My work began in June at this small Berkshires town that is conveniently located near Stockbridge, Lenox, Tanglewood and the Lee outlet stores.The road that leads into town is replete with beautiful postcard-quality scenery everywhere you look.
The library itself from the outside is pleasant enough but the real beauty begins when you walk inside. It is larger than I expected with one big central room and a smaller room where our work began. I have since learned that the two loft-balcony areas, each with their own staircase, can also be found in other area libraries. At the present they are for the most part unused as over time they have been turned into storage and holding areas. Some of my co-workers have started to make a dent in reclaiming that space.
On my first visit I worked with the library director and two other staff members on the smaller room which contains non-fiction as well as the Children's collection. Our aim was to clear out that space so that we could create room for expansion of crowded bookshelves. Immediately we found out that this would be a quicker though more labor intensive job since most of the books along the walls had unfortunately been attacked by mold and they were unsalvageable. We began by pulling those books and getting them ready for the recycling bins. That entailed cutting or tearing off the hard covers and taking the paper to the transfer station. The fact that so many books had to be discarded could have been sad except that we found many of them to be very old and outdated, not needed for the current collection and most had not circulated since the 1930's or even earlier! These books had just sat there for years and years and inherited by Mary, the current library director. Her pleasure in finally being able to tackle this area was very clear to me and we worked in total agreement.
We were able to find some books that were in decent shape and will add character to the collection and no doubt circulate since we can display them as books of local interest. That phase is now almost finished and the shelf space we have gained will make this room usable once again.
One of my favorite days there was when a volunteer came in to help pull the cards from the catalog. She has lived in Tyringham for many years and saw some Author/Title cards that she had handwritten when she was in her teens and worked at the library - she even found some cards that had her father's signature when he had borrowed certain books many years earlier.
At long Last
Work continued throughout the summer and we wrapped it all up on October 9th, that is until the opportunity to revisit when the shelves will have been de-molded and work on the floor is complete. Tyringham entailed an enormous amount of work but with the wonderful support of staff and volunteers, we managed to enjoy the process and are thrilled with the results.
