Conimicut Library in 2010; the colors have changed since 1956.
My very first library was the Conimicut Public Library. I was about 6 when my mom first took me there. Soon I was making the trip alone, that is after I mastered “crossing the main road” which at that time was West Shore Road. Conimicut Library sits on Beach Avenue in the small village of Conimicut on the west shore of Narragansett Bay. The bay is visible from the front door of the library if you look to the end of the street.
Anyone who entered the library back then (that would be 1956) would immediately see Mrs. Davies at the checkout desk to the left. She had the kind of glasses that are attached to a chain and frequently come on and off so as to better see you or a book, whichever the case may be. Mrs. Davies knew everyone in the neighborhood, especially their moms. You did not even think about misbehaving in the library. The library card that you were issued was a small pasteboard affair upon which Mrs. Davies typed your name. Every time you took out a book the card would be placed in a pasted-in pocket inside the back cover. That is also where the librarian rubber stamped the due date. The books were in two rooms. The back room was for nonfiction and history (huge picture volumes from the 1880’s were my favorite). The front room had a children and adult section. The adult section which consisted mainly of current novels was off limits to all kids. We could glance at the shelves as we passed by but nothing more (I remember seeing Dr. Kildare novels). The children section is where I got all my books about inventors and scientists like Edison and Pasteur. Conimicut served me well up to the beginning years of high school.
My junior high and high school libraries never impressed me. If you stayed around after school to use them you ended up having to either walk home (3-5 miles) or wait around for the ‘late bus’. Neither choice was an interesting prospect. Around 1968 the city of Warwick opened the Warwick Central Public Library. It was housed in a large modern building with an actual parking lot. The new library card was made of plastic and had a bar code on it. The library was huge and had a long L-shaped checkout counter that was usually tended by 3-4 librarians. I never knew any of their names and they did not know who I was. But that was okay; this library had more books and other good stuff like paintings, pets, magazines, and records, all of which could be checked out. Today Warwick Central is one of the busiest libraries in the state…it even has its own café inside the front door.
My first college library was in Harkins Hall at Providence College. The 25 foot high ceilings towered over rows and rows of long tables where you brought your load of research books and transferred what you found in them onto index cards. It was always musty, quiet, and dark in Harkins Hall. The thing I did best there was sleep. It usually took about 15 minutes at one of those tables before I nodded off. That meant it was time to go play some pool or maybe try the Science Library in the basement of Albertus Magnus Hall. Many of the essential Science Library books were written in German or French rather than English. They were scattered all over the place including in piles on the floor. Research in that library placed a great deal of emphasis on the ‘search’ part of the word. Later during my last year in college a new modern library was built on campus. It was long overdue (see above discussion) and came too late to be useful to me.
My wife and I moved to Coventry in 1977 and we adopted a new library. It really was new. The old Coventry Public Library had just recently been sold to be used as a private residence and a new library was built on the west end of town. The original plan was to house only the library in the building. The police would get a separate new building and the town hall (I think it was occupying a closed school at that time) would take over the police department building once they left. It didn’t happen that way. They divided the library building in half, making one half the town hall and the other the library. All of a sudden we were back where we started with a library that was way too small for a growing community of 30,000. Some years later a proposal to expand the library to the entire building and make a new building for the town hall was put to the voters. The cost was estimated at $7.00 a month per household (reduced each year) for a period of three years. When that was defeated at the polls I got a solid sense of what the typical citizen thinks of libraries. At the time most people were paying $35-$50 per month for cable TV. If the proposal had been for a new ball field it would have been approved overwhelmingly.
Our family enjoyed the Coventry Library, in spite of its small size, for many years. Finally we moved away to the small town of Hopkinton, population 8,000. There are two libraries. We frequent the one closest to home, the Langworthy Library. If you look out the back door you can see Locustville Pond just beyond the small parking lot. The library has two rooms, one in the front and one in the back. The first thing you see upon entering is the librarian at her checkout counter. To her left and on the wall is a wooden clock that appears to date back to about 1880. She was very friendly to us when we first checked in. She explained that among other features they have a significant collection on the history of the region. One part of the front room is the children area. The back room, a building addition, is for new books. Pasted inside the back cover of the book I took out (WordPress for Dummies) is the ‘date due’ form where she rubber stamped the due date. I think I am going to like this library.
Langworthy Library, Hopkinton, RI.
