Surrounded By Words
Many writers have used the Westport Public Library as a place of research, refuge and inspiration. As we celebrate 100 years of a public library building in the community, we share their words with you.
A library is a building with books in it, and in most cases that's good enough. But for a writer, the Westport Public Library is something else, something more, enough in the way of resources and assistance to make up virtually the whole "acknowledgements" page of the writer's book. Which is to say, if there is a source that the staff cannot find, it cannot be found or does not exist.
I realize that in this computerized age all libraries have a reach far beyond what they had in my youth. But what the staff of the Westport Public Library can do takes much more than machines. It takes a sincere desire to help and the intelligence to know how to help when the going gets tough.
In each of the books I've written that I've researched at the WPL, I've not only found virtually all of the information I wanted, but learned something additional in the process, something that made the book better---through a question that one of the staff members asked that opened up a new avenue of thought for me; through the initiative that a staff member showed by ordering for me more material than I had requested, simply because she thought I might be interested. Often I was. That is service, and caring, above and beyond. I am an extraordinarily grateful recipient.
The Westport Public Library has been a vital source to me in researching my last book on former heavweight champion Gene Tunney, published by Random House in 2006 and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in biography, and my current book on the New York Giants football team of the late 1950s and early 1960s and what the National Football League was like during that time frame. That book, which is scheduled to be published in August of this year, also by Random House, has a strong Fairfield connection since the Giants trained at Fairfield University during the 1960s.
In addition to using books from the library as sources, I've also spent countless hours going through microfilm of long-ago newpapers that have been obtained for me by Susan Madeo, who has been of immense assistance to me, and then making copies of stories that I know will be useful in my research. Susan also has been of immense help in obtaining difficult-to-find and even out-of-print books from around the country that have also contributed to my work as a writer of non-fiction.
During my many visits to the library, and through phone calls from the library advising me that either desired microfilm or books that I've requested have come in, members of the library staff have been both helpful and gracious. As I've said so often during book signings and interviews, librarians, and libraries in general, and in my case the Westport Public Library, are of immeasurable assistance to non-fiction writers. I know I couldn't do without them.
I’ve found myself at libraries all over the world, often looking for the most arcane information. Books are nice, of course, but I like old newspapers best. They’re more intimate, more transformative into whatever time or place I’m reaching back into. (And, of course, since I’m not very good with machinery, I always need help with the microfilm gizmos, but that’s my fault, not the libraries.)
Because libraries are sanctuaries of peace as much as they are repositories of knowledge, I find them very conducive to connecting with whatever it is I’m trying to immerse myself in. Silence is an especially gracious thing nowadays. At the Westport Public Library, the best place for me is upstairs, at the table way back in the northeast corner. It’s always good to carve out the right spot for yourself at a library. Don’t move around, if you can help it.
The people who work at the Westport Library are lovely. I always have the feeling that library folk are immediately fond of you just because you’re using their library, so they actually want to help you. I never feel like I’m an imposition here.
The only bad thing about the Westport Library is that (as in all libraries) many books are placed too low, on shelves down by the floor. However, there are no cell phones at the Westport Library, so that’s a fair trade-off. I don’t mind bending down so long as there are no ringtones going off hither and yon.
The Westport Library is so very important and welcoming, and it’s a wonderful asset for this town.
Every published book of mine--some 260 over the past 54 years--whether only illustrated or written and illustrated by me, has had a foundation of library exploration and research--all sorts of libraries: public, private, school, college, university, special, corporate, and government. Waiting to be revealed were all the facts and fancies between heaven and earth that human curiosity had come up with since the dawn of historical time. I could not have painted my paintings, or written and illustrated my books without having traveled that road of human knowledge, experience, and creativity--a road paved with information. revelations, and programs found in the Westport Public Library.
