Altamont Library Notes for Wednesday, December 22, 2021
— Photo from Joe Burke
The annual Library Lights Ceremony, a fundraiser for the Altamont Free Library, took place in Orsini Park on Friday, Dec. 10. Contributors make donations in honor of loved ones whose names are read at the ceremony as the lights on the village gazebo are lit. Library Director Joe Burke, at the microphone, reads names. Standing behind him, from left, are library trustees Amanda Beedle, Deborah Katz, Paul Scilipoti, and Dan Capuano.
Last week, the Altamont Free Library celebrated our 23nd annual Library Lights gazebo lighting ceremony in Orsini Park.
The purpose of Library Lights is to take some time at the beginning of the holiday season to remember friends, family members, and other loved ones and to honor their memory with a light on the Orsini Park gazebo.
This year, we had a record 438 honorees, whose names were read aloud at the ceremony. It was a lovely and moving ceremony, with pleasant weather and a large, kind crowd of supporters.
Thank you to all of our friends who contributed, and to those of you who joined us in Orsini Park last Friday. I’d especially like to thank Mayor Dineen, Jeff Moller, Larry Adams, and the team at the Village Department of Public Works for all of their invaluable help in making a space in the park for us and setting up the lights, as well as to AFL Board members Dan Capuano, Amanda Beedle, Deborah Katz, and Paul Scilipoti, for helping with the reading of names. Thank you all!
A full list of this year’s honorees may be found on our website at AltamontFreeLibrary.org as well as in our ad in this edition of The Enterprise.
Holiday hours
Please note that Altamont Free Library will be closing at 2 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 24 and closed on Saturday, Dec. 25. Likewise, we will be closing at 2 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 31 and closed on Saturday, Jan. 1. On behalf of the staff and board, I wish you all happy holidays and a safe, healthy, and happy new year!
Amazon Smile
Here’s a great, easy, cost-free way to support the library: If you do some of your holiday shopping on Amazon, please consider going to Smile.Amazon.com (instead of just regular old Amazon.com). Everything on the website will be exactly the same as usual, but you’ll have the opportunity to choose Altamont Free Library as your charity of choice and a portion of your purchase will go to support the Altamont Free Library, even though your gifts won’t cost you a penny more than they normally would! (You can do that all year round, if you like, but we just thought we’d mention it now.)
Book Club!
With the onset of cooler weather, we’ve had to migrate our book club meetings to the digital realm. If you would like to join us for our next meeting, please us at 518-861-7239 or email us at and we’ll make sure that you get the Zoom meeting connection details for our next meeting on at noon on Monday, Jan. 3.
At that meeting, we’ll be discussing the short non-fiction book “Freedom” by Sebastian Junger. Call today to reserve your copy and join us.