In normal times, this past Monday would have been Marathon Monday, but for the second year in a row COVID-19 meant having a large number of people travelling and gathering together on Patriots’ Day was unsafe from a public health standpoint. The Boston Marathon is one of the two athletic competitions that represent Boston sports to me; the other is the Head of the Charles Regatta in the fall. This is undoubtedly directly correlated to my status as a non-native New Englander who moved here for college. Both events were cancelled in 2020 because it was not safe to have such large numbers of athletes and spectators coming to Boston from all over the world; 30,000 runners and over 500,000 spectators for the Marathon, and 11,000 athletes in 2,000 boats with more than 200,000 spectators for the Regatta. As much as I enjoyed attending both events, after the past year of social distancing, it is almost impossible for me to imagine being in large crowds like that again. 

I haven’t been a spectator at either very often since my college years but I was a regular at both during my undergraduate and library school years. During my four years in college, the marathon route ran behind my dormitory. The Wellesley scream tunnel began in 1897 when the first Boston Marathon was held. The halfway point of the marathon is slightly past campus in downtown Wellesley. When I was a student, it was possible to run without qualifying as a “bandit,” so there were always a few runners who I knew from class or the dorm who would run the half. It was exciting to cheer them on but also fun to support runners we didn’t know. While we enjoyed seeing the elite runners, cheering for the regular runners was the real focus. During library school I watched in Kenmore Square which was a much different experience. Until the influx of Red Sox fans after the game ended, there were fewer spectators than I expected, and that close to the finish line runners showed many signs of the physical and mental toll of running 26 miles.

Once I was out of school and part of the working world, my employer did not include Patriots’ Day in its holiday list and for various reasons I never took the day off. However, commuting on Marathon Monday, first on the Green Line and then on the commuter rail, I was always amazed by the number of runners who took public transit back to their hotel or home after running a marathon! And seeing runners and spectators on the train gave me some sense of the day’s excitement. After the bombing in 2013, I decided to be a spectator again the following year. So, in 2014 I took the day off and headed to Wellesley; it was a great experience and I vowed to do it again. Life intervened and I didn’t go as often as I’d hoped, but I was planning to go in 2020. I was also looking forward to a program the library had planned for April 2020 with Paul Clerici. He is a runner and journalist who has written several books about the marathon, including Boston Marathon: History by the Mile and Boston Marathon from the Images of America series. Then March happened. Fortunately, we were able to reschedule Clerici’s presentation via Zoom in August of 2020; it is available on our YouTube channel. Tom Derderian is another marathoner who has written several books including The Boston Marathon: a Century of Blood, Sweat, and Cheers, and Boston Marathon: Year by Year Stories of the World’s Premier Running Event. All of these books and Clerici’s presentation brought back fond memories of cheering for the runners.

Bostonians have been rowing competitively on the Charles River since the mid-1800s. The Head of the Charles Regatta was first held in 1965 and has become a major feature on the competitive rowing schedule. It is a three-mile course on the Charles River and as a head race it is a race against the clock rather than direct competition against other athletes. Competitors are primarily collegiate, club, and high school teams. Although I’ve been to the Regatta several times and my best friend took up rowing in graduate school, until I read The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, by Daniel James Brown I didn’t know much about the sport other than it required getting up very early, and rowers practice on something called an “erg” in the winter. In preparation for writing this article I requested some more books from the Minuteman catalog and found two I really enjoyed: The Wonder Crew: the Untold Story of a Coach, Navy Rowing, and Olympic Immortality, by Susan Saint Sing, and A History of Collegiate Rowing in America, by Daniella K. Garran.  Both authors rowed competitively in college so they bring an insider’s perspective to their work. The Wonder Crew is about the 1920 U.S. Olympic Gold medal team which was also the U.S. Naval Academy’s collegiate team coached by Cape Cod native Richard Glendon.

Professional, college, and high school sports have found ways to come back since the pandemic closed everything down in March 2020, and many youth league sports are being held again. However, these two world-renowned sporting events have not been held. The Boston Marathon is one of the six World Marathon Majors and the oldest annual marathon. Of the six, only Tokyo was held in 2020. However, due to the pandemic its March 1 race was only open to elite runners with other runners offered a deferment. Understandably, marathons and other road races have not been able to resume since it would be difficult for participants to social distance. At the same time, running has become more popular as people find ways to exercise outside of a gym, find they have more time to exercise while not commuting, or try to tackle some pandemic weight gain.

