News

Letter from Library Trustees

On behalf of the Jackson Public Library Board of Trustees, I would like to thank our Library staff for their amazing effort throughout this pandemic crisis. COVID-19 has turned our world upside down and many public services simply ceased. Instead of abruptly stopping service, the Jackson Library undertook a massive curbside book check out. At this time, our curbside hours continue to be Tues 2-6 and Sat 10-2 to pick up material that you would like to check out. We ask that you put your request in at least 72 hours ahead of those pick-up days to allow for keeping everyone safe. In addition, thanks to their great effort, many services have transitioned to virtual. Without missing a beat, we had Storytime on Zoom!

Many of Jackson Library services are available to you right now during this current phase, in addition to curb side pick-up. Please refer to our COVID-19 Guide to Services statement which is published on the Jackson Library website: JacksonLibrary.org. The guide lists all of the services available to our patrons at this time.

The Governor’s announcement of Guidelines for the re-opening of Libraries in NH is prompting many questions. The Trustees are working on a Pandemic Interim Service Plan that outlines multiple tiers of service, each responsive to varied health and safety conditions. Securing staff and patron safety is the top priority of this Interim Service Plan and the determination of tiers of service.

Staff interactions and in-person services pose a high risk of virus transmission. We are taking the necessary steps to ensure we can adhere to the Governor’s Guidelines. The board must consider the best ways to accommodate social distancing, equipment moved/handled, and sufficient PPE obtained before patrons can safely access the building. More details will be forthcoming on our various phases of opening as the plan continues to develop.

Given the seriousness of this disease, it is essential that we continue to take all necessary precautions. Thank you for your patience and support.

Denise Sachse

Chair, Board of Trustees

Jackson Public Library

Email: trustees@jacksonlibrary.org

Courageous Conversations

Courageous Conversations: Racial Justice - 6-week dialogue series to be co-facilitated by Jackson Community Church in cooperation with Jackson Public Library via Zoom on Wednesdays (June 17-July 22). Morning and afternoon sessions will be offered. RSVP to jcchurch@jacksoncommunitychurch.org  if you're interested in participating in the morning or afternoon sessions. Links will be shared as plans progress.

This is a challenging time and Courageous Conversations provide an opportunity to meet the immediate needs of our community to examine racism across all levels of society. In an effort to provide further materials, the coop libraries (Jackson, Cook, Madison and Conway) have shared lists for adults, teens and children within our joint KOHA catalog on books across our collections on race, racism and anti-racism.  There is also a list pertaining specifically to children’s books at the Jackson Library on these vital topics.  Numerous online resources are also available.   Dr. Nicole A. Cooke, the Augusta Baker Endowed Chair at the University of South Carolina, has created a list of Anti-Racism Resources for all ages and the National Museum of African American History & Culture has a page called Talking About Race.  While our statewide inter-library loan system remains on hold, if there are other books or informational resources you are looking for, we would like to hear from you so that we can best provide you with the materials you need. You can email us at staff@jacksonlibrary.org, send us a chat, or leave a voice message at 603-383-9731.

Library Board of Trustees Meeting via ZOOM 6/2 at 4pm

The Board of Trustees for the Jackson Public Library has scheduled a Zoom meeting in place of their normally scheduled meeting at the Jackson Library. All are invited to attend.

Topic: Jackson Library, Board of Trustees Meeting
Time: June 2, 2020 04:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86039154378

Dial number, follow phone prompts when requested
+1 646 518 9805 US (New York)
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)
+1 470 381 2552 US (Atlanta)
Use Meeting ID: 860 3915 4378

Please call the library at 603-383-9731 or email trustees@jacksonlibrary.org should you have difficulties getting in to the meeting on June 2.

Full agenda is available.

What-are-you-reading Wednesday 5/27?

I was so pleased with your response last week that I decided What-are-you-reading Wednesday? should be a regular thing. Of course, I knew that the wider Jackson community is full of sophisticates, but I had no idea you maintained the impressive intellect during a pandemic! Here's a list of what Jackson was reading last week, in case you didn't keep up to date with the comments:

Thank you to everyone who responded. I really enjoyed reading your mini-reviews. I hope you'll update us this week.