Beyond self interest and self improvement, I have committed myself to the Westport Public Library for more than half of the library’s 100 years of existence. I can only think of the countless pleasurable hours of involvement as I have tried to give back the assistance, shelf and exhibition spaces that the Westport Public Library has offered me over the years: serving on the library board (1982-1989); president of the board (1986-1989); co-originator and co-curator of the McManus Room drawing collection; co-originator and co-curator of the Kiosk art exhibitions; lectures such as the one commemorating the 400th anniversary of Cervante’s “Don Quixote;” member of the Permanent Art Collection and Rabbit Hill Festival committees.
The Westport Public Library’s collection, events, and energy--in all its forms--has taken me to places I had not thought possible. And the journey continues unabated.
Information of all kind -- true and untrue, useful and useless -- is easily available on our time-compact globe.
But the Westport Library is not a storage of information. Rather, through its librarians, holdings, and extended facilities it is an extension of the minds and lives of its patrons.
Since I moved to this delightful town thirty-five years ago, the Library has served me remarkably in the writing of my books and professional papers.
Let us hope that the Library will prosper and gain in its recorded wisdom and knowledge, so that it may keep on benefiting the young, the old and the middling in their intellects and lives.
A century is only a good beginning.
YEARS ago I wrote my novels at home. I had a tiny office at the back of the house, and would stumble in there, armed with coffee and cigarettes, to write all day, and sometimes all night. If I woke up, struck by inspiration, to my office I’d go, typing furiously until all the words were on the page and I could allow myself to sleep.
Once I had children, I discovered that my office wasn’t the haven it had always been, that distractions filled my day, and that procrastination was far easier than disappearing to write. It would take me eight hours to write my quota of words, where once it had taken three.
I discovered the Westport library as my home-away-from-home, quite by chance. On our way down from Mother Goose my son and I stopped at the reference library and passed a little room filled with computers. A light switched on. I could write my books here, could let a little structure into my day, could have some peace and quiet until I have to return home with my ‘Mommy’ hat on.
That was seven years ago. I have written my last six books at the Westport library. The small room filled with computers gave way to the large table upstairs by the window, which in turn gave way to a quiet reading room downstairs.
I love the routine the library allows me: that I arrive at the same time every day, grab my latte from the café, set up my laptop and can work in peace, whilst still being out in the world, still being able to walk around and see people when I need to. A writer’s life is a solitary one, and writing alone at home does not serve me well, particularly when writing commercial fiction, writing about people like you and me, people who both surround and inspire me at the Westport library.
I wrote the overwhelming majority of my book at the library. There is no more inspirational site in Westport, from the ducks swimming on the river outside the windows, to the Staples students studying and flirting - not necessarily in that order - among the stacks, to the hushed voices of parents guiding their little ones upstairs to the children's area, where my own children used to play. Whenever the blank page threatened to overwhelm my senses, I could always recharge with a walk by the water, or a cup of tea from the snack bar, or a few minutes of absolute quiet, which aren't always easy to find. These days every place needs to be about something - about eating or drinking or shopping or working out. The library is about thinking. There is no better place to write.
‘Where History Comes to Life’
It has been said that a town’s library is a measure of a townspeople’s thirst for knowledge. That being the case, Westporters are, by and large, a most knowledgeable group of residents. In recent years, under the exceptional leadership of Westport Public Library Director Maxine Bleiweis, our library has grown dramatically in terms of number of books, services, and cultural attractions. The library provides a public service for all. As the late Lady Bird Johnson once said, “Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest.”
Without the assistance of the Westport Library’s extraordinary professional reference librarians, I would not have been able to research and write the books I have in recent years—especially the history book on Westport, published in 2000, marking the 165th anniversary of the founding of our town. It can accurately be said that—thanks to the dedication and diligence of the reference librarians—we now have the first modern-day history of the town written in the 20th century. The Library’s Marta Campbell led that Herculean research effort.