As of the time this article was written, the Boston Athletic Association is planning for an October 11, 2021 Boston Marathon if public health conditions and local guidelines allow it, with a field of 20,000 runners plus a field of 70,000 virtual runners; there is no qualification requirement for virtual runners. The Head of the Charles Regatta is scheduled for October 23-24, 2021. I’m sure the events will be different for the competitors, particularly the marathon where runners are crowded together, and spectator rules for both events will undoubtedly be quite different this year.

Victoria Andrilenas is a Reference Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the April 22, 2021 issue of the Transcript and Bulletin.

When the COVID-19 crisis finally ends, I propose that we retire the word “unprecedented,” like retiring a legendary athlete’s number. Sure, epidemics happened before, such as the one described in Norwood historian Patty Fanning’s Influenza and Inequality: One Town’s Tragic Response to the Great Epidemic of 1918, but not during the age of Zoom. I had never experienced such a prolonged and anxiety-ridden episode in my lifetime.

My memory blurs when recalling the library’s response; things changed day to day as we shut down many operations, enhanced others, and began to reopen as time went on. Our staff’s efforts and successes warrant documentation.

February, 2020:
Along with a few colleagues I attended the Public Library Association conference in Nashville, Tennessee. We sat shoulder to shoulder in packed conference rooms, hugged old friends from other libraries, and attended evening receptions with bars, buffets and dance floors. We enjoyed this last hurrah, unaware that we would not travel or attend in-person conferences for over a year.

March, 2020:
We began hearing about a dangerous virus, and several town employees caught the illness, going into quarantine early on. Advised by the Norwood Public Health Department, we began implementing COVID precautions, and then on March 10^th Governor Baker announced a State of Emergency, followed by a mandatory closure of non-essential businesses. While many find the library “essential” in their lives, in this case the term referred to first responders, hospital workers, and those in similar sectors. We expected the library building to close for a week, starting March 15th. On that day we launched the reference chat feature on our website.

We scrambled, making decisions on the fly. Staff, ordered to work from home, secured the necessary technology and remote access to behind-the-scenes library software. A few town officials toured the library with me and our former Director, Charlotte, measuring spaces for plexiglass and discussing our plans. We invented a curbside pick-up operation, after deciding against a plan to deliver materials to patrons a la Door Dash. Folks could call from the parking lot and staff would check out their materials and deposit them in the trunks of their vehicles. Only a skeleton crew entered the building.

At home, librarians heavily promoted our e-resources, including e-books, audiobooks and streaming video, and we increased monthly limits for these applications. Citizens learned via our website, YouTube, email, chat, and phone how to log into these tools and take advantage of them. Employees downloaded Zoom and participated in frequent virtual meetings. Programming like storytimes moved to Facebook Live.

Necessity breeds innovation. March felt like it lasted forever.

April, 2020:
The governor extended closures through the entire month of April with all staff at home, forcing us to suspend the curbside operation. Who ever imagined the quarantine lasting this long? From back porches and kitchen tables the MML crew engaged in professional development from home, as the Minuteman Library Network, the Mass Board of Library Commissioners, the Massachusetts Library System, and others offered online trainings, workshops, lectures and forums. Zoom staff meetings continued at least once a week as everyone learned to mute, screen share, and wrangle children and pets. After hours we discovered virtual game nights and happy hours.

May, 2020:
To our surprise the quarantine extended through late May. After Memorial Day, 25% of employees could enter the building again, and we resumed contactless pickup, this time adding an appointment booking system. Staff members’ daily tasks totally changed. Our Director and management team completed an 18 page Phased Reopening Plan, submitted to Town Hall and the Board of Library Trustees.

Summer, 2020:
Worldwide, we struggled with mental health, physical health for those who contracted the coronavirus, and far too much mourning. The Children’s Department launched an innovative Pop-Up Library endeavor, traveling to Norwood schools weekly with bins of books and a canopy tent. Administration urged us to use vacation time (for “staycations”), but I insisted on saving my time off, certain I could embark on an international trip in the fall or winter.

On August 3^rd the Library reopened for limited in-person browsing. We continued curbside service in the afternoons, while opening to patrons during morning hours. An entranceway “greeter” welcomed visitors, explaining our rules and policies, and offering hand sanitizer, masks and gloves. At first staff felt like bank tellers behind plexiglass, but everyone got used to it. We provided limited notary and passport appointments, printing, copying and faxing, and brief computer use. Patrons could only stay for a half hour, and we removed chairs, newspapers and magazines to discourage lingering.