I am listening to Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore on audio this week and reallyOona Out of Order enjoying it. The titular young woman jumps to a different age every year on her birthday so, during her first jump, he age on the inside is 19, but on the outside it's 51. For each jump, she has left herself a letter. A plot like this could easily turn gimmicky, but it avoids that unwinding something like a mystery. She's trying to figure out why certain things have happened despite the direction they were going when she had left them. I don't find it forced at all. There are a few questions about her experience that I have not unraveled, how does she know the incoming Oona is younger or older when she writes her letter? The usual pitfalls of time travel, I suppose. It's perfectly diverting for a hot spring afternoon.

I seem to have returned to my usual antsyness about having trouble sitting still to read a  paper book so we've been focused on audios so I can knit or cook or clean while listening. Wendell and I are also really enjoying the third book in the York Series by Laura Ruby. We only have the first book in the Library. It didn't circulate enough to justify buying the second or third, but I really recommend both. They are fun and exciting. Wendell just turned eight and a few scenes are scary, but he gets through them ok.

Lotte turns 10 on June 10. She is allowed to read one new Harry Potter per year so over the weekend she re-read The Goblet of Fire and The Prisoner of Azkaban - in one day a piece!  Things really get real in The Order of the Phoenix, but I think she's up to it. Those stories just never get old, do they?

That's what we are up to. What are you reading, Wednesday? Tell us in the comments!

 

Story-a-Day Program

Hello Jackson Library Community. Petunia and I enjoy hosting our story-a-day program, sharing both old and new favorites with our young friends. We will wrap-up our daily broadcasts on Friday, June 12th, and we need your help.  Sadly, we are not currently getting many viewers, and if we are to offer other types of online story opportunities while our building is closed to the public,  we would  love to get more families involved. Through Friday, June 12 we will continue to pre-record a book each day of the week and post it on our website, no viewer registration is required.  Tune in anytime, as each story remains available until the following morning at 9am, when we update it with a new one. Please feel free to share comments, thoughts, or questions with me, meredith@jacksonlibrary.org, and watch today’s story! 

We would like to thank the many publishing companies, and their imprints, that have temporarily eased copyright restrictions to allow us to make this online program happen:  Abrams Books, Candlewick Press, Chronicle Books, Disney, HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Little Brown & Co., Macmillan Publishers, NorthSouth Books, Penguin Random House, Scholastic Inc., Simon & Schuster, Sterling Publishing.

We have also decided that our annual Summer Reading Program, this year called Imagine Your Story,  will be a virtual experience.  But don’t worry, there will still be plenty to do!  In July, there will be weekly craft activities available to pick up, and the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire will share their “Engineer a Fairytale” program with us.  We will ask children to register in advance so that we can be sure to have the necessary materials available.  And, of course, we hope there will be plenty of reading!  We will also share a form to keep track of those wonderful reading minutes.  Don’t forget, it is easy to place holds on books and we want to be sure that everyone has the reading materials they want. Stay tuned for more details.  

What-are-you-reading Wednesday?

It is hard to believe it has now been over two months since we have welcomed you into the Library. The staff continues to keep busy. Lisa and Gloria are doing an extraordinary job pulling your holds and getting them ready for Tuesday and Saturday pick-ups. Meredith is answering emails, phone messages, and chats from the website in between she's recording those charming story times and planning for an online Summer Reading Program. As for me, I am doing basically what I have always done: taking care of the building, preparing for meetings, making plans, preparing, and some fun stuff like researching and planning new ways to deliver remote services.

Last week I spent a day filling in a grant application for some federal CAREs act money earmarked for NH libraries. The grant is meant to help us to recover some of the revenue we have lost by having the building closed as well as help to fund new expenses we have encountered. I am very proud that yesterday I learned that the Jackson Public Library has been awarded $10,000 toward these expenses. That will mean we will meet our budget for the year and that we can execute some of the new ideas we are cooking up. If only the federal government could provide us more hours in a day!

One simple new initiative is What-are-you-reading Wednesdays! Where I share my literary adventures and invite all of you to do the same in the comments. I knAll the Ways We Said Goodbye by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen Whiteow that one thing we all miss is browsing the shelves and I thought this may be a fun alternative.

