Giving Tuesday 2022!

On Giving Tuesday -- November 29th -- we ask community members to please consider a donation to the Windsor Public Library. We are an incorporated library and not a town library. This means that -- while we gratefully accept about 2/3 of our funding from the Town of Windsor-- we rely on donations and a small investment account to make up the rest of our budget. Please donate so that we can continue to best serve you!

Despite the ongoing pandemic, 2022 has been a good year for the Windsor Public Library, both in terms of increased accessibility, sustainability, and robust programming.

 2022 has been a year of huge strides in making the Windsor Public Library more accessible to our community. We gratefully raised enough money to complete our lift installation and accessibility project. Construction began in October and the library will soon have a lift to get folks to our lower level without needing to use the stairs. We also will make accessibility improvements to our bathroom and make our stairs safer.  

Sustainability is a guiding priority at the Windsor Public Library, using the triple bottom line definition of sustainability: practices that are environmentally sound, economically feasible, and socially equitable. This year, the Windsor Library was selected as one of the pilot Vermont libraries to seek sustainable library certification through the Sustainable Libraries Initiative via a grant acquired by the Vermont Library Association. This program will allow us to acquire the knowledge and skills to be more sustainable and to best assist our community in this as well.

 Relating to environmental soundness, in this age of climate change, how can we spearhead local efforts to live more in line with the Earth’s available resources? We do this by fulfilling the role that libraries have always had: the sharing of resources and information. In the past, it was solely books that libraries shared. Now, looking at sharing through a broader lens, what can the Windsor Library share that will assist our community in living fully while also treading more lightly on the earth? We have a firewood moisture meter to loan which assists homeowners in burning firewood that heats best and pollutes least. We have garden tools and free seeds to encourage all to grow some of their own food. We have a professional-quality microphone to record your own songs or podcast. We have board games and puzzles to pass the time on winter evenings. What else should we add to our “library of things?” What educational programming would be useful?

In 2022, library programming focused on sustainability and the outdoors along with other topics. We had great garden programming and also several programs co-sponsored with different local organizations, such as: an eye-opening book discussion group co-sponsored with WISE, a tree planting training with Vermont Urban & Community Forestry, a wonderful but sobering talk with local author Jo Knowles on censorship cosponsored by LGBTQIA2S+ & Allies of Windsor, and more.

Again, the Windsor Library benefited from the wealth of talented Windsorites who shared their gifts and knowledge with our community. These include Carolyn Dugas of Fresh & Foraged who led two fabulous Eat Your Weeds walks (Garlic mustard sauerkraut! Japanese Knotweed pickles!), Tree Warden Michael Metivier for more wonderful tree identification walks, Rebecca Haynes for a fabulous program on bubbles, Joe Citro for a delightful and spooky Halloween reading, and so many more. 

A more mundane but hugely helpful role the library has played is in offering free computer use as well as low-cost printing, copying, faxing and scanning. Folks have used this service to register cars, apply for jobs, print return labels, share color pictures of grandchildren, and so many other uses.