The WestportREADS selection is The Soloist by Mark Salzman. The final Harry Potter Night takes place. Journalist David Halberstam receives the 9th Westport Library Award posthumously. Library programs are podcast and staff create a Library wiki, On the Green, dedicated to environment issues. Doris and Frank Jacoby receive the Friends of the Library Special Friend Award.Library Board of Directors, responding to new demands on space and services, commissions an architect to study building solutions. Circulation totals 856,762; there are 548,878 visits to the library, and 948 programs are conducted.
The Kids Travel at the Library Service is created, providing families with vacation kits customized to their destination. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin receives the 8th Westport Library Award. Poet Billy Collins delivers the Malloy Lecture in the Arts. Mimi Greenlee receives the Friends of the Library Special Friend Award. Keeping pace with new technology, the Library offers downloadable video, creates a profile on Facebook and MySpace, answers queries sent by Instant Messaging, and launches staff-written blogs.
The Spoken Word committee celebrates the 400th anniversary of the publication of Don Quixote with programs and lectures.The Library and the Westport Country Playhouse celebrate the re-opening of the renovated Playhouse with community-wide programs organized under the banner Before Act I.Arthur Mitchell, founder and director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, is honored with the 7th annual Westport Public Library Award at the “Booked for the Evening” event. July heralds the access by library users to nearly 1,000 downloadable audiobooks using MP3 compatible players. Multiple access allows the entire community to listen to the same book at the same time. WestportREADS selection is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon. Carol Gluckman receives the Friends of the Library Special Friend Award. Demand for meeting space leads to the creation of three conference rooms on the Library’s main level. Credit cards are accepted for payment of fines. 2,003 children register for the summer reading program. The Malloy Lecture in the Arts on the Genius of Mozart features violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Frederic Chiu.
Library attendance surpasses 570,000, a new all-time high. The first Community Conversation is held. The subject is politics and the media. The first electronic newsletter is sent to subscribers and the first self-service check-out stations are installed. A graphic book collection is established. Movie director Martin Scorsese is honored with the 6th annual Westport Library Award at the Booked for the Evening event. A Bloomsday 100 Celebration in honor of the work of James Joyce includes films, lectures, and a Dublin dinner. The Malloy Lecture in the Arts features a conversation with artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, preceding the opening of their Gates installation in Central Park. At the third WestportREADS, the community reads When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka. 1,822 children register for the summer reading program. The popular Reading to Rover reading program featuring beginning readers and dogs begins. Betty Lou Cummings receives the Friends of the Library Special Friend Award.
Library use hits an all-time high with over 840,000 items loaned and more than 550,000 visitors. The library’s website is accessed by more than 12,000 people each month.The Library Board of Trustees responds to the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act and adopts a policy in defense of the confidentiality of library records. Author Pete Hamill is honored with the 5th annual Westport Library Award at the Booked for the Evening event. The Friends of the Westport Library turn the Library into Hogwarts School for the June 21 release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. More than 200 children attend. Angela Arcudi McKelvey receives the Friends of the Library Special Friend Award. At the second WestportREADS, the community reads Snow in August by Pete Hamill. The Library adopts Leading the Way: A Strategic Plan for the Westport Library, 2004 – 2007, responding to focus groups and a town meeting on the future of the Library.The Malloy Lecture in the Arts features a conversation with playwrights Arthur Miller and Tom Cole. The audience numbers 700, including actor Gene Wilder, who participates in the conversation. The Library completes the Technology Appeal, raising more than $110,000 for new computer equipment, and establishes a new lecture series, Technology Talks.
The first community-wide read, WestportREADS, is announced. The book selected is The Giver by Lois Lowry. The Library’s high speed T-1 Internet connection goes live in May. Playwright Wendy Wasserstein is honored with the 4th annual Westport Library Award at the “Booked for the Evening” event. Margaret Barnett receives the Friends of the Library Special Friend Award. The Committee for the Future of the Library is organized in September to guide the library’s long-range planning process. The first Malloy Lecture in the Arts features speaker Philippe de Montebello of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A wireless network becomes active in December and makes the Internet accessible from virtually all locations in the Library for laptop users with wireless cards.
Library inaugurates the Rabbit Hill Festival of Literature, celebrating children’s books. The festival is named in honor of author/illustrator Robert Lawson, who called his Westport home Rabbit Hill. It attracts participants from around the country to workshops and lectures given by authors and illustrators, who also visit local schools. The book, The River of Names: a historical tile mural at the Westport Library, Westport, Connecticut, is published, researched and written by Dorothy E. Curran. Over 1,370 children participate in the children’s summer reading program. The Library Board establishes an Advisory Council to bring insight and expertise from the community. Author Calvin Trillin is honored with the 3rd annual Westport Library Award at the Booked for the Evening event. Bill Bangser and Dick Lowenstein receive the Friends of the Library Special Friend Award. The Business Reading Room opens. Carrels and connections for laptops are available for use.
The Speaking of Books service is inaugurated, providing community reading groups with multiple copies of titles and research material for book discussion leaders. Novelist E.L. Doctorow is honored with the 2nd annual Westport Library Award at the Booked for the Evening event. Membership in the Friends of the Westport Library tops 1,000. Six Rocket electronic readers are acquired for loan. They contain digitized books for adult, teen, middle school and elementary school readers. Library registers the Internet address, www.westportlibrary.org, changing it from the more cumbersome www.westport.lib.ct.us. The Library’s online catalog becomes Internet-based making it easier for patrons to use. Leonard Everett Fisher and Howard Munce receive the Friends of the Library Special Friend Award. New York Times Crossword Puzzle Editor Will Shortz agrees to conduct and supply unpublished puzzles for the Library’s first crossword puzzle contest.
The As You Like It Library Café opens. People are allowed to consume their beverages in most areas of the Library, a rarity among public library practices. Over 900 children register for the summer reading program, another new high. Shirley Land receives the first ever Special Friend Award. The Westport Library Award is established to honor those whose work nurtures the love of learning and enhances our understanding of the world. NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw is the first recipient at the “Booked for the Evening” event.
The video collection expands to over 13,000 titles, the largest collection in the state. Circulation is up 16 percent over the previous year and average daily visits rise 31 percent to 1,582 people per day. The Library has the highest annual circulation per capita in the state at 24 items.
Maxine Bleiweis begins her tenure as Library Director in January. Building renovations are completed in June and the new Library is formally dedicated on October 4. It has 51,160 square feet of space, an increase of 45 percent. The River of Names tile mural is unveiled. Created by ceramicist Marian Grebow, the mural is funded by contributions from 1,100 donors. The Friends of the Library store opens, offering gifts and library-related items. 845 children sign up for the summer reading program, topping the previous high of 500. The first summer reading scavenger hunt was created to help people acquaint themselves with the new Library. The first compact disc versions of audiobooks were offered for loan in addition to the tape version.
Planning begins for building renovations to accommodate growing collection and new types of media. The collection numbers over 180,000 books, audio-visual and reference volumes. Circulation is 471,115 and Library attendance is 396,000, over 1,100 people on an average day.
Sally Poundstone succeeds Joan Turner as Library Director.
