Dutton S. Peterson library is planning year-long 20th anniversary celebration

Special to The Odessa File

ODESSA, Jan. 21 -- The Dutton S. Peterson Memorial Library is in its 20th year as a chartered institution, and accordingly is planning to celebrate the milestone with events throughout 2006.

An organizational meeting Friday, Jan. 20, of the 20-Year Anniversary Planning Committee resulted in a month-by-month list of activities, starting with a cake and coffee open house on Friday, Jan. 27, from 2-6 p.m.

Present for the initial meeting were librarian Gayle Greuber; Charlie Haeffner, editor/publisher of The Odessa File; Diane Karasevicz, representing the Pre-School Story Hour program and parents who are home schoolers; Bonnie Schweizer, Children's Librarian; and Bonnie Seeley, library board member and chairperson of the Friends of the Dutton S. Peterson Memorial Library. Schweizer and Seeley are co-chairs of the Anniversary Committee.

The committee decided on a program-a-month -- including paid programs to be underwritten with a Decentralization Regrant from the Arts of the Southern Finger Lakes. Schweizer received the library's $1,000 share of the grant money on Thursday. (Watkins Glen Public Library will be sharing some of the special programs with Odessa and also received a $1,000 grant.)

Following is a brief synopsis of the 20th Anniversary events:

JANUARY -- Friday, January 27, Charter Celebration with a cake and coffee/tea. It was on January 27, 1986, that the Provisional Charter for the Dutton S. Peterson Memorial Library was presented to the library.

FEBRUARY -- Tuesday, February 28, after-school program featuring that zany monkey, Curious George! Barrels of fun for the younger set, but all are welcome. Light refreshments will be served.

MARCH -- Monday, March 20-Saturday, March 25, annual Friends of the Library Membership Drive. This year's theme is "Spring into Reading!" As well as enrolling new Friends and re-enrolling Friends from previous years, there will be bookmarks, bookbags, and gently-used books for sales.

APRIL -- During National Library Week, Time & Place TBA, Tom & Cindy Rasely of Greene, New York, doing a Vaudeville Show. The Anniversary Committee would like this to be a family event done in the early evening.

MAY -- Tentatively set for Saturday, May 6, Time & Place TBA, the library's Annual Volunteer Recognition Program. Invitations will be sent to all the library's loyal volunteers.

JUNE -- Tentatively set for Saturday, June 10, Time & Place TBA, Chicken Barbecue Fund Raiser

JULY -- Date & Time TBA, Kick-off Program for Summer Story Hour*

AUGUST -- Date & Time TBA, Wrap-up Program for Summer Story Hour*

SEPTEMBER -- Date & Time TBA, Rock'n'Read Program. People sign up to read while rocking in half-hour shifts, then enlist pledges from family members and friends. Library materials will be purchased with the funds raised at this event.

OCTOBER -- Date & Time TBA, "Trick or Treat at The Library." Special treats will be passed out to children who visit the library in October.

NOVEMBER -- During Children's Book Week, Date & Time TBA, Danielle Spindler Swart will present "Songs to Story Books," a program where she has taken stories from children's story books and has set them to music. All are welcome.

DECEMBER -- Date & Time TBA, "Caroling, Cocoa, & Cookies." Anyone from the community is invited to come and join us for this final program in our year-long celebration.


*There are two groups which are coming, but the committee doesn't know which group is coming for which program. The groups are:

Blair Frodelius and Company of Syracuse with a group known as "The Meatballs." There is lots of dancing, laughing, and singing mixed in with sketches requiring audience participation. All are welcome.

Tim Sanphy of Elmira Heights performing Celtic and Irish Music for some real toe-tapping entertainment. Everyone welcome.

Peterson library offers varied services

ODESSA -- Schuyler County residents are blessed with an abundance of libraries -- in Hector, Watkins Glen, Montour Falls and Odessa.

These libraries have been with us for years, but that does not mean they are growing old. They are, in fact, changing with the times.

The Dutton S. Peterson Memorial Library on the corner of Church and First Streets in Odessa is a fine example -- a facility that houses not just books, but a selection of magazines, audio books and videos, and provides access to the Internet through public-use computers. It also has copy and fax services, and offers home delivery to day-cares and shut-ins.

"You really should put something in your paper," the library's reading program coordinator, Bonnie Schweizer, told The Odessa File. "Let people know about all the services here."

And there are plenty. In addition to those named, the library has a local history collection, an aviation section, a magazine exchange, literacy materials, and a rotating collection of books and videos through the Southern Tier Library System.

The librarian is Gayle Greuber (shown in photo), who has held the post since May 1994. Her predecessor was Rose Cook.

Greuber, like the library, is homegrown.

Born in Ithaca, raised between there and Odessa, she attended Odessa-Montour schools, graduating in 1976. She and husband Jeffrey, an accountant with U.S. Salt in Watkins Glen, have lived in Odessa for 20 years. The couple has a son, Kevin, a senior at O-M, and a daughter, Emileigh, three years older than Kevin.

Greuber has been at the forefront of change -- the video and computer evolutions, in particular -- since joining the library.

"On a weekly basis," she said, "we have 50 to 60 people use the computers." There are four public-use computers, given to the library in 2001 by the Gates Foundation. (Two are shown in the photo below.)

"That was big," she added, "and so was getting a line that wasn't a dial-up."

Videos are also popular, Greuber said, "and audio books to a lesser extent. People who commute to Elmira use them. It's a big thing for them."

Further change has occurring recently, Greuber added: the bar-coding of every item in the library, and the distribution of bar-coded library cards.

Now that that's completed, it is easier to track books and videos, and easier to compile and analyze statistical data that might be used to help the library better serve the public.

****

Change, while an ongoing phenomenon, has been an integral part of the library's history, too.

At one time an insurance office owned and operated by Robert G. Carpenter (the current village mayor), the library building was sold by Carpenter to attorney Osco Peterson, who turned it into a law office. Peterson eventually relocated to an office west of the village, and the building became a residence for his brother for a while, and ultimately vacant.

Then, when the ODALCA Reading Center, located in the Town of Catharine highway barn, needed a new facility, Peterson agreed to sell his old office so it could be used as a library.

According to Carpenter, who served as treasurer and president of the library board before becoming a member of the Village Board, funds were raised through various means, and key donations accepted -- including a generous reduction in the selling price by Peterson.

The local Cotton-Hanlon lumber firm provided a gift of cherry, oak and maple for shelving, and then, said Carpenter, local craftsman Blaine Chamberlain "put the whole thing together" -- a facility that offers much in a small space.

The name of the library goes back to Osco Peterson's clan, Carpenter added -- specifically to Osco's father, Dutton S. Peterson, who was a minister at four churches in the area, then a state assemblyman and, at the time of his death, a state senator.

The library was chartered by the State Education Department in the mid-1980s, opened its doors in 1986, and underwent some more change a few years later -- renovation in the form of a new roof, insulation and exterior work.

The charter, originally provisional, was upgraded to absolute in the 1990s.

Quick facts:

Name: Dutton S. Peterson Memorial Library

Address: 106 First St., P.O. Box 46, Odessa, NY 14869

Telephone: (607) 594-2791

Fax: The same number

E-mail: Odessa@stls.org

Website: www.stls.org/odessa

Hours: Monday through Thursday, 2-8 p.m., Friday from 10 a.m.-noon and 2-6 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Programs: Story hours (shown in photo), after-school and summer reading programs, public Internet access, interlibrary loans, book sale, literacy volunteer/tutoring site.

Librarian: Gayle Greuber