Fall, 2020:
The “new normal” continued: quarantining materials upon their return and waiving overdue fines. Usage of our e-resources skyrocketed and I worried about the impact on the budget. Then COVID hit close to home when we had a scare in the library. A few employees had to quarantine (on very short notice), but fortunately all returned safe and healthy.

Winter, 2020-2021:
More of the same, and then the library shut down again after Christmas, anticipating a surge in coronavirus cases.

Spring, 2021:
Appropriately, spring feels like rebirth and renewal. I daresay we’ve turned a corner after this unprecedented year. We loosened some restrictions, extending visit time to 90 minutes and increasing our capacity limit. The vaccine rollout began, and as of May 5^th we anticipate that all or most library staff will be considered fully vaccinated.

Before long, evening hours and in-person programming will resume, and we cannot wait to see you. Publishers will release many more books about the pandemic, in addition to those already available, including The Plague Year: America in the Time of COVID, COVID-19: The Pandemic That Never Should Have Happened, and the graphic novel, COVID Chronicles. Our new normal will include a continuation and perhaps expansion of Pop-Up libraries, and a hybrid in-person and virtual model for many programs and book clubs. We made it through a difficult year, and hopefully will never again experience another one like it.

Lydia Sampson is the Assistant Director at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the April 15, 2021 issue of the Transcript and Bulletin.

During the past few years that I’ve served as a librarian in Norwood, I’ve split my time between two very different departments: Literacy and Outreach. I choose this word – served – deliberately, as opposed to worked or something equally utilitarian, because it connotes an added layer of meaning and more fully captures the reason I gravitated to this profession. To me, service implies a certain sense of being a helpful person or, as denoted by Merriam-Webster online: contribution to the welfare of others. Books are lovely, reading is essential, and a steady paycheck is reason for gratitude, but until librarians are paid like bank executives simply to read, there must be a raison d’etre. For myself (and, I imagine, many others) this larger purpose is contributing to the welfare of our patrons. My dual role has provided a unique opportunity for doing just that across the widest spectrum imaginable; many participants in the Literacy program are just beginning their reading journey, while usage of the library by Outreach patrons can be measured in spans of time that eclipse decades and can better be described in terms of generations.

The Literacy program at the library was established in 1983 by the board of trustees. It targeted a group previously unserved by the library: non-readers. Then (as now) it offered free, confidential one-on-one tutoring to adult students seeking to learn or improve reading and writing skills, and to help ESL students develop conversational skills. Norwood’s annual report for that year described the program as: inestimable service at a miniscule cost. Now one of a dozen affiliate programs of Literacy Volunteers of Massachusetts, its purpose today is unchanged, and it remains the only one of its kind initiated by library trustees. Although all in-person activities were suspended last March due to the pandemic, and some of our tutoring pairs have opted to wait until they can meet in person again, many of our tutors rose to the occasion and began tutoring their students online. Some even offered to help out by taking on an additional student. Interestingly, some tutoring pairs prefer meeting online due to issues such as transportation or childcare. The rest of the activities of the program have also been adapted to an online format – a tremendous undertaking, considering the scope of activities. These include: tutor orientations and multi-week trainings, testing students, matching new tutors and students, and holding numerous meetings and trainings for staff and existing tutors. I find it remarkable that over the past year and in spite of the fact that we have had no in-person interactions in the Literacy department, we’ve heard from about 40 people who want to volunteer as tutors. Service abounds!

Outreach efforts to Norwood’s homebound population started in 1939. The Town’s annual report for that year notes that delivery of books was made available to library patrons for a small fee. This amenity was apparently used numerous times by those who were ill. Two other keystones of the program – our collection of large print books and the deposit collections – surface in the 1969 annual report, which conveys the library’s goal of collaborating with local service agencies to offer book delivery to nursing homes; it also shares that readers appreciated having access to large-print editions of new titles. It is amazing to me that the services provided today were put into motion so long ago. Now, we also loan books on CD, CD players, and assistive technology such as Ruby handheld video magnifiers. In addition, the library keeps a small collection of Perkins Talking Books on hand. Over the years core offerings have been supplemented by programming such as offsite book groups, an annual essay contest and the Literary Lunch over which students and seniors discuss a selected title together. I hear regularly from patrons eager to resume these activities.