Westport librarians are, in fact, the backbone of that institution. They are the people who are, as Norman Cousins put it, in charge of “the delivery room for the birth of ideas—a place where history comes to life.” Another insightful view comes from Father Timothy Healy, former president, New York Public Library, who wisely wrote: “The most important asset of any library goes home at night—the library staff."
The Real Reason I Write at the Westport Public Library
Let’s at least be honest about it.
If all you really wanted was a gorgeous, light-filled library, boasting a superlative collection of cherished volumes, then there are oodles of places you could wile away an afternoon.
You could, say, go to the British Library in London, or the Bodleian at Oxford. There’s the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Library of Congress, both, of course, in Washington, DC. There’s the Boston Library and the good ole New York Public.
But then, none of those places sell chocolate chip cookies, now do they?
And that’s really what I’m looking for in the great libraries of the world—a place where baked goods and great literature are only a few feet away from each other. A place where the parking is free, and the location is lush and verdant, on the banks of a gracious, flowing river, straight out of The Wind in the Willows, my favorite children’s book. Although, of course, the Westport Library’s river is much better than the one in The Wind in the Willows, because at the library’s river, there’s free WIFI service just barely extending to its sloping, grassy edge.
There’s a phrase for a set-up like that, it’s “The Best of Both Worlds,” a phrase often associated with the Westport Library. It’s a world-class, cosmopolitan institution that feels Americana and quaint. The people who hang there are big-city smart, and small-town friendly.
One of the reasons I love the Westport Public Library is because it’s a good place to go when I’m suffering from avoidance behavior and the loneliness of the long distance writer. I wonder how it happened that I, who was paralyzed by anxiety each time I had to write a college term paper, ended up actually choosing to be a writer. I must have been crazy.
It’s nice to see other refugee writers, except if they’re actually busy writing. Even so, if I’d stayed at home, I probably would be stalling, waiting for the washer to finish washing so that I could put the wash in the dryer, so that I could wait for the dryer to stop so that I could start folding, so that I wouldn’t have to write. At least when I’m at the library I get to eat muffins, and enjoy reading books that I’m not trying to write.
I am especially fond of the reference librarians. I use them to the point of abuse, and they just keep on smiling. Last week, for a biography I am writing, I needed to know how long it would take a person in 1927 to travel from Savannah to New York by train, and then from New York to Hamburg by ocean liner. I could have gone to my atlas, used my tape measure to determine the distances and then looked to the key to calculate how much of an inch was a mile, but I didn’t want to. Besides, if I were as smart as the research librarian I consulted, I would have known how to translate nautical miles into regular miles and what knots are, and how fast an ocean liner, never mind a train, traveled in 1927. I didn’t; but she did.
So, Westport Library, thanks for the solace, the knowledge, your state of the art technology, and your old-fashioned, personalized commitment to the community.
Happy 100th Birthday, dear library. Happy 100th to you.
I could not have written "Staples High School: 120 Years of A+ History" without the Westport Public Library.
I spent hours toting heavy bound volumes of the Westport News and Westport Town Crier from the stacks to nearby tables. It took longer than it should have -- every page I turned brought new memories, most only tangentially related to Staples (that was my problem, not the library's) -- but it was a glorious time.
I spent much of that summer reading microfilm, too. I am less mechanically adept than Elmer Fudd, necessitating trip after trip to the research librarians' desk. Yet each time, without fail, they accompanied me back to my machine, where they smiled helpfully, solved my problem, then went back to serve someone with an actual research question.
Interestingly, during my research I learned that the original Westport Public Library -- long before the one donated by Mr. Bedford, on the Boston Post Road -- was located on the ground floor of the first Staples High School, on Riverside Avenue. Local residents were welcome to stop by, when Staples students were not using the room. More than a century later, Staples students -- along with toddlers, parents, great-grandparents, and everyone in between -- come to the Westport Public Library at all hours of the day, for material and information undreamed of in Horace Staples' time.