I have been focusing on very light reading lately. Just before our building closed in March the historical fiction trio of Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White released a new book called All the Ways We Said Goodbye: A Novel of the Ritz Paris. That one has been checked out but I read The Glass Ocean in April and was riveted. I think it was a perfect book. A little mystery, but with an humble body count, some romance, and adventure as it is set on the Lusitania. I could not recommend it more highly. Unfortunately, we do not own a copy, but there is an eBook and downloadable audio in our collection.

What are YOU reading, Wednesday?

Kids’ Do-It-Yourself Take-Home Projects

One of the many, many things I love about watching families in our library, aside from watching them read together of course, is seeing the enthusiasm with which the kids use our Craft Project of the Month materials to create marvelous pieces of art.  They take loose suggestions from the items left out and create their own magic.  Last week, I put together little craft take-home bags with materials to make some spring flower projects.  Of course, I know flowers may not be the end result, and I hope you will send us a picture of your final design.  If this is popular, I will update with new projects as often as possible.

But that is not all!  We also have numerous, amazing LEGO builders amongst us.  The Jackson Library is fortunate to have a robust collection of donated LEGOs that have been sitting dormant for months now, and I would like to change this.  We have prepared individual bags of clean, long-unused LEGOs to give away. These LEGOs would be yours to keep.  Again, we would love a picture of something you make.

If you are interested in either type of bag, just one of each per child please.  Bags will be available during pick up hours on Tuesdays and Saturdays.  For safety’s sake, please touch only the bag/s you are collecting and remember best practices recommends that items sit for 72 hours before being used.  If you have any questions, please contact meredith@jacksonlibrary.org or staff@jacksonlibrary.org.

Trivia Winners!

The answers to the final round:

Q: What is a mixture of 75% potassium nitrate, 15% charcoal and 10% sulfur?
A: Gunpowder.

Q: What is the 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean was both justified and inevitable?
A: Manifest Destiny.

Q: Sonic, Sega's iconic main character, is what kind of animal?
A: Hedgehog.

The final standings are all posted on our Trivia page. I want to thank all the teams for your participation and patience. We are separate by necessity, but isolation is a choice and hosting trivia certainly reminded me of the vibrant community I live in. I hope it did the same for you. And without further ado... drum roll please...

  • Our overall third place winner is: Chinook Trailers! They win a $10 gift certificate and private shopping spree at The Local Bookie in Conway!
  • In second place is: The Trivia Twerps representing North Conway Public Library! They win a gift certificate $25 to White Birch Books, reopening soon or shop online!
  • And in first place for with outstanding participation and consistently the highest number of correct answers is Jackson's own: Border Patrol! They win a socially distanced sunset cruise on Silver Lake this summer provided by my friend and yours Clay Groves of The Fish Nerds!

As you know, I had some trouble figuring out how to fairly score the winning Library. My original intent was straight points, but with such a big variation between each Library's number of teams, average score seemed to be a bit more fair. I decided to award both. Their teams won North Conway Public Library 479 total points and the teams playing for the Fryeburg Public Library had the highest average points at 75. They will both get a hardcover book of their choice with a bookplate inside listing their team names!

I will be in touch with all the winners. These three businesses generously donated these prizes to our little game: White Birch Books, The Local Bookie, and The Fish Nerds Guide Service. Please support them in return! They are all owned by incredible community members and friends.

Tamworth Library's beloved Chinook Trailers swept the the Pyramid Round with a perfect score. Right behind them was Jaybird, also representing Tamworth, and our own Border Patrol. The rest of you should be very proud and if I ever get a chance to name a motorcycle, you are my first call. Here are my favorites: Superhawk, Hawk Wing, Roadhawk, Silverhawk, and Skyhawk. Aren't those wonderful!?

The Pyramid Round was a hawk theme, but I did not accept simply 'hawk' for any of the answers. You know me better than that by now, friends! Here are the answers:

Q: American alternative country and country rock band whose biggest songs are Waiting for the Sun and Blue? (Five points)
A: The Jayhawks
That was a really hard question. If you're one of the five teams who answered correctly, I tip my hat to you.

Q: What pro sports team plays at the State Farm Arena? (Three points)
A: Atlanta Hawks

Q: What is the Iowa State University nickname? (Three points)
Eagle-eyed Border Patrol pointed out that actually the mascot of Iowa State is The Cyclones and it's actually the University of Iowa who are the Hawkeyes. Indignant, I looked into it and, GASP, they are correct. I accepted both answers... though no one put Cyclones either. I am ashamed.
A: Hawkeyes OR Cyclones

 

Q: Nighthawk
A: This handsome fellow is a Nighthawk.

