BOOKS, AND MORE BOOKS

On Thursday, October 27 through Saturday, October 29, the Friends of Macedon Public Library will launch their Giant Fall Book Sale during regular library hours. This is an opportunity for all of you book lovers to add to your collection without draining your bank accounts. In fact, on Saturday, the Friends will sell a special book sale bag for only $1.00, and you can fill it will as many books of your choice, for just an additional $2. That's a super bargain!

So please plan to stop by the Community Room and look through the books that are organized by genre (and alphabetized( for your convenience. You'll be helping finance library programs while acquiring some really good reading for those long winter nights that are fast approaching us.

And after you've shopped the book sale, we suggest you stop by the Bullis Room and look at the "George Washington Treaty Belt" that is on display there (November, which is Native American month).  It is one of two replicas, the other to be carried on Treaty Commemoration Day on November 11 in Canandaigua.

The current book display outside the Bullis Room is "The Spirits of the Bullis Room." If you haven't seen the various books on religion and spiritualism, you have until the end of October to look at the variety in the Bullis Collection on those subjects.  November's display will feature books on Native Americans.

SPRING IS COMING, SPRING ....

REALLY IS COMING! 

We're sure of it.  Icicles and snow piles we've been viewing from the Bullis Room window are getting smaller. And the Bullis Room is feeling cooler in relation to the outside temperature. All good signs that we're moving toward Spring. And where is this leading us, in today's post? To another good Bullis Collection book, of course. One that will help us get in the mood for warmer and sunnier days.

And that book is (TA DA):

English Country Life:

Consisting of Descriptions of Rural Habits,

Country Scenery, and the Seasons.

By Thomas Miller 

Published in London by G. Routledge, 1865

Please stop by and take a look through this book. Chapters we suggest you will enjoy at this time year:

"Summer Flowers"

"Beauty of Summer Butterfly andFlowers"

"Summer in the Fields"

"Birds in Summer"

And the chapter we suggest you leave for reading during a record-setting-high temperature day in August:

"Dark December"

We also want to remind you  - no matter the weather outside, it's always pleasant in the Bullis Room, surrounded by all these shelves of great books. You have a standing invitation to come in and spend some time with us, savoring the atmosphere and surroundings.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, From the Bullis Room. Our treat for you is a repeat of the posting we did four years ago:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, From the Bullis Room. Our treat for you is a repeat of the posting we did four years ago: 

NETTIE BULLIS

If Nettie Bullis could speak to us from her grave in the Village of Palmyra Cemetery, what would be her message?  Here is our version of what she might say to the people on this year's cemetery walk:

"I am new to the walk this year because some of my friends thought I should be included. I feel somewhat uncomfortable with all of this attention. I've always shied away from that sort of thing.

"However, since you’ve all come here this evening and paid your entrance fee, it is appropriate that I offer you some information about myself and my family so that you will get your money’s worth.  My family always lived by the principle of getting your money’s worth and never wasting anything.  When my great-grandfather Charles H. Bullis and his family moved from Vermont to Macedon in 1837, they brought with them the New England frugality that they had always lived by, and that way of living was handed down from generation to generation.

"A second principle my family lived by was life-long education.  When my brother Charlie and I were growing up, my father insisted that our toys were things we could learn something from.  He got this idea from his father who was a local doctor and who greatly valued education. After my father graduated from Cornell in the early 1880s with degrees in mathematics and civil engineering, he continued his education by collecting and reading science, math, engineering, and medical books.

"In fact, you can see many of these books today at Macedon Public Library. They have a special room there—they even named it for my family—and it houses the remaining books from our collection.  My father and grandfather would be very pleased about that. And of course there is a significant number of books on horticulture that belonged to my brother Charlie. But that’s another subject.

"Honest, hard work was a third principle of the Bullises. The first Bullises in Macedon built the cobblestone house that served as a home to three generations of the family. It is where my brother Charlie and I grew up, and it still stands today on Canandaigua Road. By the way, every year in May Charlie’s poppies bloom in the front yard and make a wonderful display for several weeks.

