The Fuller Public Library in Hillsboro is one of 40 libraries nationwide selected to host the "National Connections" reading and discussion series for adult new readers. The project is offered by the Vermont Council on the Humanities in partnership with the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office and funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The project will be offered in the spring and fall of 1999 by a coalition that consists of Tamara McClure, Library Director; Deborah Watrous, Associate Director of the N.H. Humanities Council, and Martie Majoros, Literacy Coordinator at Fuller Public Library. Kathe Simons of New England College will serve as discussion leader. Representatives of each group traveled to Chicago February 18-20 for training workshops.

"National Connections" uses children's literature to offer adult literacy students an opportunity to gather with their peers to discuss timeless themes and to make connections, sometimes for the first time, between books and his/her own life. It is based on a series of the same name that began in Vermont libraries and literacy centers in 1986. By the end of 1998, the ongoing program had enrolled more than 10,000 participants.

A total of 15 students from each site will meet three times, one month apart during each series. Each 90-minute session involves a guided discussion of the books from two of five themes which students have read in advance with the help of their tutors. During the discussions, the scholar leads the student to discover connections between books and their own lives, and to explore the larger theme of the series. Multiple books will be provided for each program. Participants keep the books for their own home libraries. Libraries will also receive a total of $900 for scholar honoraria.

The Fuller Public Library has selected "Biography" for the spring program and "Friendship" for the fall program.

For more information, contact the Fuller Public Library at 464-3595.

SOMERSWORTH PUBLIC LIBRARY CELEBRATES:
100TH ANNIVERSARY
TIIAP GRANT

The Somersworth Public Library will hold an open house on April 15, 1999 from 7:00-9:00 p.m. to celebrate its 100th anniversary as a public library. The Village and Manufacturers Library, a subscription library founded in the early 1840s by the Great Falls Manufacturing Company, was turned over to the city in 1899. The public library has had three different homes, with only 6 different librarians in the past century.

The Somersworth Public Library is one of four sites that are part of a three year, $600,000 TIIAP grant received by N.H. Community Technical College to determine if making college courses and remedial education opportunities available in non-academic settings will attract traditionally hard to reach individuals. By taking advantage of the World Wide Web, this grant provides asynchronous, long-distance learning to Somersworth with four new Dell computers and a laser jet printer at the library, with additional equipment and software for the Somersworth Housing Authority and the Somersworth High School. At the library, this local area network is connected using a 56k frame circuit relay and Cabletron router provided by the Bell Atlantic initiative, with Internet access courtesy of Worldpath, an ISP based in Farmington.