Last week, I observed two anniversaries. Incredibly, at least to me, both fell on the same day, March 15th.

The first was the second anniversary of the Great Shutting Down of 2020. I still remember how quickly it happened. At the beginning of that week, we thought that COVID would pass quickly and not interrupt life very much and by the end of it, we were calling a special meeting of the library’s board of trustees to decide whether to close the library for two weeks.

Even at that point, a two-week closure was the longest that Altamont Free Library would have been closed in its 104-year history. Little did we know that none of the staff would come back to work in the building for three months!

I still remember that fear and anxiety of those first few weeks of the pandemic and those feelings are well documented in recorded Zoom meetings, video story times, emails to patrons and colleagues, and of course, weekly Enterprise columns! Here’s something I wrote two years ago in this column:

Outside the main entrance of the main branch of the New York Public Library on 42nd Street, there are two statues of lions, one on either side of the stairs leading to the library. For many years after the construction of the building, the lions did not have names.

During the long years of the Great Depression in the 1930s, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia finally gave those two lions the names they’ve had ever since, naming them after the two main virtues that New Yorkers would have to demonstrate in order to get through the tough times. He named one lion Patience and the other Fortitude.

Patience and fortitude are what we’re going to need once again in order to make it through the challenges of our own time. Patience will help us remember to be kind to ourselves and to others as we all work our way through this pandemic. Fortitude will help us do the hard work and make the difficult choices that will keep our community safe and healthy.

Looking back on it, it’s amazing how much patience and fortitude the Altamont community has demonstrated over the past two years. I’ll always remember the outpouring of empathy and community-mindedness that sprang from those first few months of the pandemic. I hope you do too.

Thank you all for the patience, fortitude, encouragement, support, and kindness you’ve extended to the library staff and me as we’ve struggled to cope with the pandemic. Obviously, we’re not out of the woods yet, but we’re getting there.

That brings me to the second anniversary: This past March 15 was also the first anniversary of me and several other members of the library staff getting our first dose of the COVID vaccine. That, for me at least, was the beginning of the return to normalcy. Again, we’re not quite there yet, but as long as people keep making smart, healthy choices and caring about their community, we will be.

Story time

Storytime is back at ARC! Please join us to gather together once more for our weekly Tuesday morning story times for children. Since spreading out is still important, and since it’s too cold to do it out in the park, we’ll be back at Altamont Reformed Church.

Please join us in the community room at Altamont Reformed Church at 129 Lincoln Ave. in Altamont on Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for a super fun morning of songs, stories, and activities! Since this is an indoor program, all participants over the age of 2 must wear masks for the duration of the program. Many thanks to ARC for hosting us. We hope to see you there!

Normally in this column, I like to adopt an all-ages kind of tone, just in case there are any children reading, but this week, I’d like to specifically address anyone over the age of 60. Specifically, I’d like to address this message to anyone over the age of 60 who has spent most of their life in and around Altamont.

As I mentioned in a column at the beginning of this year, 2022 marks the 125th anniversary of the building of the Altamont train station that we now call home. Before the station stopped operating in 1963, it seems to be the case that nobody thought to take a photo of the inside of the train station.

At least, nobody that I’ve spoken to has ever seen such a photo. So if you remember the train station when it was in operation, or if you know someone who does, I’d very much like for you to get in touch with me for a project that we’re going to be working on throughout this year.

You can email me at or call me at 518-861-7239 and I’ll give you all the details. Thank you!

OK, kids. You can come back now.

Story time

Story time is back at the Altamont Reformed Church! With the recent decline in COVID rates, we think it’s safe to gather together once more for our weekly Tuesday morning story times for children.

Since spreading out is still important, and since it’s too cold to do it out in the park, we’ll be back at Altamont Reformed Church! Please join us in the community room at the Altamont Reformed Church at 129 Lincoln Ave. in Altamont on Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for a super fun morning of songs, stories, and activities!

Since this is an indoor program, all participants over the age of 2 must wear masks for the duration of the program. Many thanks to ARC for hosting us this winter. We hope to see you there!

Read

for RMHC

Since the beginning of March, our young friends at Altamont Elementary School have been raising money for the Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Capital Region. How have they been raising money? By reading of course!

The more minutes the kids read, the more money they raise! Each day in March has a different reading challenge and we’ll have a new display each day to help them find books to meet the challenges. Stop on in and pick one up! Keep reading, friends!

Fine free!

As of the beginning of March, the Altamont Free Library will no longer charge overdue fines for materials that are returned late. In addition, all existing overdue fines for Altamont Free Library patrons will be waived.

We’ve been working towards this new policy for some time, first by making just our children’s materials fine free, and then by extending that policy to include young-adult materials. Now it’s everything in the library, so that’s one less thing to worry about in life.

Of course, you can’t keep things forever. If you have an item that’s 30 or more days overdue, a charge for the replacement cost of the item will be added to your account, and having that charge will mean that you won’t be able to check more items out or renew the items you already have. But if you then return your overdue item, the fine disappears!

