This story is the fourth in a series featuring the area’s libraries.
WEST PARIS — “There have been little people who come in, who think I live here,” said Library Director, Brenda Lynn Gould. “As far as they know, I don’t ever leave, since they don’t see that part.”
Gould has worked at the Mann Library in West Paris since 2010 when she began as a volunteer. She was a substitute, then assistant librarian before arriving at directorship in 2016.
Wearing her signature hat each day, she is instantly recognizable (and goes incognito without it).
The “little people” as she calls the youngest library patrons, “also think there’s a dragon here.” The rumor started because a very large dragon costume, once worn in a parade, was stored in the basement.
Because of the castle-like look of the library, there are children who think there is a treasure hidden somewhere and will walk around the library holding a book and a compass trying to find it. Gould explains that they are still learning, “the difference between fiction and non-fiction … Just a lot of cuteness,” she says.
In the past few years the library has seen an uptick of visitors. More than half of the 40-90 people who come each day are children, said Gould.
What is the appeal?
It could be the huge baskets of snacks behind her desk that she distributes generously and equitably.
Or perhaps it the popular window seating, or the craft supplies or possibly the free wi-fi?
Most likely it is simply … the slime.
“The kids love to make slime. Almost every day there are several people making slime,” Gould marvels. “They have loved it for years, it has been continuously popular.”
Gould
Gould describes her self as a multi- denominational nerd who ended up as a librarian.
While her husband grew up here in West Paris and the couple lives on his grandparents’ farm, Gould hails from Dixmont. “We didn’t have a library, but my mother made sure I had books. She found them wherever she could, including getting the letter A and volume one of various encyclopedias. You could get it and then cancel the subscription,” says Gould. They found books at yard sales, too, and had a book mobile that she says, “didn’t come often enough.”
Loud thunder boomed outside and rain poured down on a recent sit-down with Gould. A perfect library day.
She said the littlest ones come in with their parents and many others from age nine through the teenage years come alone. The Agnes Gray School is nearby and there are lots of children living in the village who walk over.
“I try to meet the needs of my local community,” said Gould who takes recommendations from patrons. Some of the children’s favorites are, Captain Underpants, the Amulet Series, and The Last Kids on Earth which is also a Netflix Series. “They were pretty thrilled about that,” she says of the Last Kids on Earth requesters.
The parking lot with 10-20 spaces is lower than and behind the library. A walk up several stairs takes you in through the side door.
It is pouring when youngster Skyler Simas runs through the pouring rain and in through the side entrance. He is in a rush because his father is waiting in the car but takes a quick second to respond to the question “why do you come here?”
“Because I love the library,” he says in a booming voice before running back out through the rain.
Gould continues. The self-published Bregdan Chronicles, by Ginny Dye, were originally donated to the library and caught on, so she’s been buying more with her annual $3,500 book budget. The Bregdan Chronicles are a series that follows a family through the Civil War and Gould agrees that it is unusual for a self-published series to gain such popularity.
James Patterson is hugely popular at her library, too. Noting that he has co-writers now, she says, “As if he [alone] wasn’t prolific enough. You could probably fill the entire fiction section with just Patterson and still not have enough shelf space.”
Services
For the approximately 1,800 people in West Paris, the library holds 18,000 items.
The Mann library uses a state-wide van service called Freedom Express that comes one day a week from the Maine State Library. “It’s like a life line for us,” says Gould. Meant initially for inter-library loan, “it is so much more for us, You can get equipment, supplies, save on postage and time. Since we are a part time library every second counts.”
Like a Facebook Marketplace for librarians, Gould has purchased a book-covering machine and a very thick reference book called, “Public Library Core Collection,” a primary reference she uses to make a professional determination of what books she should keep. The book is $250 purchased new. The used copy is delivered directly to her via Freedom Express.
Family Search, similar to Ancestry.com, is offered to library patrons, too. Says Gould, “people can access records here they can’t get at home. Some of the genealogical records that are locked on their computer at home are unlocked here,” she explains.
They have telescopes, musical instruments, microscopes, and a ukulele that can be borrowed from their, Library of Things.
History
Long before the distinctive, castle-like library at 226 Main Street was built, the West Paris library moved seven times within the town.
Starting in 1889, the library’s books moved from the post office to the hardware store to Lane’s Store, then Emmon’s Store. Next they went to the home of Erastus Cummings then to Samuel T. White’s Store and finally in 1910, the 499 books could be borrowed from a room over the telephone office.
The initial 25 cents per-year subscription had increased to a dollar per-year by 1900 when there were 36 members.
In 1924, the “subscription” library became a free library.
In 1926, longtime resident, Edwin J. Mann, honoring his father’s will and adding his own money, constructed the current library. It is named for Mann’s young son, Arthur L. Mann who had died a few years earlier.
The main entrance is the original oak door with hand crafted iron hinges. The stone is fieldstone gathered from fields in West Paris.
In 2010 an addition of 1,800 square feet at the rear of the building added a children’s area, arts and crafts section, conference room, and handicap-accessible entrance. The original library was only 900 square feet. The town raised some money, the governing board raised money, they got grants from Steven King and others. Plus a lot of donated elbow grease from local contractors, says Gould.
“We’re lucky to be such a tiny town and to be able to have this.”
Upcoming programs
The library has many events in the schedule throughout the year.
A regular monthly group led by retired teacher Rodney Abbott, “library supporter and fabulous human,” says Gould, meet for poetry and history discussion. A drop-in story time is Wednesdays at 10 a.m.
Crafts are available every day that the library is open. “Occasionally I have had enough slime for the week, but that almost never happens,” she said.
Gould has extra copies of “Night of the Living Rez” and “Lungfish.” The Mann is part of the state-wide summer ReadMe program.
In August they will offer “chicken scratch,” (needlework) and will have two sessions of knitting. In October and November Elaine Emery will teach patrons how to make Christmas decorations. “She has made fantastic decorations with felt and embroidery…[she has] an amazing amount of talent and energy.”
Gould said they have seven people on their advisory board and really depend on volunteers like Emery and Abbott to host events. Young people help too, coming in to shelve books and use the hours toward their portfolio for high school.
What’s Ahead
Family Search is one of the library’s features that Gould is trying to grow.
She also plans to better organize their fiction section.
Going forward she hopes to create spaces where people can study while still being in the big space. She would like to have a flexible screen that surrounds a work station. The library would provide noise cancelling headphones, “so people can work and not have to listen to people say, ‘you called me a squirrel. I did not,'” says Gould, the self-described nerd.
At the Library
A bench circles a large windows at the back of the library. A group of five cousins from West Paris who come nearly every day are making friendship bracelets. Later Gould makes them slime that they color with paint. They are polite and fairly quiet
One mentions that Brenda has “Gram’s phone number” if they act up.
All five thank her profusely. One gives her flowers. She laughs often in return.
“My favorite thing in the library is everything, but my most favorite thing is her being the librarian,” says Dakota Edwards, 9.
“I love how Brenda does everything she can to make us feel safe. Like when there was a really bad thunderstorm,” says Arabella Hodgkin, 11.
Told that all the praise heaped on her might cause her head to swell, Gould responds, “That’s why I get the extra large hat,”
Library hours are: Monday, 1:30-6 p.m.; Wednesday, 1:30-7 p.m.; Friday, 1:30-6 p.m. and Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
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