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TURNER FREE LIBRARY
REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR
The year 2007 began with the Turner Free Library in dire circumstances. The library was open only forty hours a week, Tuesday through Saturday 9-5, and had been decertified by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners for failing to comply with minimum state standards for public libraries.
Turner Free Library ends the year in much improved circumstances due to the support of its many users, the Selectmen and the Finance Committee, and was funded for fiscal year 2008 at an amount that allows the library to currently be open sixty-four hours a week. The library is open Monday through Thursday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We still will not be eligible to be recertified by the Board of Library Commissioners until January, 2009, but we have made substantial progress toward that end. Failure to have made that progress would have resulted in Randolph residents being denied service not only at the other libraries in our Old Colony Library Network but by any public library throughout Massachusetts. While O.C.L.N. is providing full
service to Randolph residents, some other libraries have chosen not to do so, which legally they are entitled to do until Randolph has regained its state certification.
During FY2007 189,859 items were borrowed from the library, including 133,413 books, almost 8,500 audio recordings, and almost 47,000 video recordings. Randolph residents received here 23,752 books and other items sent to us from other Old Colony Library Network libraries while we sent 20,700 Randolph books and other items for use at other O.C.L.N. libraries. Museum passes, provided by the Friends of the Turner Free Library and which provide discounted admission to various Boston area museums, were borrowed 480 times.
More than 400 children participated in the library’s summer reading program, and almost 800 attended story times regularly offered throughout the year. Randolph day care providers brought the children in their care on regular visits to the library. Through funds provided by the Turner Library Friends, a special music class was offered for several weeks during the spring and fall, with more than 600 children participating.
Several hundred children and their parents participated in the library’s observance of this year’s Holiday Lighting in Crawford Square. This special program was highlighted by Randolph high school student Pamela Butz providing festive seasonal music on her keyboard.
With the library again open evenings, the Turner Library Friends were able to present two special programs involving authors with special connections to Randolph.
Former Selectwoman Maureen Dunn spoke about her book, “The Search for Canasta 404: Love, Loss, and the POW/MIA Movement”, and present Boston Globe columnist and former Randolph resident, Beverly Beckham, talked about her book, “Back Then: A Memoir of Childhood.” Ms. Beckham attended the Tower Hill School back in the middle 1950s.
In closing, I wish to thank the library staff for all of their efforts during the past year to provide outstanding library service to the Town, the Library Trustees for their support and encouragement, the Turner Library Friends for all their behind-the-scenes efforts on behalf of the library, and, most of all, the many people for whom the Turner Free Library is a vital community service.
Respectfully submitted,
Charles Michaud
Library Director
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