If you haven’t been in the library for a while because of old overdue fines, we’d love it if you’d come on back. If you still have books that you borrowed a few months ago, or even a few years ago, we’d love it if you’d bring those back too.

As we all know, the Enterprise’s Letters to the Editor section is required reading for anyone interested in the rich, dramatic pageant of local life, and is worth the meager cost of a subscription all on its own. This week, Guilderland Public Library Director Tim Wiles and I contributed to the drama with our announcement that, as of today, both of the libraries we serve have eliminated overdue fines.

It’s difficult to change your perception of what a library is supposed to be overnight. Some people hold tightly to the image of libraries as quiet book repositories where you were as likely to be shushed as to be helped. We hope that our users have appreciated the sea change that has taken hold over the past decades, as libraries have become more energetic, more community focused, warmer and, yes, sometimes louder. Librarians don’t really shush anymore, though many of us still wear cool glasses and cardigan sweaters. Cardigans will never go out of style.

Overdue fines are a relic of that older style of library service, when librarians believed that it was their job to protect books from dirty fingers. Today’s libraries are far more about community building, active learning, and personal empowerment than about gatekeeping.

An important aspect of this transition to a new, more welcoming mode of operation has been the dismantling of barriers between people and their libraries. We’ve reduced barriers by making it easier to get a library card, easier to borrow ebooks and digital audiobooks from home, and easier to renew the things you’ve borrowed through our smartphone app and our new automatic renewal policy. Eliminating overdue fines is one more way to reduce barriers to access.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean that you can keep library materials forever. If you keep things out for too long, you’ll be charged for the replacement cost of the item, and you won’t be able to borrow more items until the item is returned or the replacement cost is paid.

Our patrons know that, when you borrow something from the library, you have a responsibility to return it when you’re done with it so that others can use it, and we trust that our patrons will be more motivated by that responsibility than they will be by a financial penalty. But, if you still feel guilty about keeping items out too long, we’ve got a donation jar right on the counter.

Many libraries have taken this step before Altamont and Guilderland, including several of the others with columns on this page, so we have a very good idea of what to expect. The vast majority of libraries that have eliminated overdue fines have — perhaps counterintuitively — saved rather than lost money, because of the reduced staffing and postage costs related to collecting fines.

The majority end up getting items back that they haven’t seen in a long time. The majority end up seeing more patrons coming through the door, both new ones coming in for the first time and old patrons who haven’t used the library because of past fines.

The primary consideration, though, is that we never want to tell a child that he or she can’t borrow books from the library because books were returned late. If my staff and I never have to do that again, then this new policy will have been a success.

If you have any questions about this policy or anything else, give me a call at 518-861-7239 or send me an email at . Alternatively, if it’s been a while, you can stop by the library and say hi. We’ll be happy to see you again.

To state the obvious, we live in challenging times. With all of the tumult and anxiety that surrounds us all in our daily lives, many of us — myself included — are sometimes at a loss with how to cope.

Many people have found some solace in a recent book by the English journalist and essayist Katherine May called “Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times.” At the request of a library patron, we’re starting a small weekly book club to slowly read through “Wintering” and discuss it, a few chapters at a time.

Participation is limited to five readers and, if you want to be involved, you must be able to commit to a schedule of virtual meetings on Thursdays at noon starting March 3 and lasting seven weeks. (If you have to miss one or two, we’ll understand.) Please get in touch with me at or by phone at 518-861-7239 to reserve your copy today!

Automatic renewal

Altamont Free Library, along with all of the other libraries in Albany and Rensselaer counties, recently decided to change the way that we handle due dates. Starting on Feb. 1, when your library materials are two days away from being due, if they can be renewed, our system will automatically renew your items so that they don’t become overdue.

There are a few reasons that your items might not get automatically renewed: If someone else is waiting for your book or movie, or if it’s something like a museum pass that can never be renewed, it won’t be. Also, if you have excessive overdue fines, the system will prevent your items from being automatically renewed.

Other than that, for 95 percent of people and in something like 85 percent of cases, your items will simply be renewed without you having to do anything to make that happen.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please let us know! Just call me at 518-861-7239 or email me at Director@AltamontFreeLibrary.org.

Masks on!

Please continue to wear a face mask when visiting the Altamont Library. As you may have seen, the governor has rescinded the New York State indoor masking requirement. Nevertheless, at the Altamont Free Library, we’ve required all patrons over the age of 2 to wear a face mask since the beginning of the pandemic, and we continue to do so. The library leadership team will continue to monitor the situation and will update our rules as circumstances dictate.

If you prefer not to wear a mask or if you just prefer this kind of service, we continue to offer Grab & Go service that you are more than welcome to use. The board and I will review this policy at each board meeting going forward.

If you have any questions about this, give me a call at 518)-861-7239 or send me an email at . On behalf of the entire staff and board, we appreciate your patience and support.