Altamont Library Notes for Wednesday, August 24, 2022

For the past several months, the Altamont Free Library Board of Trustees has been seeking feedback from our community about what we’re doing well, what we could be doing better, and how we can serve our community better in the future.

We’ve done dedicated surveys for homeschooling families and local educators, focus groups with fifth-graders, senior citizens, and parents of young children, and left drop boxes for paper surveys in several locations around Knox and Berne, including Knox Town Hall, Dollar General in East Berne, Hilltown Healthcare in Berne, and the Berne Public Library.

Most of all, we’ve had an online survey going for the past few months, and we’ve had over 100 responses to it so far. In short, we’ve been very busy, and we’ve collected loads of useful ideas that we’ll use to craft our 2023-25 Long Range Plan of Service. To everyone who’s shared your thoughts with us so far, thank you so much!

We’re beginning to wrap up the feedback-collection part of our process, but if you’d like to share your thoughts about the Altamont Free Library, we’ll keep our online survey open for a few more weeks. You can find it at https://tinyurl.com/AFL-Survey or through a link on our Facebook page or our website.

It’ll only take about five minutes and, even if you don’t use our library, we’d still love to hear your feedback. (In fact, we’d especially love to hear your feedback if you don’t use the library!) We are so grateful for your time and your ideas! We can’t wait to share our new Long Range Plan with you when it’s ready early next year.

Summer Reading

Last week, we wrapped up our 2022 Summer Reading Program, and let me tell you: It was fantastic! All summer long, the library was a buzz of activity as young friends came and went, telling us about all the cool books they’d read, and how many jumping jacks they could do, and where they last spotted Shelly the Stuffed Sea Turtle around the village. It’s nice to have a quiet library sometimes, but I’ll take a loud and busy one any day, especially in the summer.

Earlier this week, we picked our Summer Reading Program raffle prize winners, and we’ve tried to get in touch with all of the winners but, if you’re not sure whether you or your kids won a prize, you can check out our website, AltamontFreeLibrary.org, where we have a list of all of our winners posted.

Because we had so, so many participants this year, not everybody will have won a prize, but I am so proud of everyone for all of the drawing, and all of the jumping jacks, and all of the turtle-searching, and especially all of the reading that they all did. You should be proud of them too.

These are not easy times to be a kid. It never is, I suppose, but as a parent, I can tell you that having a safe, happy place in the community where they can be themselves and indulge their interests and their dreams through reading and discovery can make a big difference. We’re so happy to be able to be that place for so many of the incredible kids in this incredible community.

First Monday

Book Club

Please join us for the next meeting of the First Monday Book Club on Monday, Sept. 5, at noon.  If you would like to join us for our next meeting, please call us at 518-861-7239 or email us at and we’ll make sure that you get all the details. At that meeting, we’ll be discussing “Bewilderment” by Richard Powers. There will be plenty to discuss, so call today to reserve your copy and join us!

Ukulele Group

Do you uke? If you do, even if you’re not very good yet, please join our monthly outdoor ukulele meetup. Our next meeting will be Tuesday, Sept. 6, at 6 p.m. in Orsini Park, and we’d love for you to join us. Bring a song or two to share with the group if you like. This is a fun, inviting way of growing as a player, picking up hints and tips, learning new tunes, and meeting fellow ukesters. We hope to see you in the park!