Library Passport: Petersburgh Library

Petersburgh Library

Petersburgh Library is nestled in the hills.  It’s tucked behind a veteran’s hall and next to the town hall. I had a nice picnic lunch while waiting for the library to open at 2.  Serving a population of a little over 1,500, the library gives their patrons personalized service and attention.

I talked with the director, who struggles to be able to connect to other libraries due to time and distance constraints. The library system is working on streaming their meetings in a way that is useful.  It would be cool if we could afford one of those robots with moving camera heads, but even opening a laptop and throwing it on facebook live would help the remote libraries.

The library is two floors- the first floor is the main library, while the basement has a meeting space and archived books.  This is book purgatory.  A lot of libraries have this- they are not sure if a book is going to be used anymore, so they have a middle stage before weeding it completely. It’s also used for books only used for certain occasions like school reading lists or multiple copies for book clubs. If a book pops up on a request list, they still have it.

Jane is visiting all 36 locations of the Upper Hudson Library System (see introduction)