But all that stuff from the 1800's and 1900's is there too, ready for someone like me to find it, and dive in.
| Eric Burns | Jack Cavanaugh | Frank Deford |
| Leonard Everett Fisher | J. T. Fraser | Jane Green |
| Mike Greenberg | Woody Klein | Robert Leleux |
| Mary-Lou Weisman | Hans Wilhelm | Carter Wiseman |
| Dan Woog |
| ERIC BURNS |
A library is a building with books in it, and in most cases that's good enough. But for a writer, the Westport Public Library is something else, something more, enough in the way of resources and assistance to make up virtually the whole "acknowledgements" page of the writer's book. Which is to say, if there is a source that the staff cannot find, it cannot be found or does not exist.
I realize that in this computerized age all libraries have a reach far beyond what they had in my youth. But what the staff of the Westport Public Library can do takes much more than machines. It takes a sincere desire to help and the intelligence to know how to help when the going gets tough.
In each of the books I've written that I've researched at the WPL, I've not only found virtually all of the information I wanted, but learned something additional in the process, something that made the book better---through a question that one of the staff members asked that opened up a new avenue of thought for me; through the initiative that a staff member showed by ordering for me more material than I had requested, simply because she thought I might be interested. Often I was. That is service, and caring, above and beyond. I am an extraordinarily grateful recipient.
| JACK CAVANAUGH |
The Westport Public Library has been a vital source to me in researching my last book on former heavweight champion Gene Tunney, published by Random House in 2006 and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in biography, and my current book on the New York Giants football team of the late 1950s and early 1960s and what the National Football League was like during that time frame. That book, which is scheduled to be published in August of this year, also by Random House, has a strong Fairfield connection since the Giants trained at Fairfield University during the 1960s.
In addition to using books from the library as sources, I've also spent countless hours going through microfilm of long-ago newpapers that have been obtained for me by Susan Madeo, who has been of immense assistance to me, and then making copies of stories that I know will be useful in my research. Susan also has been of immense help in obtaining difficult-to-find and even out-of-print books from around the country that have also contributed to my work as a writer of non-fiction.
During my many visits to the library, and through phone calls from the library advising me that either desired microfilm or books that I've requested have come in, members of the library staff have been both helpful and gracious. As I've said so often during book signings and interviews, librarians, and libraries in general, and in my case the Westport Public Library, are of immeasurable assistance to non-fiction writers. I know I couldn't do without them.
| FRANK DEFORD |
I’ve found myself at libraries all over the world, often looking for the most arcane information. Books are nice, of course, but I like old newspapers best. They’re more intimate, more transformative into whatever time or place I’m reaching back into. (And, of course, since I’m not very good with machinery, I always need help with the microfilm gizmos, but that’s my fault, not the libraries.)
Because libraries are sanctuaries of peace as much as they are repositories of knowledge, I find them very conducive to connecting with whatever it is I’m trying to immerse myself in. Silence is an especially gracious thing nowadays. At the Westport Public Library, the best place for me is upstairs, at the table way back in the northeast corner. It’s always good to carve out the right spot for yourself at a library. Don’t move around, if you can help it.
The people who work at the Westport Library are lovely. I always have the feeling that library folk are immediately fond of you just because you’re using their library, so they actually want to help you. I never feel like I’m an imposition here.
The only bad thing about the Westport Library is that (as in all libraries) many books are placed too low, on shelves down by the floor. However, there are no cell phones at the Westport Library, so that’s a fair trade-off. I don’t mind bending down so long as there are no ringtones going off hither and yon.
The Westport Library is so very important and welcoming, and it’s a wonderful asset for this town.
 |
| LEONARD EVERETT FISHER |
Every published book of mine--some 260 over the past 54 years--whether only illustrated or written and illustrated by me, has had a foundation of library exploration and research--all sorts of libraries: public, private, school, college, university, special, corporate, and government. Waiting to be revealed were all the facts and fancies between heaven and earth that human curiosity had come up with since the dawn of historical time. I could not have painted my paintings, or written and illustrated my books without having traveled that road of human knowledge, experience, and creativity--a road paved with information. revelations, and programs found in the Westport Public Library.
