While working the Information Desk on a quiet Thursday afternoon, I saw a familiar face at the puzzle table. This patron comes to the library primarily to put together the puzzle, sometimes spending hours. On this day, I told her how please we were that she enjoyed working on the puzzles in our library. She told me she has a two year old grandchild who visits her often, so she cannot work on puzzles at home. Apparently, she finds puzzles very therapeutic especially during stressful times in her life. Isn't it wonderful that our puzzle table fills a need in someone's life? Later on that day, a new patron came into the library looking to get a library card. After receiving her card, she wandered around the library. At the puzzle table, being pleased to see someone actively working on a puzzle, and exclaimed how happy she was to see puzzles at the library! These two patrons chatted for about a half hour as they worked on the puzzle together.
This is a perfect example of how libraries have changed from solely being book lenders in a silent cold building. Libraries today, as in the Somers Library, are warm and welcoming places where people interact and collaborate, and pursue their interests. This small and seemingly insignificant exchange is what we cherish and encourage at Somers Library, and hope there are other such encounters happening all the time.
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