Tag Archives: Southern Tier Library System

Beat the Deadly Heat — on Weekends!

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So it’s being a hot, hot summer… unsurprisingly! EVERY year now is among the ten hottest years ever recorded, and it keeps getting worse.
*During heat waves the counties and other agencies often announce lists of “cooling stations,” where people can go for some relief before the dangerous heat makes them ill. Very often, these cooling stations are our public libraries.
*This makes sense – apart from the mall, the library is about the only place you can just “drop in” without charge – plus, there are books, magazines, computers and puzzles to occupy you, AND things to occupy the kids. If you want to check materials out, a card in any of the 49 Southern Tier System libraries works in just about any of the others. I wrote about this four years ago, and I decided it was time to update.
*Not every library is air conditioned, so you shouldn’t just make that assumption. Also, Dormann Library in Bath has been without A/C for a couple of months while the entire system is being replaced (they’re almost finished!). The system at Taylor Library in Hammondsport broke down for a while. But nearly all of the libraries I’ve been in (which is quite a few) ARE air conditioned.
*Sad to say, there are fewer sites, and fewer weekend hours, available now compared to four years ago.
*The smaller libraries and reading rooms are only open a limited number of hours per week, and some libraries (even large ones) close altogether for summer weekends. I understand their situation. In an institution dependent on volunteer workers, summer in the Finger Lakes makes scheduling almost impossible. (COVID doesn’t help, especially when you realize that many volunteers are older people.)
*ALL of the Chemung County libraries, sad to say, are closed for summer weekends. So are Bolivar, Richburg, and Genesee, in Allegany County, plus Montour Falls in Schuyler. Addison, Arkport, Atlanta, and Wayland, all in Steuben, each close for both Saturday and Sunday.
*But what about the other libraries in our Southern Tier Library System? My wife Joyce is a professional at Dormann Library in Bath, and she helped me assemble a list. But it’s always possible that some of information is not up-to-date, so CHECK FIRST before making a trip!
*Alfred is open on Sundays but not on Saturdays. This sounds familiar to me, coming from southeastern New England. That stretch of the country, like Alfred, is historic Seventh-Day Baptist territory. I speculate that that history underlies the unusual scheduling. As far as I can tell, Alfred is the ONLY library that still has Sunday hours.
*Andover is open the first Saturday of each month.
*Let’s look now at the every-summer-Saturday-but-never-summer-Sunday roster by counties. They vary from two hours of operation up to six – usually three or four.
*ALLEGANY: Almond; Angelica; Belfast; Belmont; Canaseraga; Cuba; Fillmore; Friendship; Rushford; Scio; Wellsville; and Whitesville.
*YATES: Branchport; Penn Yan; Dundee; Middlesex; Rushville. (Every one – hooray!)
*SCHUYLER: Watkins Glen and Odessa. Hector I’m not sure about.
*STEUBEN: Avoca; Bath; Canisteo; Cohocton; Corning; Hammondsport; Hornell; Howard; Jasper; Prattsburgh; Pulteney; Savona. I wasn’t able to locate information on Greenwood Reading Center.
*Some of these libraries (or their settings) have special features BESIDES air conditioning. Bath (Dormann Library) has its own cafe, so you can keep cool with smoothies. Hammondsport (Taylor Memorial) has its own lovely park with shade trees and a gazebo, and it’s only a few steps down to the Keuka Lake waterfront. Branchport (Modeste Bedient) is at the other end of the lake, and has its own nature preserve right outside. Pulteney also has a Keuka view. Hornell, Penn Yan, and Andover are Carnegie libraries.
*Down the hall from the Watkins Glen Library is the International Motor Racing Research Archive, where there’s almost always a classic racing car on exhibit. Angelica is in a lovely small-village setting, with a Saturday outdoor farmers’ market down the street in the Circle.
*There are also open libraries just over the edge of Southern Tier Library System territory in Dansville, in Naples, and in Wellsboro, PA (Green Free Library – they DO have Sunday hours!). Right next door in Wellsboro is Gmeiner Art and Cultural Center, where exhibits are always free admission.
*Remember that libraries, especially the smaller ones, are not necessarily open “full time.” On the other hand, most of them have evening hours at least once a week. That’s worth remembering – even those libraries that do NOT have summer weekend hours, DO have hours DURING the week, when the heat also might get dangerous.
*So keep cool, and be cool. Even on weekends, if only for a few hours, the library waits.

Keep Cool at the Library — on Weekends!

So it’s being a hot, hot summer… unsurprisingly! EVERY year now is among the ten hottest years ever recorded, and it keeps getting worse.