Beyond self interest and self improvement, I have committed myself to the Westport Public Library for more than half of the library’s 100 years of existence. I can only think of the countless pleasurable hours of involvement as I have tried to give back the assistance, shelf and exhibition spaces that the Westport Public Library has offered me over the years: serving on the library board (1982-1989); president of the board (1986-1989); co-originator and co-curator of the McManus Room drawing collection; co-originator and co-curator of the Kiosk art exhibitions; lectures such as the one commemorating the 400th anniversary of Cervante’s “Don Quixote;” member of the Permanent Art Collection and Rabbit Hill Festival committees.
The Westport Public Library’s collection, events, and energy--in all its forms--has taken me to places I had not thought possible. And the journey continues unabated.
| J.T. FRASER |
Information of all kind -- true and untrue, useful and useless -- is easily available on our time-compact globe.
But the Westport Library is not a storage of information. Rather, through its librarians, holdings, and extended facilities it is an extension of the minds and lives of its patrons.
Since I moved to this delightful town thirty-five years ago, the Library has served me remarkably in the writing of my books and professional papers.
Let us hope that the Library will prosper and gain in its recorded wisdom and knowledge, so that it may keep on benefiting the young, the old and the middling in their intellects and lives.
A century is only a good beginning.
| JANE GREEN |
YEARS ago I wrote my novels at home. I had a tiny office at the back of the house, and would stumble in there, armed with coffee and cigarettes, to write all day, and sometimes all night. If I woke up, struck by inspiration, to my office I’d go, typing furiously until all the words were on the page and I could allow myself to sleep.
Once I had children, I discovered that my office wasn’t the haven it had always been, that distractions filled my day, and that procrastination was far easier than disappearing to write. It would take me eight hours to write my quota of words, where once it had taken three.
I discovered the Westport library as my home-away-from-home, quite by chance. On our way down from Mother Goose my son and I stopped at the reference library and passed a little room filled with computers. A light switched on. I could write my books here, could let a little structure into my day, could have some peace and quiet until I have to return home with my ‘Mommy’ hat on.
That was seven years ago. I have written my last six books at the Westport library. The small room filled with computers gave way to the large table upstairs by the window, which in turn gave way to a quiet reading room downstairs.
I love the routine the library allows me: that I arrive at the same time every day, grab my latte from the café, set up my laptop and can work in peace, whilst still being out in the world, still being able to walk around and see people when I need to. A writer’s life is a solitary one, and writing alone at home does not serve me well, particularly when writing commercial fiction, writing about people like you and me, people who both surround and inspire me at the Westport library.
| MIKE GREENBERG |
I wrote the overwhelming majority of my book at the library. There is no more inspirational site in Westport, from the ducks swimming on the river outside the windows, to the Staples students studying and flirting - not necessarily in that order - among the stacks, to the hushed voices of parents guiding their little ones upstairs to the children's area, where my own children used to play. Whenever the blank page threatened to overwhelm my senses, I could always recharge with a walk by the water, or a cup of tea from the snack bar, or a few minutes of absolute quiet, which aren't always easy to find. These days every place needs to be about something - about eating or drinking or shopping or working out. The library is about thinking. There is no better place to write.
|
| WOODY KLEIN |
‘Where History Comes to Life’
It has been said that a town’s library is a measure of a townspeople’s thirst for knowledge. That being the case, Westporters are, by and large, a most knowledgeable group of residents. In recent years, under the exceptional leadership of Westport Public Library Director Maxine Bleiweis, our library has grown dramatically in terms of number of books, services, and cultural attractions. The library provides a public service for all. As the late Lady Bird Johnson once said, “Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest.”
