Hi everyone!  It has been a long time since I have visited.  Hope all the bloggers have had a happy summer and enjoying the beginning of Fall.  Don’t forget Tuesday September 25, 2007 Library Budget and trustees can be voted on in the Library from 9 am until 8 pm. Remember vote “early and often”

The Staff of the JJML met this morning with our new Director, Catherine Creedon. Board and Staff alike are thrilled to welcome Cathy to the library. She brings to our ranks an extraordinary depth of library experience and a proven commitment to this community. We will be hosting a small get-together at the Library on Sunday, September 30th, from 5-7 pm (time change) 3-5 p.m., so that interested members of the public can meet her in person. Please come!

Cathy has an MLS degree, and has worked in libraries for 32 years, beginning as a clerk just out of college. She has driven bookmobiles, worked in prison libraries and museums, as well as in public libraries and in schools. She served as Director of the two-site library of the Morriss Center School in Wainscott, and was the instrumental force in developing the initial high school collection there. She is currently both a reference librarian and a young adult author (Read her novel BLUE WOLF; it is in the JJML collection and was required summer reading for the Ross School 7th grade this year!).

Cathy is an active member of our Sag Harbor community, volunteering for Literacy Suffolk, in food pantries and as advisor on many student literary publications. Cathy and her husband Scott Sandell have lived in the Sag Harbor School district for nearly two decades. Her two sons, now both in college, went through the Sag Harbor school system and graduated from Pierson. (Both Ben and Per also worked at the JJML during high school, so this is a library family!)

We are delighted to welcome Cathy, and are certain that you will be delighted to work with her as Director of the John Jermain Library, beginning October 1st and for many years to come!

On September 25, 2007 the John Jermain Memorial Library will hold its annual election for the Board of Trustees and budget vote. This year there are four seats up for election. Normally, three of the Trustees from the nine-person board are elected each year. This year a fourth seat is available due to the early resignation of Trustee Deborah Wilson. Since this will be a shorter term (ending December 31, 2009), the right to complete it will go to the candidate who receives the fourth-highest vote total in the election. However, the person filling this seat will begin serving on the Board immediately after the election, and not have to wait until January as is customary, since he or she will be completing an unexpired term.

The other three elected Trustees will serve full three-year terms ending on December 31, 2010; but in another unusual aspect of this year’s election two of the three remaining available positions also replace Trustees who have resigned in the past year (Gregory Ferraris and James Marquardt). These two seats have terms that would have ended on December 31, 2007 anyway, so the newly elected candidates filling these seats will serve full three-year terms. However, the winners of these two seats will also get to fill out the remainder of the unexpired terms of the two trustees who resigned, which means that they too will take their seats on the Board immediately after the election. The top two vote-getters in the election will be assigned these seats. So, in a somewhat bizarre twist, only the candidate who receives the third largest number of votes will have to wait for the January 2008 meeting of the Board of Trustees to be sworn in.

Currently the Board has eight trustees and one vacancy, as Nancy Hallock was appointed to replace Deborah Wilson, and Carl Peterson was appointed to replace Gregory Ferraris. Both appointments end with this coming election. James Marquardt’s seat is currently vacant. Trustee Donna Milazzo is also up for re-election this year should she decide to run. None of the incumbents have announced their intentions at this time.

If you are interested in running for the Board, you must meet the following requirements:

1. Be a U.S. Citizen
2. Be at least eighteen (1 years old
3. Be a John Jermain Memorial Library cardholder
4. Be a registered voter residing in the Sag Harbor Union Free School District
5. May not be an employee of the John Jermain Memorial Library or a member of an employee’s family. For purposes of eligibility for election, “family” refers to an employee’s spouse, significant other, child(ren), parents, siblings, stepchild(ren), grandchild(ren) or in-laws. Family members of current Trustees are also ineligible.

In addition, you must submit a petition with 29 signatures of registered voters to the District Clerk of the Sag Harbor School District by 4:00 p.m. on Monday, August 22, 2007. Petition forms and instructions may be picked up at the District Clerk’s office at 200 Jermain Ave., Sag Harbor, or here at the Library.

If you have questions about running for the Board of Trustees, please contact Acting Director Eric Cohen at 725-0049, extension 37.

Good luck to all candidates!

We have been a bit quiet lately — hard at work on a wide range of high-priority tasks — but now we have much to report. First we would like to thank everyone who has pitched in to help with the building project, fund raising and other Library endeavors. We remain grateful to all of you for your support and dedication, and place great value on the investment you have already made to our library and its future.

As you know, Allison Gray, the Library’s Director for the last three plus years has moved on to other opportunities. The search for a new director is well underway. We are pleased and optimistic about the candidate pool for the Director position. Expect to hear news on this front shortly. Meanwhile, day-to-day activities at the library are being handled in exemplary fashion by the team of Pat Brandt and Eric Cohen.

The Board has made a focused commitment to its own training and internal functioning. We held a retreat with Suffolk County Library System Director Kevin Verbesey in early June, and, since then, various Trustees have attended additional training sessions on a variety of topics. As a group, we are much more knowledgeable about our responsibilities to the library and to the community, and are committed to adhering to the highest level of performance standards and record-keeping.

The fund raising and grants teams have been very busy. Soon, we will make an official announcement about the receipt of a large donation to be used for the repair of the roof at 201 Main Street. That, coupled with the money raised last year by the One for the Books dinners which was focused specifically on raising funds for the current building, gives us a good leg up on the funds we will need to repair the roof. Some other good fund raising news will also be made public soon.