From Conimicut to Langworthy…a literary journey
Conimicut Library in 2010; the colors have changed since 1956.
My very first library was the Conimicut Public Library. I was about 6 when my mom first took me there. Soon I was making the trip alone, that is after I mastered “crossing the main road” which at that time was West Shore Road. Conimicut Library sits on Beach Avenue in the small village of Conimicut on the west shore of Narragansett Bay. The bay is visible from the front door of the library if you look to the end of the street.
Anyone who entered the library back then (that would be 1956) would immediately see Mrs. Davies at the checkout desk to the left. She had the kind of glasses that are attached to a chain and frequently come on and off so as to better see you or a book, whichever the case may be. Mrs. Davies knew everyone in the neighborhood, especially their moms. You did not even think about misbehaving in the library. The library card that you were issued was a small pasteboard affair upon which Mrs. Davies typed your name. Every time you took out a book the card would be placed in a pasted-in pocket inside the back cover. That is also where the librarian rubber stamped the due date. The books were in two rooms. The back room was for nonfiction and history (huge picture volumes from the 1880’s were my favorite). The front room had a children and adult section. The adult section which consisted mainly of current novels was off limits to all kids. We could glance at the shelves as we passed by but nothing more (I remember seeing Dr. Kildare novels). The children section is where I got all my books about inventors and scientists like Edison and Pasteur. Conimicut served me well up to the beginning years of high school.
My junior high and high school libraries never impressed me. If you stayed around after school to use them you ended up having to either walk home (3-5 miles) or wait around for the ‘late bus’. Neither choice was an interesting prospect. Around 1968 the city of Warwick opened the Warwick Central Public Library. It was housed in a large modern building with an actual parking lot. The new library card was made of plastic and had a bar code on it. The library was huge and had a long L-shaped checkout counter that was usually tended by 3-4 librarians. I never knew any of their names and they did not know who I was. But that was okay; this library had more books and other good stuff like paintings, pets, magazines, and records, all of which could be checked out. Today Warwick Central is one of the busiest libraries in the state…it even has its own café inside the front door.
My first college library was in Harkins Hall at Providence College. The 25 foot high ceilings towered over rows and rows of long tables where you brought your load of research books and transferred what you found in them onto index cards. It was always musty, quiet, and dark in Harkins Hall. The thing I did best there was sleep. It usually took about 15 minutes at one of those tables before I nodded off. That meant it was time to go play some pool or maybe try the Science Library in the basement of Albertus Magnus Hall. Many of the essential Science Library books were written in German or French rather than English. They were scattered all over the place including in piles on the floor. Research in that library placed a great deal of emphasis on the ‘search’ part of the word. Later during my last year in college a new modern library was built on campus. It was long overdue (see above discussion) and came too late to be useful to me.
My wife and I moved to Coventry in 1977 and we adopted a new library. It really was new. The old Coventry Public Library had just recently been sold to be used as a private residence and a new library was built on the west end of town. The original plan was to house only the library in the building. The police would get a separate new building and the town hall (I think it was occupying a closed school at that time) would take over the police department building once they left. It didn’t happen that way. They divided the library building in half, making one half the town hall and the other the library. All of a sudden we were back where we started with a library that was way too small for a growing community of 30,000. Some years later a proposal to expand the library to the entire building and make a new building for the town hall was put to the voters. The cost was estimated at $7.00 a month per household (reduced each year) for a period of three years. When that was defeated at the polls I got a solid sense of what the typical citizen thinks of libraries. At the time most people were paying $35-$50 per month for cable TV. If the proposal had been for a new ball field it would have been approved overwhelmingly.
Our family enjoyed the Coventry Library, in spite of its small size, for many years. Finally we moved away to the small town of Hopkinton, population 8,000. There are two libraries. We frequent the one closest to home, the Langworthy Library. If you look out the back door you can see Locustville Pond just beyond the small parking lot. The library has two rooms, one in the front and one in the back. The first thing you see upon entering is the librarian at her checkout counter. To her left and on the wall is a wooden clock that appears to date back to about 1880. She was very friendly to us when we first checked in. She explained that among other features they have a significant collection on the history of the region. One part of the front room is the children area. The back room, a building addition, is for new books. Pasted inside the back cover of the book I took out (WordPress for Dummies) is the ‘date due’ form where she rubber stamped the due date. I think I am going to like this library.
Langworthy Library, Hopkinton, RI.
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