Q: Ethan Hawke
A: This handsome fellow is Ethan Hawke.

Q: Red Tailed Hawk
A: This handsome fellow is a Red Tailed Hawk.

Q: American retired pro skateboarder? (One point)
A: Tony Hawk. Puts me right back to my Gleaming the Cube days... if only I weren't so scared to actually learn to ride one. I hate pain.

Q: Honda Nighthawk
A: Honda Nighthawk. Mine was a 750cc. It was way too big for me. I had to wear high heeled boots to reach the ground and balance it. I loved that ride, though.

Q: What is a single-handled axe resembling a hatchet? (One point)
A: Tomohawk.

Q: English theoretical physicist? (One point)
A: Stephen Hawking.

And with that, we close our week of trivia. If you were one of the winners, I will be in touch privately. Thanks to everyone for playing!

<=> Round Answers & Pyramid Round posted

Well, I don't know about you, but today was my favorite. As hinted yesterday, part of my goal offering trivia is to create a sense of community for all of us. I hope you all read the wonderful comments by your competing teams - they are lovely!

As far as team performance in this round... well, I think it's a good time to tell you that I do not write these questions. We have a very generous trivia maestro who relaxes during this strange time by writing trivia questions for his friends. Luckily for me, I am one of those friends and he allows me to repurpose his work for all of you. Let's all say it together, "Thanks, Trivia Maestro!"

The gentlemen of Border Patrol absolutely crushed this round missing only one. North Conway trailed them via Deerbrook Duo and Agatha Quiztie (my favorite team name) taking second and third place. Border Patrol has also solidified their overall lead with Logix in second. Tamworth's proud Chinook Trailers have clawed their way up to third. Congrats! All the standings are final and posted.

Without further ado, here's the answers to the Greater than, Less than, Equal to Round:

  • Age: Mike Pence = Magic Jonson. Both are 60.
  • Diameter: Croquet Ball at 3.62 in < Softball at 3.82 in
  • 10 Euro > 150 Pesos. 10 Euros is worth 255 pesos.
  • Number: Dale Earnhardt's car = Babe Ruth’s Jersey
  • Density: Honey 1.36 g/cc > Blood 1.06 g/cc
  • Height: Niagara Falls at 167' < Hancock Building (Boston) at 790'
  • Pages: War & Peace with 1225 pages > Old Testament of the Bible with 939 pages.
  • Population: Ireland is 4.9MM < Massachusetts is 6.8MM
  • Top Speed: Greyhound is 40mph < Lion is 50mph
  • Number: Solid Orange in Billiards = Thou shall not kill commandment. Both are #5.
  • Copies Sold: Mao’s Little Red Book sold 1 billion < The Bible sold 5 billion.
  • Calories: Banana is 105 < Cup of brown Rice is 232.

Second section:

  • Length: Saco River is 136 miles < I-93 is 190 miles.
  • Height: Tom Brady and Abe Lincoln are both 6'4".
  • Number: Richard Petty's car is 43 > Jackie Robinson's uniform is 42.
  • Density: Gasoline is .748 g/ml vs. Ethyl Alcohol is 789 g/ml.
  • # of Films: Rocky & Harry potter both include 8 films.
  • Age: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 87 < Bob Newhart is 90.
  • Value/Number: K in Scrabble is 5 < 6 pieces in Clue.
  • Value: $2 Canadian is worth about £1.18 > 1 British Pound
  • Height: Yosemite falls is 2425' high > Empire State Building is 1454' high.
  • Diameter: Soccer Ball (pro) is 8.66" > Volleyball (Pro) is 8.15"
  • Value: Blue Bills in Monopoly = US Bill with Grant. Both are worth $50.
  • Number: Jayson Tatum averaged 22.3 ppg > Eduardo Rodriguez won 19 games.

The final untimed round is the Pyramid Round. Answers in tomorrow, Saturday 5/8 by 7p. That's also when I will mail out the final questions and they will be due back in by 7:05pm along with your Jeopardy-style bid from 0 to 10 points for each. The whole game can change right here.