Julie's Journal : COVID19

My last post was two weeks ago and since then a lot has changed.  Two weeks ago, the library was still open.  We had cancelled all our programs but were still attempting to keep normal open hours.  However, it quickly became clear that maintaining the recommended groups of 10 or less with 6 feet of spacing between people just wasn't going to be possible.  With great sadness we decided that we had to close to the public.  We attempted to do a curbside service where you would be able to drive up and have us deliver your books to you in your car, but again, it quickly became clear that it wasn't going to work.  Even though we were disinfecting materials and wearing gloves, we couldn't be confident that we weren't passing the virus from one patron to the next via our books and movies.  So, for the foreseeable future, our services will be completely digital. 

Please take advantage of our e-book library.  We have over 27,000 books and audio books available for you to check out.  Please don't be intimidated by the thought of using digital resources.  If you have a smart phone or a tablet with internet access, I can help you learn to use our digital library.  Basically, if you have the technology to read this blog post, you can access e-books.  If you have used e-books before but can't remember your login information or if you need help setting up your device for e-books for the first time we are available from 10-2 via phone or by email anytime.  Contact us at:

903-347-2037 from 10:00 to 12:00
903-347-2843 from 12:00 to 2:00
library@co.franklin.tx.us
jbaxter@co.franklin.tx.us
Facebook Messenger: Franklin County Library - Mt. Vernon

You can also contact us for book renewals, technology questions, and general information.  If there is anything we can do for you please don't hesitate to give us a call.  While it is true that our building is closed, your librarians are still here, working for you as much as is possible right now.

If you have physical materials checked out, you may return them in the night drop to the right of the door or you can just hang on to them for now.  We are not charging late fees for anything due during our closure. 

We don't know what the future looks like.  We cannot predict when we will be able to open back up for normal operations.  The President's remarks yesterday, along with the local case of COVID19 do not give me much hope that it will be soon.  However, please know that we so badly want to be serving you in our normal capacity.  Please continue to watch our Facebook page for the most up-to-date information about our services and any changes that may be made. 

Stay at home, wash your hands, and stay well.  I hope to see all of you soon.   

Julie's Journal : A New Normal

Wow!  The world has changed a lot in the last week or so.  Citizens are being advised to practice social distancing to avoid spreading the COVID19 virus.  Even if you are not in a high-risk group it is advisable to avoid groups of people in order not to endanger those among us who are more at risk. I found this article and its simulations quite interesting in learning the effectiveness of social distancing.  The newest guidelines recommend avoiding groups of 10 or more for the next 8 weeks and keeping a distance of 5-6 feet between people.  Unfortunately, it sounds like this crisis might get worse before it gets better.

Here at FCL we are open regular hours for now, but we have cancelled all our programs and events.  This includes Breakerspace, Robotics/Coding, Marvelous Mondays, Creative Hands, Alzheimer's Support Group, Circle of Friends Book Club, and any other programs we offer.  We look forward to resuming our regular activities as soon as possible.

In the meantime, e-books are a great option for those of you who are staying at home!  I did a little purchasing on Friday so there are some new titles available.  The books pictured should be available or have short wait times as they are only available for FCL patrons.  Some are available as e-audio books as well.  Give something new a try or revisit an old favorite.  As of today there are over 27,000 titles available so there is truly something for everyone!

If you need help setting up your device for e-books, give the library a call at 903-537-4916.  We'll be glad to walk you through the process and provide you with a username and password. 

I read The Sun Down Motel over the weekend.  I enjoyed this creepy ghost story which has some elements of horror but stops short of being truly terrifying. 

It's a whole new world, and things are changing quickly - by the hour it seems.  If Franklin County Library can assist you in any way please do not hesitate to give us a call.  Stay safe out there!

Tom's Two Cents : Plagued by Fire by Paul Hendrickson

Just when one thinks the last word has been written on the famous and infamous Frank Lloyd Wright, along come a new biography, much of it reading like a novel, covering both old and new ground.  Paul Hendrickson, a former journalist for The Washington Post, is of a sort, a novelist, a psychologist, and a genealogist, all rolled into one, for he is obviously not content just to dig out “the facts” about Wright and report them objectively.  He is searcher for that elusive thing we call “the truth,” something that in our day and time is perhaps more elusive than ever before.

For those of you not familiar with the hierarchy of American architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright has long dominated that field, though his name and reputation have often been eclipsed by others of equal note, though perhaps not of equal talent or genius.  Born in Wisconsin in 1869 of a sensitive clergyman/musician father and a highly neurotic, ambitious mother, Wright found his passion early in life, apprenticing in his early twenties to one of the founding fathers of American architecture, Louis Sullivan, in Chicago, not long after, breaking with his mentor to found his own unique “prairie style” and establishing a predominance in domestic architecture through the cultivation of wealthy avant-garde clients, who wanted to escape from the stereotypical Victorian house of the 1890’s.

Wright was famous by 1910 and a ‘has-been’ by 1930, having been eclipsed by the so-called “international style,” created in Germany in the 20’s by Arthur Gropius and Mies Van Der Rohe.

But he went on to re-capture his fame, producing some of his greatest and most famous works by living into his 90th year.  The controversial—to this day—Guggenheim Museum was still six months from completion when he died in 1959.  However, this biography, rather focusing solely on his work, goes into the considerable depth of his personal relationships, especially with women.  And surprisingly, it all begins in 1914, with the horrific murder of his mistress, Mamah Borthwick, her two children by her former husband, Edwin Cheney, and six of Wright’s student apprentices at his home and school, Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wisconsin.  In fact, the first two hundred pages of this book read more like a murder mystery than a biography, because of Hendrickson’s minute digging into the background and motivation—still shrouded in mystery even to this day—of the murderer, a Black man from Alabama, mistaken at the time as a refugee from the West Indies, who worked for Wright and his “family.”

This non-linear approach to biography proves to be as fascinating and challenging as the story itself, and even if you have read Nancy Horan’s Loving Frank, you should still find this work to be enormously appealing.  It’s, as is often the case, the “story behind the story” that is most fascinating!