*During heat waves the counties and other agencies often announce lists of “cooling stations,” where people can go for some relief before the dangerous heat makes them ill. Very often, these cooling stations are our public libraries.

*This makes sense – apart from the mall, the library is about the only place you can just “drop in” without charge – plus, there are books, magazines, computers and puzzles to occupy you, AND things to occupy the kids. If you want to check materials out, a card in any of the 49 Southern Tier System libraries works in just about any of the others.

*Not every library is air conditioned, so you shouldn’t just make that assumption. But nearly all of the libraries I’ve been in (which is quite a few) ARE.

*The smaller libraries and reading rooms are only open a limited number of hours per week, and some libraries (even large ones) close altogether for summer weekends. I understand their situation. In an institution dependent on volunteer workers, summer in the Finger Lakes makes scheduling almost impossible. ALL of the Chemung County libraries are closed for summer weekends.

*But there are still four other counties in our Southern Tier Library System, so what about them? My wife Joyce is a professional at Dormann Public Library in Bath, and she helped me assemble a list. But it’s always possible that some of information is not up-to-date, so CHECK FIRST before making a trip!

*A few libraries are open on summer SUNDAYS: Alfred (noon to 4), Montour Falls (8 to noon), and Watkins Glen (2 to 4).

*Alfred is open on Sundays but not on Saturdays. This sounds familiar to me, coming from southeastern New England. That stretch of the country, like Alfred, is historic Seventh-Day Baptist territory. I speculate that that history underlies the unusual scheduling.

*Watkins and Montour are open Saturdays in addition to Sundays. Andover is open the first Saturday of each month, while Arkport is open first and third Saturdays.

*To break up the list a little, let’s take the every-Saturday-but-never-Sunday roster by counties. They vary from two hours of operation up to six – usually three or four.

*ALLEGANY: Almond; Angelica; Belfast; Belmont; Canaseraga; Cuba; Fillmore; Friendship; Scio; and Whitesville. (MAYBE Rushford and Genesee – we’re seeing contradictory reports.)

*YATES: Branchport; Penn Yan; Dundee; Middlesex; Rushville. (All of them, Katie)

*SCHUYLER: MAYBE Odessa and Hector – reports are contradictory.

*STEUBEN: Avoca; Bath; Canisteo; Cohocton; Corning; Hammondsport; Howard; Jasper; Prattsburgh; Pulteney; Savona.

*Some of these libraries (or their settings) have special features BESIDES air conditioning. Bath (Dormann Public Library) has its own cafe, so you can keep cool with smoothies. Hammondsport (Taylor Memorial) has its own lovely park with shade trees and a gazebo, and it’s only a few steps down to the Keuka Lake waterfront. Branchport (Modeste Bedient) is at the other end of the lake, and has its own nature preserve right outside. Montour Falls is just a few steps from the falls (besides having lovely picture windows).

*Down the hall from the Watkins Glen Library is the International Motor Racing Research Archive, where there’s almost always a classic racing car on exhibit. Angelica is in a lovely small-village setting, with an outdoor farmers’ market down the street in the Circle.

*There are also open libraries just over the edge of Southern Tier Library System territory in Dansville, in Naples, and in Wellsboro, PA (Green Free Library). Right next door in Wellsboro is Gmeiner Art and Cultural Center, where exhibits are always free admission.

*So keep cool, and be cool. Even on weekends, if only for a few hours, the library waits.

Local Girl Makes Good: Grace Livingston Hill

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Some time back I sort of stumbled onto some local connections for Grace Livingston Hill, who once upon a time was far and away one of the best-selling authors in America.

*Grace was born in Wellsville in 1865. She lived in Campbell from September 1883 to September 1885 (ages 18 to 20) while her father was pastor of the Presbyterian church — now an antique mall. She also briefly attended Elmira College.

*Grace’s father was frequently troubled by severe problems with his throat — bad news for a preacher — and they moved to Florida after leaving Campbell, hoping for a better climate.

*There Grace wrote her first story, later expanded to a book, to earn enough money for a family trip to Chautauqua Institute. Her mother, her father, and especially her aunt were all published authors. Aunt Isabella Macdonald Alden actually published a story about a visit to Campbell. She wrote copiously, often under the pen name Pansy. Professional librarians sneered at works by “Pansy,” which did not meet their standards for Serious Literature. By the time Grace came along librarians were getting a little more relaxed, or at least more resigned.

*Which was a good thing! Because Grace’s output outshone the rest of the family combined, even when you include Grace’s daughter’s work. “GLH” published over a hundred books between 1887 (A Chautauqua Idyll) and 1947 (Mary Arden). The exact count can be argued a little, but I make it at 116 — Danielle Steel is now up to 125.

