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Special Bookplates at Gardiner Public Library

Have you ever noticed some of the amazing bookplates in our books?  If you haven’t, please take a moment and check inside the front of Gardiner Public Library books.  We have what I would consider some pretty special bookplates.

Once you begin to notice them, you may wonder who? what? why? and or how? do we get one of these beautiful bookplates? 
These special bookplates were all created for endowed or memorial funds.  This type of fund is set up to celebrate a life, a family event or a professional achievement.
To become an endowed fund, the donated funds must amount to $1,000 or more, and the interested parties need to agree that a fund will be endowed.
Once the Gardiner Library Association receives this endowment, they invest the money in a portfolio dedicated to collection development.  The principal is never spent, so that the fund will remain a perpetual fund. 
A $1,000 fund normally generates enough income to purchase three titles a year.
An endowed fund will have a custom designed bookplate.  Some are pictured in this blog.

 

The fund always remain open so money may be donated again to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and other events.
Pictured here are just a few of these beautiful tributes.  Visit us at the library to see more of these interesting images!

Memorial Book Funds

One of Gardiner Public Library’s long standing memorial funds is the Avis Glidden Ames Fund.

Avis Ames was a teacher, bookkeeper and city auditor.  She was a member of the DAR and a philanthropist. Upon her death in 1952 she left monies to aid “needy & poor” children in Farmingdale as well as to the local DAR chapter.  The bulk of her estate was left to the library to purchase works of a patriotic nature.  The interest from this fund has enabled us to purchase many books over the ensuing years.
A few recent titles include:
Where is Mount Rushmore? by True Kelley
Presidential Misadventures: Poems That Poke fun of the Man in Charge by Bob Raczka
Earmuffs for Everyone: How Chester Greenwood Became Known as the Inventor of Earmuffs by Meghan McCarthy
This Strange Wilderness: the Life and Art of J.J. Audubon by Nancy Plain
The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters
Audacity by Melanie Crowder

 

A bookplate in the front of each book honors this generous gift.