2009 Annual Reports
Annual Report of the Trustees for 2009
There is a saying that “libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries,” and this seemed to be especially true of 2009. People who have lived in town for years signed up for their first library cards, visits to the library were up, and internet usage increased more than 50%.
The New Hampshire Downloadable Audiobooks program added Mac and iPod-compatible books to their collection this year and are looking into the feasibility of adding ebooks in 2010.
For budget reasons, the New Hampshire State Library had to cancel our free access to the database Ancestry.com, but does still offer us another genealogical database, as well as many other online resources. These may be found on our page at the town’s website.
Our summer reading program theme last year was “Summertime…and the Reading is Easy!” Next year, join us as we “Make a Splash…Read!”
Our Book Group finished its thirteenth year. To see what we’ve read check out our web page. New faces are always welcome at our meetings.
We’ve been given by Public Service of NH two kill-a-watt meters for you to use to measure how much energy is used by electric appliances in your home. The meters are easy to use, and may be checked out for two weeks. This is part of the NHsaves program of Public Service of New Hampshire, nationalgrid, New Hampshire Electric Co-op, and Unitil.
We added 704 books, audiobooks, and DVDs (many of these donated) to our collection in 2009, and removed 267, leaving us with 11,627 materials. Thirty-six names were deleted from our patron files, and 82 new patrons were added, giving us a total of 536 patrons. There were 2459 visits to the library, 5706 materials checked out, and 562 audiobooks downloaded from the New Hampshire Downloadable audiobooks program. We loaned out 485 materials to other libraries and borrowed 228, almost double what we borrowed the previous year.
As always we are so grateful to those who helped out the library during the year by their donations of time, money, or materials. This includes, but is not limited to those who helped out during the Summer Reading Program, Judith O’Donnell for her generous monetary donation, and our Wednesday evening volunteers—Nancy Picthall-French, Anne Chandler, and Mary Evanofski.
Respectfully submitted,
Sandy Starkey, Chair
Sue Barnes, Secretary
Marty Bender, Treasurer