Tuesday, November 19, 2013

November 2013



    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

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