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Library Director Misha Storm with a stack of books at Dickinson Memorial Library in Northfield. -
Historical photos of Dickinson Memorial Library in Northfield. -
Northfield resident Doug Gaudet checks out the “yarn bombed” book dropbox at Dickinson Memorial Library in Northfield on Thursday. -
Dickinson Memorial Library in Northfield has been “yarn bombed” in several places in celebration of its 125th anniversary. -
Dickinson Memorial Library at 115 Main St. in Northfield is celebrating 125 years. -
Peter Chirichiello and Jonah Chirichiello, 4, of Bernardston, visit the Dickinson Memorial Library children’s room.
NORTHFIELD — Although Dickinson Memorial Library opened 125 years ago, many of its features have stood the test of time.
“When you look at the building from the front, it is how it looked in 1897,” said Library Director Misha Storm. “You can step back in time.”
From the 115 Main St. building’s granite stone to its stenciled and vaulted high ceilings, mosaic tile floors and even pieces of furniture, the library is a Northfield relic.
“The building is completely intact,” Storm said. “The interior is 90% original.”
In celebration of the library’s 125th anniversary, library staff are welcoming residents for a picnic and games on Sunday, Aug. 20, at 1 p.m.
Funded by the Friends of the Dickinson Memorial Library, the picnic will include hot dogs and hamburgers. Residents who want to bring side dishes and desserts must email dmemlib@gmail.com.
Dickinson Memorial Library opened in 1898 after the exclusive Northfield Social Library closed in 1878. Historical artifacts tracing back to the library’s inception still hang on its walls, including pieces from local Indigenous tribes and portraits of Northfield native Elijah Marsh Dickinson, who funded the majority of the library build, Storm said.
Although visitors can envision the building’s past through its furniture, ceilings and paintings, the computers and telescope in the library’s new children’s room snap them back into the present.
“A ‘Library of Things’ has been more and more popular,” Storm explained, referring to the library’s telescope, ukulele and themed kits of books, games and puzzles.
For about a century, the library was split into a downstairs library and upstairs museum, Storm explained. But in the 1990s, the library moved most of the museum artifacts to the Northfield Historical Society, and the museum became the children’s room.
“We’re very lucky that the town at that time thought to build such a big library,” Storm said. “We moved into that museum space and that’s how we’ve been able to keep the library where it’s always been. We’ve grown into it.”
In the children’s room, “Moms will meet up in playgroups and it sounds like there’s elephants up there … lots of life in the building,” Storm recounted. “It really is a community hub.”
Downstairs, visitors chat around the table in the reading room, curl into nooks with their books or gather in the meeting room, an addition to the building from 2008, Storm explained. In the new space, community groups and the library’s three book clubs and knitting club meet.
“I often say that being a public librarian in a small town is kind of like being a bartender. … A lot of people will chat with us and chat with each other,” Storm explained. “There’s always life happening at the library.”
One of the library’s recent projects involved a “yarn bombing.” Community members sent in knitted or crocheted “granny squares” for the knitting club to stitch together. Next, the club covered the library’s dropbox, trees and lamppost with the quilts as “a lovely present for our library,” Storm said.
To Storm, the 125th picnic is for residents to celebrate “the start of the library being a place for our community.”
She added, “What better way to celebrate than inviting the community to come have a meal?”
