Have you ever wondered about the “seasons” within the Gardiner Public Library? To the average visitor, it probably just seems as if we are a really busy library and just leave it at that. However, if you look a bit closer, our ebb and flow changes with the season and we are just about ready to launch into our fall season!
No one wants to admit it, but we are all seeing just a peek of fall color as we drive along our roads. The public school teachers who are one of our favorite visitors during the summer are walking just a bit slower and we tease them, “how many more days”? They just sigh and grab a great summer read before their leisure time is taken over by the students. Summer is ending and school will begin, it is the inevitable cycle!
Every morning we open the doors to a few dozen folks just waiting to enter and many of them are kids…kids looking to get their prize for a job well done during our Summer Reading Program or teens jostling to be the first to use the IPad today. They have become our summer friends as they wondrously explore our collection of titles and are quite amazed at how “cool” our musical CDs really are once you actually look. In a few weeks these children will go back to school and become afternoon visitors instead. We will certainly miss them, but honestly, I will be happy that I no longer have to hear Justin Bieber looping away on how he wants to be my boyfriend!
Come fall though, we welcome back our senior citizens…where have they been all summer? One can only guess, but I suppose, like me, they are trying their best to be outside during this glorious summer. Gardens are in bloom, families are visiting and maybe, just maybe, they have all gone “to camp.” But come the end of August, they will be at our doors waiting to come into the library.
When we open the doors in the morning this group of folks will greet us as old friends, jostle each other to be the first to use the IPad today and gaze at our collection of titles and often be amazed at our “cool” titles…who knew the library had a copy of THAT book….Fifty shades of what???
So farewell our summer kids, do well in school and let us help you succeed and welcome back to our older patrons…the library is yours until just about 2:45PM.
Anne E. Davis, Library Director