National Library Week

Celebrate National Library Week (April 8-14th) by visiting your local library.
If you live in Rome, New York, you can go to the Jervis Library, built in 1895.

If you live in Norwich, New York you can go to the Guernsey Memorial Library, although the building shown here was demolished in the 1967. The new library looks pretty nice too.

You can also go visit the mammoth Milwaukee Library.

Here are the backs of the cards in the same order. I think they're all clear enough to read as is.

 The first card was sent to Miss Persis Davis in Los Angeles. The second one was sent to Alma Tarbox in Harford Mills, new York. I have quite a few cards to and from the Tarbox family.

The last one was sent to Mr. C.P. Robb in Winona, Minnesota.

National Library Week

National Library Week is an annual celebration of the contribution of our nation's libraries and librarians.  Celebrate libraries every day, but especially during the week of April 10-16, 2011.

Not all libraries are beautiful, but they all have books.

Carnegie Library for Sale

Poor Andrew Carnegie is rolling over in his grave. After all of his efforts to leave us with a legacy of beautiful libraries, in some cases we can't manage to keep them open or even to maintain the buildings.

I found out about this deal a little late, otherwise, that would have been my bedroom window up there on the right. About five years ago the library was sold for some ridiculous amount ($140,000?) Last time I checked, it was sitting vacant with the space available for lease. I could be living in it and throwing lavish parties. That could have been your carriage out front. Here it is back in about 1906.

And here again, several decades later.  This is not the only Carnegie library to go up for sale. It's hard to really find out the details though. I couldn't even track down the newspaper article that listed the sales price or the details of the sale.

I  know that when this library became too small and there wasn't enough parking, Broome County built a newer bigger one. Then, due to budget cuts, the remaining four branches in Binghamton were all closed. I guess it's a pattern seen elsewhere too. The downtown is no longer the shopping and business center it used to be, so the main library has difficulty serving its purpose there. When the main library is then moved to another more suburban location, it's a given that people can't walk there, and it needs a big parking lot to go with it.  It's a sad progression from small neighborhood libraries that people could walk to.

I was surprised to discover that there are people who specifically collect library postcards, as well as people who are library history buffs.  The ultimate library history buff seems to be Larry Nix, a retired librarian who hosts the Library History Buff website. Mr. Nix also mentioned in his blog in May of last year that the Carnegie Library in Duluth, Minnesota was for sale for $862,000.

I'd love to know how many of the Carnegie libraries are still used as libraries, how many are used for something else, and how many are sitting empty or have been demolished. If you're interested in libraries and library history, be sure to check out Larry's website and another good one, Retiring Guy's Digest.