Not one penny for computers!

Library Administrator's Digest, Oct 2001 by Robinson, Charles W

While Sandra Nelson was working on (among other things) the September issue of LAD, I was enjoying the summer at my beach house in Ocean Park, Maine, a community within the town of Old Orchard Beach. In August I picked up a copy of a local "shopper," the Biddeford-Saco-- OOB Courier, which reported that the Libby Memorial Library in Old Orchard Beach had received a legacy of $100,000. This is not terribly unusual in the library world, but big news to its director, Eileen (not Elaine, as the Courier says) McNally and her staff of two. Let's face it, Old Orchard Beach is a smallish town (except in the summer), serving a population of 10,000 in a building dated 1956 and "running out of shelving options."

The legacy was left by a former resident, B. Ruth Jeffries, a librarian retired from the University of Washington, in Seattle. According to the library director, there are a few library patrons in town who vaguely remember Jeffries, who lived in Old Orchard in the '20s.

The Courier says, "In her will Jeffries said that the library was only to use the money for books or improving the library. The staff is not allowed to use one penny for the purchase of computers or software. `That seems to make a statement about how she feels about the importance of reading and her feelings about technology,' said McNally."

What, what? This from a librarian from Seattle? Isn't Seattle the home of Microsoft? And the Gates Foundation?

I'll bet the University of Washington is computerized to a fare-thee-well, and that B. Ruth lived through its initial introduction. This may well be her form of sweet revenge!

Charles W. Robinson

Director Emeritus, BCPL Editor

geezer@bcpl.net