Speaking of One for the Books, please keep an eye out for your invitation to this year’s One for the Books events! We have a great roster of 35 hosts giving dinners on two Saturday nights in October, the 13^th and the 20^th. You can purchase tickets on line through the library’s website, and get information about the books there as well. If have a specific question, please call (631) 725-0049, extension 44, and leave a message. Someone will get back to you right away. Gail Slevin has proven herself a remarkably energetic and detail-oriented One for the Books coordinator, and we are very grateful to her.

We have gone live with a donations page, accessible through the library’s website, thanks to the hard work of Eric Cohen. Check it out at http://sagharbor.suffolk.lib.ny.us/donate.html (Eric says that you can help him test the system by making a small donation

We have decided to invest in repairing and renting the property adjacent to Mashashimuet Park, after some consideration about this course. At the moment, bids are being solicited for needed repair work. We hope to have the house back on the rental market for the fall season.

Our annual budget vote and Trustee election is scheduled for September 25^th, at the library, from 9 am until 8 pm. If you are interested in running for one of the Trustee positions, you can pick up a petition at the School District Clerk’s office on or after August 2^nd. The petitions require 25 signatures, and must be returned to the District office by August 22^nd at 4 in the afternoon.

After much consideration, the Board has invited a small group of Library Development Committee (LDC) members to work with us in a focused manner to prepare the revised Request for Proposal (RFP) for a single architect for the two-building architectural program. We hope to have this RFP in the mail by the end of September, and to have selected an architectural firm before the end of the year. The choice to keep this committee small with no duplication of areas of expertise was made by the Board to maximize the efficiency of the process, and to shorten lines of communication. To this end two Board members will serve on the committee and the entire Board will deepen its oversight of this critical project. The Community Library Committee (CLC) and LDC have created a strong foundation, and we are grateful to everyone who has participated, but now we see a compelling need for a streamlined team with strong coherent leadership to move the project ahead as expeditiously as possible.

We encourage everyone to come to our Board meetings, to pepper us with questions, to make your doubts and your worries known. We do hear you, and we want what you want: the best possible library, housed in the best possible manner, for the future of all of us, the residents of the Sag Harbor school district.

With all best wishes,
Christiane Neuville
Diane Gaites
Donna Milazzo
Tippy Ameres
Susie Merrell
Chris Leonard
Nancy Hallock
Carl Peterson

Come and join the Sudoko wave! “Sudoko” the game everyone is trying is coming to the Library 4:00pm on Thursday June 14th.  Come and learn some interesting ways to become better at the game. It will also be a great opportunity to meet some fellow sudoko lovers. Hope to see you there!

The place to be Saturday June 9th at 5:00pm is John Jermain Memorial Library for the much anticipated publication party for “Voices of Sag Harbor: A Village Remembered” Here is your chance to feel the “old” Sag Harbor that so many of the born and raised Sag Harborites speak of.  You can read these wonderful accounts and decide for yourself whether the “old” Sag Harbor is still alive and well or past and gone. A must read for anyone interested in a village that balances being both historic and modern.

Did you know that over 35 million Americans are food insecure, hungry or at risk of hunger?   Please remember those who need your help right here in Sag Harbor by donating to the Sag Harbor Community Food Pantry located at the First Presbyterian Church/Old Whaler’s Church (Union Street.)  Food donations are accepted on an ongoing basis at the Church as well as various locations in town and at the Library.   Volunteers pick up donations regularly from the Library’s food bin located on the ground floor of the Library.  To learn more about hunger in America go to http://www.hungerday.org

Well, here we are looking at a brand new month on Friday June 1st.  That means some new movies.  June 1st- Dream Girls it is a musical and a drama.  It was well recognized at this past Oscar ceremony. It is rated PG-13.  On Friday June 8th we will be showing the independent film “Something Like Happiness”  It is a drama/comedy.  It is a Czech movie with English subtitles.  It is not rated.  Our final film for June will be “The Last King of Scotland” to be shown on June 15th at 6:30.  It is considered a drama/history/thriller.  It was also honored during the Oscar ceremony. It is rated “R”  We hope you are able to join us!

What a great weekend for programs at the John Jermain Library.  We were able to offer the dvd with an excerpt of the interview with Fred Beyer about his experience during WWII.  He was just wonderful.  We also had Dr. John Strong a retired professor from Suny at Southampton speak about the native American presence on LI from the beginning times until now.  He brought a wonderful slide show and shared his enormous knowledge of the subject.  It was terrific!  Keep watching we will have more great programs this summer.

During the spring of 2004, World War II veterans were invited to speak to Pierson 8th grade students about their experiences during the war, Fred Beyer served at a pilot in Europe.  Anne T. Santacroce was a nurse in Europe.  Gertrude Mayer, grandmother of Pierson student Sarah Mayer and wife of Fred Mayer who served in the Pacific were interviewed too.  The presentations and interviews were videotaped to preserve a record to the veterans’ experiences and their service to their country.  On Sunday May 27th,2007 at 2:00 pm the library will have a 20 minutes excerpt of Mr. Beyer’s interview available to view at the library.  We hope you are able to stop by and see this inspiring rememberance.  Mr. Beyer died on August 14th, 2006