VENTRESS VOICE
Newsletter of the Ventress
Memorial Library
Marshfield, Massachusetts
NOVEMBER 2013 Volume 20, No. 11
VENTRESS VALUES
By Chris
Woods, Acting Director
“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you
can do for your country.”
John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961
This month marks fifty years since President John F.
Kennedy’s assassination, and it is time to pause and reflect on values. It was
an event that shaped our lives, and still promotes discussions among us about
the value of service and the need to make a personal commitment to bring about
positive changes in the world.
In my temporary role as Acting Director, I am able to step
back a little bit and observe the whole. What I see is the Ventress Library
staff and Trustees making this commitment to service every day. I think of the
current Board of Trustees, who now number seven, and the changes they are
enacting such as building improvements, landscaping and advocacy to gain
resources for Marshfield
patrons while cultivating community pride. Appointed and unpaid, the Trustees
volunteer their time because they believe in the value of our public library. I
think of former Trustees whose contributions are remembered, some of whom continue
to participate as active members of the Friends of the Ventress Memorial
Library. Which brings me to the book sorters, the program planners, the ESL
tutors and the volunteers who give countless hours to the library because they
believe in their library and its value to the community. Everyone is working
together here for the greater good. And that should make us all proud!
VENTRESS LIBRARY
WELCOMES THREE NEW TRUSTEES!
E. WALLACE COYLE
Wally Coyle, President of E. Wallace Coyle Associates,
Marshfield, Massachusetts, a management
training and consulting firm, has
presented many different programs for both the public and private sector
including:
New Managers Program Dealing with Public Boards
Customer Service Dealing with
Difficult People
Dealing with Change Effective
Public Speaking
Making the Transition to Manager
Learning
Self Esteem
Strategic Planning
Safety in Public
Libraries
Dr. Coyle previously worked at Boston College
and the University of Massachusetts at Boston in a variety of positions such as:
Director for Writing Proficiency, Assistant Director in Graduate Studies and
Research, and Assistant to the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. He also served as Assistant Director of the
MBA Program at the university and currently serves as consulting editor for a
number of distinguished publishing firms. He is a member of the American
Society for Training and Development, the American Association of Professional
Consultants, the Boston Facilitators Roundtable, and the Ventress Library Board
of Trustees.
A graduate of both Boston College
and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst,
Dr. Coyle has taught at the United States
Military Academy
at West Point, Northeastern University, and the University of Massachusetts
prior to his current assignment. He has presented numerous management training
seminars for: Massport, the State Police, the Massachusetts Board Of Library
Commissioners, Partners HealthCare Inc., Mass Highway, Harvard
University, Babson
College, Wellesley College,
the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, and the
Department of Revenue. He is a certified
trainer for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Division of Human Resources and has
served as Adjunct Professor in the Carroll Graduate School of Management at Boston College.
Dr. Coyle was the recipient of the
Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished University Service at the University of Massachusetts
at Boston and the Distinguished Teaching Award
from the United States Military Academy
at West Point.
GREGORY J.
GUIMOND
Greg Guimond is currently the Town
Planner for the Town of Bridgewater.
He earned Bachelor’s Degrees in
both history and planning from Westfield
State University
in Massachusetts and a Master’s Degree in
community planning from the University
of Rhode Island.
Mr. Guimond previously worked as a
regional planner for 19 years at Southeastern Regional Planning & Economic
Development District, a regional planning agency serving 27 cities and towns in
southeastern Massachusetts. Mr. Guimond also served 7 years as a
regulatory planner for the Cape Cod Commission and was the town planner for Winchendon, Massachusetts.
He served on the Marshfield
Planning Board for 17 years and previously was a Library Trustee. Mr. Guimond was also a member of the town’s
Local Housing Partnership, Solid Waste Committee, Growth Management Committee,
and served as the town’s representative to Metropolitan Area Planning Council
(MAPC) and on the Greenbush Commuter Rail Citizens’ Advisory Committee.
A Marshfield resident, Greg is married with
three children.
