Two Elected to Darien Library Board, Director, Author Speak at Annual Meeting

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Kristen Harnisch

Kristen Harnisch, author of "The Vintner's Daughter," was the main speaker at the annual meeting of Friends of Darien Library. (Photo from Darien Library's Twitter account)

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Darien Library was celebrated as a valuable asset to the town at its annual meeting on Saturday, and two new members were elected to the Board of Trustees.

The library is “a crown jewel, if not the crown jewel in our town,” Trustee Charles Barnett, who just retired from the board, told the 70 people at the meeting. He said the library is “the perfect combination of support from government and private fundraising.”

Nick Branca and Alex Eising were elected to three-year terms. Trustees Sara Franzese and John “Jay” Shutts were re-elected, and Townsend “Tad” Smith was elected the board’s new president, replacing Amy Cholnocky. Along with Barnett, Trustee Pamela Clark retired from the board.

Any of the more than 1,000 library donors (each of whom automatically becomes a member of “Friends of the Darien Library”) is entitled to vote at the meeting, but only about 45 showed up. All the votes Saturday were unanimous.

Cholnocky announced that the speaker at the library’s annual luncheon in March will be author Cheryl Strayed, who wrote the award-winning memoir, Wild, about her thousand-mile hike, alone, on the Pacific Trail. (The book was made into a 2014 movie starring Reese Witherspoon.)

After brief comments from Library Director Alan Gray and Cholnocky, author Kristen Harnisch talked about her experiences in writing her first novel, The Vintner’s Daughter, and getting it published.

Kristen Harnisch

Kristen Harnisch, author of “The Vintner’s Daughter,” was the main speaker at the annual meeting of Friends of Darien Library. (Photo from Darien Library’s Twitter account)

“I literally wrote the book in this library — the old location and the new location,” Harnisch said.

It took her 14 years to write the historical novel and get it published, said the stay-at-home mom, and she had the help of her husband, friends and relatives and the library staff, she said.

She used the library’s books for research, along with librarians “with a smile on their faces and such an eagerness, a willingness to help me with my research.” She also ordered about 100 books from other libraries in Connecticut and beyond through the library to help with research.

At one point, she asked a librarian to help her get an English-language version of the Napoleonic Code as it existed in the late 19th century, “and she’s like ‘I got this,'” Harnisch said. The librarian got it online. “It wasn’t even 10 minutes later.”

“This is why they’re in the acknowledgments of the book,” Harnisch said. “No question is too obscure for them. I guarantee you — test them!” she said, and as the audience laughed, she added, “It’s true! It’s true!”

After a Darien Library event in which two voice actors came to speak, Harnisch talked with one of them, Tavia Gilbert, who said she’d introduce Harnisch to an editor she knew. That’s how Harnisch got an audio book version of her novel published, “all because of the Darien Library,” she said.

Her sequel, The California Wife, is due out in May.

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Gray said he was grateful to have “the privilege of working with the greatest group of librarians in any library in the nation,” in an “excellent building” with a “great collection” of books and other materials. He asked the two or three dozen members of the library staff in the room to stand as the rest of the room applauded.

Gray mentioned that the library’s Bloomberg terminal, a desktop computer which provides financial and other information from the Bloomberg News Service, is one of only two in a public library in Connecticut.

Library Director’s comments

Here are Gray’s prepared comments:

Alan Gray

Darien Library Director Alan Gray, speaking Saturday at the annual meeting of Friends of Darien Library. (Photo from Darien Library’s Twitter account.)

I have the privilege of working with the finest staff of librarians in the nation, in an extraordinary building that is the center of the community, with a wealth of services, research databases, programs, collections of books, DVDs and technology. And I’m sure each one of you can tell stories of the great hospitality and customer service you’ve experienced here.

So it should come as no surprise that this last year was busy and successful.

Here’s one way to look at it:

  • There were 351,676 visits to the Library.
  • 117,657 times, someone checked something out. Those somethings were 648,551 books, DVDs, audio books, eBooks, iPads, projectors (yes, we have a projector to check out) and other things.
  • 130,323 times someone logged onto our wireless network (it is a lot faster than you have at home or, probably, work.)
  • 104,923 times, someone logged onto one of the Library’s computers.
  • 58,364 attended a program
  • 2,603 times, someone used the Bloomberg terminal (one of only two in public libraries in the state.)
  • And, last and not least to the users, 199 people read a microfilm. Why not least? Many of them are engaged in priceless research into their own family’s past, or Darien’s local history.

Those are just some of the uses our patrons made of the library’s resources. And what’s common among all of them?

Each of the resources they used was funded by you, the Friends of the Darien Library.

Thank you. You make this the most actively used library in the state.

There’s another way to look at last year.

Stephanie Anderson taught me recently that Benjamin Franklin asked himself every morning, “What good shall I do each day?”

Here, we know when people come to the library, they want to

  • Follow their passions
  • Develop their interests
  • Improve their lives

We want to help them be successful, and so we ask ourselves, “How can we make each patron’s visit to the library today a once-in-a-lifetime event?”

  • For a young child, coming into the McGraw Children’s Library for the first time, setting off on a lifetime of reading, literacy and learning
  • for the many students who are here studying, working on their way to higher education and the unlimited world that awaits them
  • For the active readers who talk about their next great book with the Readers’ Advisors
  • for the recent law school graduate who used the Library for six months to prep for the three law boards she took on successive days,
  • for the dozens of local businesses who have relied on assistance from the Library to help set up their web sites
  • for the architect who used our 3-D printer to build up an architectural model of his design
  • and for the jewelry designer who did the same thing
  • and, as Amy said, for the more than 130 book groups that work with our Reader Advisors to plan their reading schedules
  • for the Library user, driving in another state when her GPS failed her, who knew whom to call to get immediate, emergency guidance to a can’t miss meeting
  • and for a certain Darien author who relied on staff members to help with research for her novel
  • For each of them we want to be judged not by what we do, but by the success they make of the resources they find here.

The key to all this is the library’s most important resource. The one that goes down the elevator every night.

Mine is the easiest job in the library. I have the privilege to work with this extraordinary group of people, whose staff culture is the most unique asset we have, and the key to our success.

If I had to describe them, I would say they are

  • Curious
  • Open
  • Inventive
  • Purposeful

Will all the library staff members please stand?

Ladies and gentlemen, the finest staff of any library in the nation.

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