Happily, Outreach now offers delivery to homebound Norwood residents free of charge. Although the library closed along with the rest of the world last March due to the pandemic, when we reopened the building to the public in August we also resumed deliveries. Strict protocol was enacted to keep patrons safe: masked staff avoided interactions by leaving materials in bags outside homes. Still, when folks called to place requests they expressed their profound gratitude that we were able to bring them books during such an isolating time. One feisty reader quipped that our deliveries kept her off the street. I appreciated her humor all the more when I reflected that it had probably been quite some time since she had physically been able to be on said street. Another made me laugh out loud when I listened to a message he’d left imploring me to get back to him so he didn’t go crazy, staying in and looking at the idiot box. These anecdotes, and the personal stories others have shared with me over the years, reveal the power of the book to help people through life’s more harrowing times. I’ve witnessed people read themselves through loneliness, illness and loss; I’ve delivered books to people until the very end, and in this respect I have seen books act more like friends than distractions. I would like to dedicate this column, however unexceptional, to the extraordinary people I’ve had the opportunity to get to know through the library. My thanks to them for sharing their stories, their humor and their perspectives, all of which has greatly enriched my time here.

Interested in digging into past happenings in the town of Norwood from the comfort of your home? Simply visit our website and click on the Services tab, then select Reference & Research, and click on Digital History Archive, where you will find an extensive offering of documents that have been digitized and are keyword searchable, such as Town of Norwood Annual Reports, Norwood High School Tiot yearbooks, and selected years of Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. If you need help or have questions, give us a call at the library. We are glad to be of service.

Kirstie David is the Literacy/Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the April 8, 2021 issue of the Transcript and Bulletin.

After watching author Eric J. Dolin’s presentation of A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes at the Morrill Memorial Library this past February, I recalled my childhood fascination with blizzards (if you missed this fantastic program, you can catch it on YouTube here. This fascination really began with reading the Little House on the Prairie book series, which I read several times over from third grade on up. I recently re-read Wilder’s  blizzardy extravaganza The Long Winter, which I discovered to be the second title; I read somewhere that the original title was The Hard Winter, but the publishers didn’t want to make it too scary for the children. Perhaps they missed the part in the book where the cattle’s mouths froze to the ground and then smothered them. The book, as you can imagine, is rife with cold, storms, and the privations that go along with living in a frontier town. Growing up, I thought that these books were works of nonfiction; I have since learned that the series is considered a fictionalized memoir.

Coming to terms with the fact that the series was somewhat loosely autobiographical rather than gospel truth was like realizing for the first time that one’s parents are human. I read about how Laura’s dog Jack actually just went off into the sunset with their ponies Pet and Patty (they were so attached to one another) when Pa sold them to the cowboys, as opposed to Laura finding him stiff and cold in his doggy box next to Ma’s cookstove, as portrayed in the books. That scene always tore me apart, and it wasn’t even real! I admit, I felt somewhat cheated, but also kind of  relieved. Jack was such a good and faithful dog that he deserved a good ending.

It was this fictionalizing of the truth that led me to do some research on my own about the Blizzard of 1888 in the Northwest Plains of the United States. This storm was called “The Schoolchildren’s Blizzard,” because it claimed over 200 victims, most of whom were children. The storm seemingly came out of nowhere and was described as a “sheet of snow” going faster than a person could run, and “slamming into the building… shaking and almost tearing it to pieces.” Many mistook the roaring sound of the storm for a freight train. Some teachers (a lot of them barely teenagers themselves) made the children stay put, and some let them go home. This last decision was usually made out of necessity; the building was damaged by the storm, or they were out of coal (very little wood on hand to burn on the prairie – it was either coal or hay) and faced sure demise if they stayed where they were. It’s a horrifying thought, being responsible for making such a decision as an adult, never mind as a teenager! Alas, many made the wrong decision and paid with their lives and the lives of their students.

In my search for information about the Blizzard of 1888, I found two non-fiction books, one of which was David Laskin’s well-researched The Children’s Blizzard, and the other a book called In All Its Fury: the Great Blizzard of 1888 by W.H. O’Gara, which contains the  actual eyewitness testimony of folks living in Nebraska and the Dakota territories during the time of the blizzard. Laskin writes not only of the storm, but goes into great detail about why it was so deadly. He traces the storm through the book from beginning to end by studying old weather maps and predictions made by the Army Signal Corps, the precursors of the National Weather Service. Laskin unfolds a story of mistakes and finger-pointing, this history of weather prediction illustrating the terrible aftermath of an incorrect or delayed weather report. A truly chilling aspect of the story is manifested as Laskin follows several victims’ journey through hypothermia and its after effects. For some, this is amputation, and for others, death.