Without the assistance of the Westport Library’s extraordinary professional reference librarians, I would not have been able to research and write the books I have in recent years—especially the history book on Westport, published in 2000, marking the 165th anniversary of the founding of our town. It can accurately be said that—thanks to the dedication and diligence of the reference librarians—we now have the first modern-day history of the town written in the 20th century. The Library’s Marta Campbell led that Herculean research effort.
Westport librarians are, in fact, the backbone of that institution. They are the people who are, as Norman Cousins put it, in charge of “the delivery room for the birth of ideas—a place where history comes to life.” Another insightful view comes from Father Timothy Healy, former president, New York Public Library, who wisely wrote: “The most important asset of any library goes home at night—the library staff."
| ROBERT LELEUX |
The Real Reason I Write at the Westport Public Library
Let’s at least be honest about it.
If all you really wanted was a gorgeous, light-filled library, boasting a superlative collection of cherished volumes, then there are oodles of places you could wile away an afternoon.
You could, say, go to the British Library in London, or the Bodleian at Oxford. There’s the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Library of Congress, both, of course, in Washington, DC. There’s the Boston Library and the good ole New York Public.
But then, none of those places sell chocolate chip cookies, now do they?
And that’s really what I’m looking for in the great libraries of the world—a place where baked goods and great literature are only a few feet away from each other. A place where the parking is free, and the location is lush and verdant, on the banks of a gracious, flowing river, straight out of The Wind in the Willows, my favorite children’s book. Although, of course, the Westport Library’s river is much better than the one in The Wind in the Willows, because at the library’s river, there’s free WIFI service just barely extending to its sloping, grassy edge.
There’s a phrase for a set-up like that, it’s “The Best of Both Worlds,” a phrase often associated with the Westport Library. It’s a world-class, cosmopolitan institution that feels Americana and quaint. The people who hang there are big-city smart, and small-town friendly.
|
| MARY-LOU WEISMAN |
One of the reasons I love the Westport Public Library is because it’s a good place to go when I’m suffering from avoidance behavior and the loneliness of the long distance writer. I wonder how it happened that I, who was paralyzed by anxiety each time I had to write a college term paper, ended up actually choosing to be a writer. I must have been crazy.
It’s nice to see other refugee writers, except if they’re actually busy writing. Even so, if I’d stayed at home, I probably would be stalling, waiting for the washer to finish washing so that I could put the wash in the dryer, so that I could wait for the dryer to stop so that I could start folding, so that I wouldn’t have to write. At least when I’m at the library I get to eat muffins, and enjoy reading books that I’m not trying to write.
I am especially fond of the reference librarians. I use them to the point of abuse, and they just keep on smiling. Last week, for a biography I am writing, I needed to know how long it would take a person in 1927 to travel from Savannah to New York by train, and then from New York to Hamburg by ocean liner. I could have gone to my atlas, used my tape measure to determine the distances and then looked to the key to calculate how much of an inch was a mile, but I didn’t want to. Besides, if I were as smart as the research librarian I consulted, I would have known how to translate nautical miles into regular miles and what knots are, and how fast an ocean liner, never mind a train, traveled in 1927. I didn’t; but she did.
So, Westport Library, thanks for the solace, the knowledge, your state of the art technology, and your old-fashioned, personalized commitment to the community.
Happy 100th Birthday, dear library. Happy 100th to you.
