturday June 19 and Monday June 21, specifically around the Sylvester St. picket fence. A total of 17 Ichabod Crane High School students (many of them from the National Honor Society and Varsity Club) and nine adults spent the two days sanding and painting the fence (and working on  suntans, nibbling goodies, chatting, enjoying themselves, etc.!)  The weather cooperated and most of that section of fence now has a first coat of paint. The library is very appreciative of the work everyone did on the fence.  Thank you for taking the time to help make our library shine.

Of course, there’s always the second coat…..maybe in August? If you’d like to lend a hand (even for an hour), please call the library at 758-6192 or Dot Balko at 732-0192.  Don’t miss the good times!

Ralph Gardner, Jr., part-time local resident and frequent contributor to New York Magazine, the New York Times, and the New York Observer, visited our library's book sale on Saturday and wrote his daily column in the Wall Street Journal about how library book sales feed his additiction to book collecting.  Even though Ralph was disappointed that his father's book on Horatio Alger had been deaccessioned from our library, it was touching to read that he understands the plight of a small library with limited space.  As the director of the library, I get to know my patrons in a limited way--it was refreshing to see another side of this patron that I didn't know about.

Ralph Gardner, Jr. is also the co-author of Hay Fever with Angela Miller, published by Wiley in April 2010.  Rest assured, the library is purchasing a copy.

You can read the article from the Wall Street Journal by clicking here.