*Grace’s readers ran into eager millions, who persevered past (and finally overcame, or maybe overwhelmed) disgruntled librarians. Perhaps Jan Karon would be a rough contemporary parallel… Grace’s books had a spiritual tinge, or at least were wholesome, and her primary readers were women, many of whom still fondly recall reading long into the night, unable to tear away from the story and the characters.

*The professionally hip have been known to call her Grace Livingston Seagull, but she being dead (since 1947) yet speaketh. An author check of our own Southern Tier Library System catalogue reveals FOURTEEN PAGES of entries for Grace Livingston Hill. To compare with other hyper-prolific writers, the system shows 46 pages for Danielle Steel, 29 for John Grisham, 23 for Isaac Asimov, 13 for Frances Hodgson Burnett, 10 for P. G. Wodehouse, 7 for Robert Silverberg, 5 for Barbara Cartland, and 1 for Horatio Alger. (These figures include books, e-books, audio books, movies, etc.)

*Of course it’s not surprising that contemporary authors would be better represented, and that interest in the older ones fades away over time. So just for the fun of it, I decided to “equalize” all that through multiplying the number of pages in each listing by the number of years since the author’s death — using “1” as the multiple for the three living authors.

*In that case we get: Burnett 2096 “popularity points”; Hill 966; Asimov 552; Wodehouse 410; Alger 117; Cartland 80; Steel 46; Grisham 29; Silverberg 7.

*While this calculation puts Grace Livingston Hill well behind Frances Hodgson Burnett (most famous for The Secret Garden, A Little Princess/Sara Crewe, and Little Lord Fauntleroy, all of which have been made into multiple movies), it also puts her decidedly ahead of Asimov and far beyond any of the others. Not bad for someone who published her first book 129 years ago!

Steele Memorial Library — a Cool Place

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*Our five-county region has 49 public libraries, and the largest of these is Steele Memorial Library in Elmira… which is itself the largest city in the five counties.

*Both the 1923 main branch and the old much-missed South Branch were clobbered in the 1972 Hurricane Agnes flood, along with most of the rest of the city. Records were lost, thousands of books were ruined, and the structures were severely stressed. This led to creation of a new facility, opened in 1979, well-located for downtown at Church Street and Clemens Center Parkway.

*Maybe the most attractive thing about Steele – it has the largest collection in the area. It’s been designated the central library for Southern Tier Library System, meaning that anyone with a card at the other 48 member libraries may borrow materials, either in person or by inter-library loan.

*The architecture itself screams “1970s!”, which gives it a retro charm all its own. Besides checkout and rest rooms, the lower level offers new books, rental books, periodicals, the children’s section, the young adult section, the video discs, and the audio discs. There are cases for library and community exhibits.

*It also has a carpeted chessboard, with pieces a couple of feet high. It doesn’t make the game any different, but it provides an added layer of fun and even goofiness.

*A massive freestanding staircase and elevator lead up to the mezzanine – nonfiction, adult fiction, adult graphic novels, science fiction, mystery fiction, mass-market paperbacks, computers, a locked section of rare books, and a VERY helpful reference department – I made use of their services several times while I was writing a book about the 1972 flood. From the mezzanine you also get a good look at the lower level, which is neat if you’re looking for family members or cool if you’re just people-watching. You can also follow the chess match from on high, which gives you delusions of grandeur.

*Besides the chess area (and the sheer number of books), here are some things that are neat about the Steele Memorial Library.

*There are three dedicated graphic novel sections – one for adults, one for kids, and one for young adults. The offerings run from old-time newspaper strip collections to currently mainstream to edgy and avant-garde.

*A large screen shows the Weather Channel.

*It’s downtown – a sign of commitment to (and by) the city and its people.

*Even though it’s downtown it’s easily reached, and it has good on-site parking (not always the case with urban libraries).

*You can walk to Light’s Bakery, and to the Chemung Valley History Center. You can walk a couple of blocks, and take a look at the river.

*Public events take place in the green spaces nearby.

*Steele Library introduced me to historian (and deadpan comedian) Simon Schama, and also to former Elmira resident Graham Sale, the cartoonist who created “Men in Hats.”

*Steele Library helped me out when I was trying to document turn-of-the-century cartoonist (and Horseheads resident) Eugene Zimmerman’s books or the Grand Comics Database. (I put Graham Sale in there, too.)

*The library memorializes John Dorman Steele, 19th-century E.F.A. principal and major figure in American education.

*It’s a very handy place if you’ve got someone in either of Elmira’s two hospitals!