In the spirit of fictionalized memoirs, I can recommend Melanie Benjamin’s book, also titled The Children’s Blizzard, as a good historical fiction novel. Benjamin dips into the same information that Laskin wrote of, and cleverly focuses her story on just a few characters, enabling the story to flow. Benjamin gives a haunting portrayal of what life was like for the many immigrants that came to this country for “free land” and a chance to live the American Dream.

David Laskin ends his book The Children’s Blizzard with this appropriate quote: “The blizzard of January 12, 1888… came without warning, the pioneers learned that the land they had desired so fervently and had traveled so far to claim wasn’t free after all. Who could have predicted that the bill would arrive with a sudden shift of wind in the middle of a mild January morning?”

Carla Howard is the Senior Circulation and Media & Marketing Assistant at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the April 1, 2021 issue of the Transcript & Bulletin.

“When in doubt, go to the library.” This famous line from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets perfectly encapsulates how I feel about libraries. As a Library Teacher, and lifelong patron turned part-time employee of Morrill Memorial Library, I may be somewhat biased, but I have always felt that libraries have the power to meet so many different needs. But what happens when we can’t go to the library?

The COVID-19 pandemic pressed pause on almost everything in our lives. Restaurants, stores, offices and schools all closed in an effort to stop the spread and keep everyone safe. Businesses were forced to find creative ways to navigate this new world and libraries were no different. I had the unique opportunity to see these changes and innovations firsthand in both the public library and school library setting.

As a Library Teacher overseeing two elementary school libraries in Newton, my days are typically filled with teaching classes, checking books out to students and collaborating with school staff. In March of 2020 everything changed. As educators, we were tasked with creating a new virtual curriculum that could keep students engaged and learning through a computer screen. One colleague likened the challenge to building a plane as you fly it.

I was fortunate that my subject area translated well into this online medium, but it didn’t make the transition much easier. In many ways I felt like a first year educator again. Everything was new and overwhelming and I felt unsure of myself and my teaching abilities. Rather than welcoming students into the library and sitting together on our multicolor rug, I greet students with a wave and smile as their faces populate my laptop screen for our library class on Zoom. The concept of teaching elementary aged students online sounded impossible when the pandemic first began. I soon realized, however, that while I could not replicate the in-person library experience my students were accustomed to, I could still provide them with creative and engaging alternatives. In particular, browsing and borrowing books in a library has always been a hands-on and personal experience. Normally, my students come into the library and cannot wait for the opportunity to choose books for themselves. They look forward to pulling books off the shelf, holding them in their hands, flipping through the pages and making the decision about which to take home. That experience is very different now. Instead, I walk students through the steps of how to access e-books, place digital holds, and model how to download books directly to their devices.

Initially, I worried about what my students would be missing out on with virtual library class, but we have been able to accomplish many things I thought impossible last spring. Students in first grade are conducting research on their iPads and gathering information from library databases all while on Zoom. Fourth grade students are practicing website evaluation and learning how to cite sources. Learning and finding joy in reading is still happening; it just looks different right now. I teach close to thirty virtual classes a week and find that my time together with the students flies by. Before I know it I am saying goodbye and logging off to join my next Zoom.

My experience this last year is not unique. All educators have had to rise to the occasion and focus their efforts on reimagining education in these uncharted circumstances.

Similarly, public libraries faced the question of how to continue to provide services to their patrons when many locations were closed to the public. Working at Morrill Memorial Library during the pandemic, I had the opportunity to see a public library navigate the redesign of community outreach and delivery of library services. In the Children’s Department specifically, the staff quickly concluded that if the community could not come to the library, the library would go to the community, and with that, the Pop Up Library was born. Led by Kate Tigue, Head of Youth Services, the weekly Pop Up Library allowed the Children’s Department staff to travel to each school in Norwood with popular titles for children and teens to check out in a distanced outdoor setting. This ingenious endeavor was an enormous success in the summer and fall of 2020 and an amazing opportunity to witness library innovation at work. The library’s creativity has not stopped as librarians conduct regular Zoom story times, offer personalized book bundles for check out, provide virtual programming, and weekly make-and-take crafts.

This pandemic has taught me that libraries are more than just the physical space they inhabit, and that information and learning can be brought to people in ways we never contemplated before.

Maureen Riordan is a Part-time Children’s Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the March 25, 2021 issue of the Transcript and Bulletin.