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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
1) To The Readers of Granite State Libraries:
Please note the following corrections to the information about Newbury in the July 1998 issue of Granite State Libraries story "1998 Town Meeting Roundup."
- The library raised over $135,000 from private sources to offset the cost to the town. The story understates this amount by $100,000. We have since received an anonymous gift of $50,000 to be used in addition to the $425,000 appropriated by the town at the 1998 town meeting.
- The town appropriated $5,000 at the 1997, not 1998, town meeting to hire an architect to prepare a preliminary plan for the renovation. That amount was spent to prepare the plan that was approved at the 1998 town meeting.
Incidentally, the project bids are currently under consideration, and we anticipate that construction will begin by September 1, 1998.
A lot of people worked very hard to achieve the foregoing. Unfortunately, the errors in the story tend to diminish what they accomplished. If we had raised only $35,000, the town would not have appropriated the rest. Moreover, $5,000 will not pay an architect to design a project of this scope. It bought us a preliminary plan. The actual architectural fees for this project will run closer to $30,000.
Alan Brown, Librarian
Newbury Public Library
2) To The Readers of Granite State Libraries:
The first printing of our town history, Harts Location in Crawford Notch - New Hampshire's Smallest town is sold out. My husband and I traveled many miles this past summer selling to 114 libraries and Historical Societies. Since then, the Errol Library, to whom I had sent a letter describing the book, has purchased it. That makes 115 New Hampshire libraries that have at least one copy, some purchased two. It makes me very proud to be listed in the catalog of all those libraries. I hope many of their patrons have borrowed it. I know at least one patron who said she was born in our area and was planning to return to take the book out as soon as it was available. I have heard from some of your patrons who did borrow the book and then purchased one for their own library. That made me very happy and proved that having a book in a library does not necessarily mean a loss of sales.
I'm sorry to say there are many libraries we were not able to visit because of their hours, others because of their location. Another 500 books are on order and I hope one day to be able to call on some of the libraries we missed the first time around.
I enjoyed meeting the many librarians and their helpers and would like to thank all who purchased my book.
Marion L. Varney |