JAMES P. O’GARA
Jim O’Gara has spent his life as a
supporter of books and libraries. After earning a B.A. in History from Providence
College and an M.A. in History from Rhode Island College, Jim worked for 35 years at
Addison-Wesley pubishing company in sales and marketing.
A resident of Marshfield for 45 years, Jim and his wife, Judith,
have two children, Daniel of Marshfield, and Elizabeth of Boston. Jim has been
active in community politics and, an avid reader himself, he has always been a
supporter of the library system. He was on the original Ventress Library
Building Committee in the mid-1980s. Now, as a grandfather of four, with three
currently attending schools in Marshfield,
he enjoys sharing his love of books with the next generation.
CIRC STATS and CHAT
By Amy
Rosa, Head of Circulation Services
Amy
Rosa, Head of Circulation Leaving Ventress This Month
Sadly,
I will be leaving my position as Head of Circulation Services this month. My
last day here at Ventress will be November 16. A new opportunity has become
available for me within the Old Colony Library Network. It has been wonderful
working with such a great staff over the past four years and my departure is
bittersweet for sure. I will miss many things about the Marshfield library most of all the amazing
staff and friendly patrons that visit the library regularly. I have learned
many things here, have met some great people, who made memories that I will always
cherish and look back upon fondly. I want to encourage people to still keep in
contact and feel free to send me an email here and there. I wish you all the
best. Think of this not as goodbye, but as “see you later!”
Circ
Stats: The library circulated 15,384 items in October!
JENKS JAZZ AND JIVE
By Karen Jenks, Library Assistant
Holiday Music Arriving Soon!
Another year is drawing to a close,
and it will soon be time to prepare for the holidays. Set the mood for the season with some music
from the library’s Holiday collection. You’ll find a range of music from Popular to
Classical and Jazz to Celtic. Our
offerings include CDs by Michael Bublé, Jimmy Buffett, Nat King Cole, Sting,
Barbra Streisand and James Taylor.
Country music fans will enjoy selections from Vince Gill, Lady
Antebellum, Martina McBride, Blake Shelton and Sugarland. And of course, we
have classics by Perry Como, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.
Look for the Holiday
music cart to make its appearance during the week of November 18th. We’ll also be adding new titles – you’ll find
some of this year’s latest releases in the new CD area just below new fiction
books.
Enjoy the
sounds of the season!
VENTRESS VIDEOS
By Jed Phillips, Reference
Associate
Revolutionary Road (2008) Rated R
Directed by Sam Mendes
Starring Kate Winslet, Leonardo
DiCaprio
Nominated for 3 Oscars
“It haunted him all night, while
he slept alone; it was still there in the morning, when he swallowed his coffee
and backed down the driveway in the crumpled old Ford. And riding to work, one
of the youngest and healthiest passengers on the train, he sat with the look of
a man condemned to a very slow, painless death. He felt middle-aged.”
-Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet
reunite in this powerful adaptation of Richard Yates’ acclaimed novel and the
result is magic. This isn’t your Disneyland fairytale magic though, things get dark and
difficult and you may find yourself a little bit introspective when the credits
stop rolling.
Revolutionary Road is directed by
Sam Mendes, known for such films as Road to Perdition, American Beauty, and
Skyfall. Clearly, he knows what he is
doing. And with a team like Leo and
Kate, it isn’t hard to make something great.
Simply turn on the camera and get out of their way, and you are likely
to get an Oscar nod. (3 Oscar
nominations to be exact, and a Golden Globe win for Winslet to boot.) It's 1955
and
Frank (DiCaprio) and April
(Winslet) Wheeler, in the seventh year of their marriage, have fallen into a
life that appears to most as being perfect. They live in the Connecticut suburbs with their two young
children. Frank commutes to New York
City where he works in an office job while April stays
at home as a housewife. But they're not happy. April has forgone her dream of
becoming an actress, and Frank hates his job but has never figured out what his
passion in life is. This movie is about
how a relationship grows and changes over time.
It is a movie about the hard work necessary to keep a relationship
going. On screen, we see hope, love,
hate, passion, disappointment and the bitterness of a life not intended. But most of all, this movie is about dreams
and aspirations, and the cold reality that so many of us give up on our dreams
and passions out of necessity or circumstance.
