2009 in libraries

I’m a nerdy list-maker. This should come as a surprise to no one. In addition to all the other reasons I enjoy the end of the year, it’s also when I make my year-end summaries. I did a guestroom wrap-up on my personal blog. I have two bookish wrap-ups to put here. This first one is about library visits. 2009 was the first year I kept track of all my library visits in an orderly fashion. Longtime readers of this blog may remember I did library reviews in 2003. I found I had a difficult time with constructive criticism if I knew the people who worked at a library, so I stopped doing this.

This year I made 67 library visits, about one every five days. A lot of these were for work [either local work or giving talks] and the rest were either fun or curiosity. I used a website called Daytum to track my visits which was really easy. So, here’s a short annotated list of what I was doing in libraries last year.

• Aldrich/Barre (1) – killing time before dinner with friends in town. The first library in Vermont I did any work for.
• Austin (1) – LBJ library, sort of a flyby right beore it closed for the day.
• Belfast, ME (1) – a small pretty library we stopped at while on vacation
• Belmont, MA (5) – my boyfriend’s local library
• Boxboro, MA (1) – my mom and sister’s library
• Cambridge, MA (1) – got to see it after the renovations were done. It’s nice!
• Camden, ME (1) – another fancy little Maine library
• Chelmsford, MA (1) – home of the Swiss Army Librarian
• Concord, NH (1) – stopped in here during a rainstorm
• Des Moines, IA (1) – I helped change their photo policy!
• Elko, NV (1) – A small library with a great mining collection
• Hartness/Randolph VT (7) – my local college library
• Houghton Library, Harvard University (1) – special tour and Samuel Johnson exhibit
• Howe/Hanover, NH (4) – one of my favorite all-time libraries
• JFK Library, MA (1) – mostly a museum and a general disappointment
• Kimball/Randolph VT (6) – my town library, a great place
• Library of Congress (1) – thanks Dan Chudnov for the tour.
• Long Branch, NJ (1) – fun to poke around in while I was at NJLA
• Montreal, QC (1) – ducked in here during a subway bomb scare
• McGill/Montreal, QC (1) – gave a talk, saw the library
• NYPL (2) – hiding out with good wifi in the periodicals room, highly recommended
• NYPL/SIBL (1) – fancy library, right downtown
• Portland, ME (1) – another hideout from the rain
• Portsmouth, NH (1) – gave a talk and stuck around
• Rochester, VT (1) – classic small-town library in a funky old building
• Toronto, ON (1) – no wifi, sort of surprising
• Tunbridge, VT (21) – where I work most of the time
• Westport, MA (1) – my Dad’s library.