Gardiner

Farewell From Scott

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A lot has changed in the library world since I started here 40 years ago in 1981.  We’ve gone from paper card catalogs to electronic retrieval.  I’ve been here through floods, downtown fires, ice storms, Celebrity Who Reads What lists, and many a blizzard. I have been very lucky in those 40 years of change.  I have had the good fortune to work with two wonderful directors: Glenna Nowell for 10 years and Anne Davis for 30 years.  Both of these wonderful directors allow their staff to shine in their position and grow professionally. I have been fortunate to have …

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THANK YOU!!!

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Thank you for visiting us. THank you for your donations. ThAnk you for keeping us laughing. ThaNk you to our volunteers. ThanK you for your kind comments.   Thank You for sharing your stories. Thank yOu for making us an anchor destination of Gardiner. Thank yoU for making the Gardiner Public Library such a great place to work in 2019.

Summer’s here! Don’t forget to write!

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School is out; the weather’s warm; it’s time to hit the road, explore old (and new!) favorite places, and share your adventures and travels with friends and family.  Long before Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, postcards were the way to drop a line and keep folks up to date.  We have a wonderful collection of Gardiner-themed postcards in our Community Archives Room.  Many of them depict scenes around town, but there are also quite a few that were more generic, novelty cards into which Anytown, USA, could be inserted — and Gardiner was not to be left out of the fun! …

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Latest Additions to the Archives!

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Recent donation by a life-long Gardiner, Maine resident to the Gardiner Public Library, Gardiner, Maine.

We have received an amazing donation of more than 50 historic, Gardiner-centric scrapbooks:     These gems were kept by a life-long Gardiner resident and encompass primarily local happenings (along with some regional and national highlights) from the early 1930s all the way through the 1990s & early 2000s.  The detail is impeccable and many of the clippings are entirely new to our collection. They are a treasure that we are delighted to preserve and make accessible to researchers, generations to come, and anyone interested NOW!  They contain SO much that we have only just begun to fathom their depths — …

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A 1 Diner

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In 2006 a local publisher, Tilbury House, published a book by Sarah Rolph that celebrated a local diner, the A 1 Diner.  The book gives a history of the diner featuring both those who work behind the counter and those in the kitchen.  Many recipes that have become customer favorites are revealed in the book.  Below is one of them.  For more of these wonderful recipes and to enjoy the history of this local institution, visit the library to borrow the book, A 1 Diner: real food, recipes, and recollections by Sarah Rolph. Hazel Newell’s Squash Custard Pie: This pie …

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One hundred years ago, a letter arrived in Gardiner….

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Written from Columbia University, the letter congratulated a Gardiner author on winning the Pulitzer Prize for biography.  The author, who compiled scrapbooks of her family life and day-to-day goings on, dutifully pasted the letter on the next available page in her Family Log and moved right along…. Neither she nor the letter made note of the fact that that she and her sister were the first women to win a Pulitzer.  In fact, as 1917 was the inaugural year of the most celebrated prize for literature, the event made little more than a tiny ripple in Laura E. Richard’s daily life. …

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