I love this film. It is so good in fact, that after watching it
the first time, I went out and saw it again the next day. But don’t confuse “good” with “happy”. This is not a happy film. I repeat:
NOT A HAPPY FILM. You’ll feel a
little of Frank and April’s sense of being trapped. You’ll share a small measure of their
bitterness and resentment. And by the
end, you will feel just a little worn out. You’ll experience this tiny piece of
anguish all in the best of ways and this is only made possible by the magic of
the movies. Find this film in the DVD
section under REV here at the Ventress Memorial Library.
Other must see films:
Featuring Leonardo DiCaprio: Blood Diamond, The Aviator, Inception
Featuring Kate Winslet: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
Finding Neverland,
VENTRESS
VIGNETTES
by Belle Bibliotheque
Since
last we met, I have made some inquiries regarding our Library's acquisition of
the portrait of Adelaide Phillips. Like many stories about the past, this one
has a soupcon of melancolie. We left our story last month with the untimely
death of Adelaide in Carlsbad, Germany.
Adelaide was a
very wealthy woman in 1882, but she had worn herself out travelling for years
and performing on all of the world's greatest stages. She felt the weight of
responsibility for her entire family of siblings, and provided a beautiful,
gracious home for them in Marshfield
with lovely gardens and furnishings. They entertained simply, but well, and had
many guests. As you can imagine, they were tres desole upon the death of their
beloved sister. Their sadness continued, and Adelaide's home was ultimately sold.
Slowly,
like a grande dame fallen upon hard times, the house fell into disrepair. A
gentleman, we will call him Mr. H, a bit of an eccentric, bought the house.
Some of you, my dear readers, will remember the once stately place on Webster Street,
with goats and chickens roaming the wide front porch, picking their way across
the rotten floorboards. What we didn't know was that inside Adelaides's former
home, with tattered curtains
rustling
in the drafts, and the echoes of song and laughter whispering from room to
room, hung our magnificent portrait! Next to it stood her grand piano! Take a stroll
over to
the new book area, and hanging above are four (soon to be five) pieces of art
acquired by the library through the Marshfield Cultural Council, or as gifts of
the artists. The second painting, by the late Carolyn Harvey, is of Adelaide's home, in all
its faded elegance. As you can imagine, the townspeople did not react well to
the goats on the porch of this once lovely home. A kindly man , a trustee of
the library, went to speak with Mr. H and was able to convince him to allow us
to hang her portrait in the library for all to enjoy, and to remember, our
world famous opera singer. The grand piano? We do not know. But wherever it
ended up, we hope the spirit of Adelaide Phillips plays on!
CHILDRENS’ CORNER
By Jen Malaguti, “Miss Jen”
NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER ACTIVITIES
GRADE
SCHOOL BOOK CLUB ( You must be registered-and slots are open!)
Grades
4-5 meets on Nov 21 at 4:00 p.m.
MAMA
STEPH November 23rd at 11:00 a.m. Family music with no registration.
STAR WARS SYMPOSIUM Saturday Dec 7th @ 1:00 p.m.
Presented by the Friends of the Ventress Memorial Library. Do you love Star
Wars?! Join the hundreds of people all over Massachusetts who have already participated
in this family fun program of everything star wars: Trivia, games, toys,
costumes! All ages. Drop-in.
SPECIAL
DROP-IN CRAFT Wednesday, December 18th at 11:30 am. Children ages 4+ are
invited to stop by the Children's department and decorate their own foam shaped
snow globes. Supplies provided. Registration required and limited to 15.
Reserve today!
Ventress
Memorial Library, 15 Library Plaza, Marshfield,
MA 02050
781-834-5535 www.ventresslibrary.org “Like” us on Facebook!
Hours Mon. – Thurs. 9 – 8, Fri. and Sat. 9 – 4:30 , Closed Sundays
The library will close at 4:00 on Wednesday,
November 27 and will be closed Thursday, November 28 and Friday, November 29
and will re-open at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 30
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
_________________________________________________________________________
Newsletter
staff: Chris Woods, Editor; Jaclyn
Robinson, Artist