The Newburyport Public Library has a collection of more than 100,000 books, a staff of 31, and one ghost. Okay, only one person has seen the ghost, and that was more than 20 years ago, but still ...
"No ghostly happenings that I know of," says Dorothy "Dottie" LaFrance with a smile. She should know - she?s been the head librarian for 28 years. She let the man who insisted that there was a ghostly presence in the 1980s set up a camera and stay in what is now the reference section for a couple of nights. (Although he claimed to have caught a spectral presence on film, nothing more came of it.)
What is fact is that George Washington slept there, back when a portion of the present building was the private residence of Nathaniel Tracy in the 18th century. Could the ghost have been our nation?s first president, or Tracy himself?
"He didn?t share who he thought [the ghost] was," LaFrance says, but he did claim it was a man.
Newburyport has had a library since 1854, when the facility occupied a small room in City Hall. The former Tracy residence became the home of the library in 1865. The first-floor Reading Room, in particular, reflects the grandeur of the Tracy lifestyle.
The Reading Room is where, LaFrance says, she sees a wonderful sociological study. Five to six retired gentlemen arrive first thing in the morning to read the daily periodicals and to talk news and sports scores. She notices the camaraderie within the group.
The lunch crowd arrives around noon; they go for the newspapers and magazines. In the mid-afternoon, more women start to appear. Later in the afternoon and in the evening, the Reading Room attracts patrons of all ages.
"I see snapshots of it as I go from my office to the [front] desk," LaFrance says.
"People look at us as a refuge from the hustle and bustle," she adds, and in her tenure there, people have been fairly well behaved. She has only issued three "no trespass" orders in her 28 years, and she notes that oddly enough, all three events happened after the addition was built in 2001.
People may seek refuge from the hustle and bustle at the library, but with between 800 and 1,300 people going through the building on any given day, LaFrance has to go out of her way to provide quiet areas.
"We are rarely not busy," she says. At around 11 a.m. on Feb. 28, for example, every public computer and every public room was in use.
And it doesn?t charge a fine for late returns.
"We use the honor system," LaFrance says, "Most people who abuse the system are chronic abusers ... there are a few, yes, but we know that they [the books] will come back." Those chronic abusers will often leave a declaration of guilt in the Friends of the Newburyport Public Library conscience box.
The head librarian believes that charging fines creates a barrier between staff and library users. It was also such a small amount that it did not outweigh the good public relations that the new system generates, she says.
The police did have to intervene at one point, for someone who was truly taking advantage of the system, LaFrance says. "That was many, many years ago." The police confiscated the books and no charges were filed against the individual.
The person wasn?t welcome to borrow any longer.
Continuing the spirit of generosity, even people caught smuggling books out of the building by the theft detection system are given a chance to talk themselves out of trouble. A common excuse, LaFrance says, is that the person forgot his or her library card. Everyone is presumed to be innocent, however, no matter how many DVDs they may have stashed in their bag.
Maybe the ghost made them do it.
Source: http://www.townonline.com/newburyport/a ... at=&page=2
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