| HANS WILHELM |
| With Gratitude to the Westport Library After growing up in Germany, living in Africa and traveling around the world for many years I came to America and made Westport my new home. That was some 30 years ago. As a writer and illustrator I have spent many hours of research at the Westport Public Library. I specially appreciate the large selection of art books and comprehensive visual reference files. They have been a big treasure chest from which I can continuously draw and be inspired. With the high quality of books, reference materials and on-going community involvement comes another very important factor that makes this library so special: the wonderful people that work at the library. I would especially like to give thanks to everybody who works in the children’s library: Kitty, Kris, Candace, Jane, Karen, Lynne, Annie, Deborah and all the others who work as part timers. |
 |
| Congratulations on your hundredth anniversary and thank you for having been such an important part of my work for so many years. It is my wish that my books bring continuous pleasure to this community through the Westport Library for generations to come. |
|
| CARTER WISEMAN |
Conditions for Creativity
For many years, I have been involved as a volunteer with an organization called the MacDowell Colony. Located in Peterborough, New Hampshire, MacDowell is the country’s oldest retreat for creative artists. Like the Westport Public Library, the Colony is celebrating its 100th birthday. Unlike the Library, MacDowell has 450 acres of woodland and provides individual studios for some 300 artists a year who come for stays of up to two months. However, the studios--which are bare-bones, one-room cabins--are hardly MacDowell’s major attraction. What has brought writers like Thornton Wilder, Alice Walker, Michael Chabon, and Wendy Wasserstein to the New Hampshire woods over a century is a combination of time, privacy, and a commitment by MacDowell to provide them with the conditions for creativity.
The Westport Public Library serves a remarkably similar role. When my father moved to Westport in 1960, he spent countless hours in the Library working on novels and plays. I know that my father was encouraged in his efforts by having a place that believed in writing as a noble calling.
When I began to write books of my own, the Library had moved to its present location. But neither its mission nor its welcome had changed, and I found a haven in it as my father had in its predecessor. With young children at home, privacy became especially valuable to me. But the Library was no MacDowell cabin in the woods. It was full of people, and rarely silent. There were, however, compensations.
One was watching other Library regulars at work. Each, like me, had a personal ritual. Their papers were laid out just so; they took breaks at predictable times, they chewed their pencils or drummed their fingers on the tables.
The other thing that struck me was the variety of the people around me. There were high-school students immersed in research papers. There were middle-aged folk laboring over their tax returns. And there were a few people who seemed to have no other place to go, but were drawing on the Library’s resources—newspapers, magazines, cross-word puzzles—with no less claim on the space than the fledgling scholars and tax analysts. These were not the usual candidates for an elite artists’ colony, but they were benefiting from the same core belief that the MacDowell Colony offers: validation of one’s search for knowledge, and perhaps inspiration.
On the occasion of its own centennial, the Westport Public Library is a very different place from what it was when my father used it more than 40 years ago. Ink on paper has been joined by digital technology, and books are becoming almost as quaint as wax tablets. Laptops and Blackberries are challenging pencils and pocket diaries. But the places where we gather to seek out information and share it with others remain as valuable as they ever were. The Library is one of those places. And a good thing, too. After all, we can not learn much about each other—or do much for each other--if we are all home alone.
| DAN WOOG |
I could not have written "Staples High School: 120 Years of A+ History" without the Westport Public Library.
I spent hours toting heavy bound volumes of the Westport News and Westport Town Crier from the stacks to nearby tables. It took longer than it should have -- every page I turned brought new memories, most only tangentially related to Staples (that was my problem, not the library's) -- but it was a glorious time.
I spent much of that summer reading microfilm, too. I am less mechanically adept than Elmer Fudd, necessitating trip after trip to the research librarians' desk. Yet each time, without fail, they accompanied me back to my machine, where they smiled helpfully, solved my problem, then went back to serve someone with an actual research question.
Interestingly, during my research I learned that the original Westport Public Library -- long before the one donated by Mr. Bedford, on the Boston Post Road -- was located on the ground floor of the first Staples High School, on Riverside Avenue. Local residents were welcome to stop by, when Staples students were not using the room. More than a century later, Staples students -- along with toddlers, parents, great-grandparents, and everyone in between -- come to the Westport Public Library at all hours of the day, for material and information undreamed of in Horace Staples' time.
But all that stuff from the 1800's and 1900's is there too, ready for someone like me to find it, and dive in.
|
dcelia@westportlibrary.org