"Hard work was never a stranger to me. In my earlier years, I did chores around our place, and when I was older I accompanied my father on many of his surveying jobs, taking notes that he used in his engineering drawings.  After high school graduation in 1911, I attended Cornell University for a while and then taught school in Marion. Following that, I took a position as bookkeeper at Gleason Works in Rochester. While at Gleasons, I was fortunate to have several opportunities for advancement and was serving as Assistant Secretary of Gleason Works when I retired.

"It was not my intention to be a wealthy woman, but I did accumulate a tidy sum through careful planning, saving, wise investments, and my New England frugality. When I wrote my will, I was pleased to be able to benefit a number of individuals and organizations here in Wayne County.

"As you can see from my headstone I lived for 86 years, from March 23, 1893 to October 1, 1979. Most of my life was spent in Macedon, but upon my death I took up residence here in Palmyra in my family's plot. It's a quiet, peaceful place to spend eternity, and I greatly enjoy the company.

"Well, I feel I've taken enough of your time this evening. Thank you for stopping by and giving me your kind attention. I must say that I've enjoyed our time together. So much, in fact, that I hope I'm invited to do this again next year."

VOLUNTEER WEEK 2013

In our last two posts, we wrote about some of our older books in the collection. Now we're focusing on taking care of all the books in the Bullis Room.

Lot of work goes into maintaining this collection. Over the years we've cataloged,  shelved, sorted, repaired, and restored books while also setting up, organizing, cleaning and dusting the room they are in. All of this takes lots of volunteers, and we are always in need of more.

In 2013 National Volunteer Week runs from April 21 to April 27, but we don't have to wait until then to get involved.  The beginning of this new year is a good time for all of us to be thinking about how we can use some of our spare time to help our community.

We hope that you will consider the Bullis Room when you're doing your volunteer planning. If you'd like more specific information about what sort of tasks are involved, please stop by the library and ask for June. She'll give you a tour and fill you in.

REACHING OUT

This week volunteers worked on reaching out to the local area in another way ... with an ad in the 30th annual Macedon Center Community Lumberjack Festival's booklet.  On September 8 (9 Am to 5 PM) and September 9 (11 AM to 5 PM), both professional and amateur lumberjacks will compete for prizes in a series of events that include log chopping, chain sawing, log rolling, tree felling, and greased pole climbing.

When festival goers open their ad booklets, they will find our announcement that tells them this collection has over 6000 items "to help you explore the World, the Sciences, the Past, and the Faiths from the perspective of Victoria era authors." Readers will also be encouraged to schedule a visit by calling the library at 315-986-5932 option 3.  We hope that many of them will do just that.

We've also included a reminder of the Bullis Room open house on November 10, 2012, from Noon to 3 PM, when area residents can bring their old photos of Macedon to scan into the Town Historian's digital archive of Macedon.

Our purpose in posting this information now is to get you to mark you calendars for the November 10 open house. But please don't wait until then to stop by the Bullis Room. Just call the number above and we'll gladly schedule some time for you to come in, peruse the shelves, choose some volumes to leisurely look through, and bask in the aroma and atmosphere of old books. (For free!)

BRIDGES AND POPPIES

Two things have been on our minds this week in connection with the Bullis collection. Bridges and poppies. How are these two related? We'll tell you next week.

But first we'll focus on bridges. We volunteers who live north of the canal have to travel farther these days to get to the Bullis Room, all because of a bridge closing. So when we made the trip recently, we wondered how many books on bridges were in the collection. The answer? Lots of them. So to all you bridge enthusiasts out there (and we know there are lots of you, as well), stop by and let us show you this section. And if you are unable to pay us a visit, here are brief descriptions of five of the volumes:

1. Iron Truss Bridges for Railroads, by Wm. E. Merrill, published in 1875 by D. Van Nostrand.

2. Typical Specifications for the Fabrication and Erection of Steel Highway Bridges, (prepared by the Office of Public Roads),  published in 1913 by the United States GPO.

3.  An Essay on Bridge Building: containing analyses and comparisons of the principal plans in use: with investigations as to the best plans and proportions, and the relative merits of wood and iron for bridges, by S. Whipple, published in 1847 by H.H. Curtiss.

4. Highway Bridges and Culverts, by Charles H. Hoyt and William H. Burr, published in 1911 by Government Printing Office.

And,

5. The Principles of Construction In Arches, Piers, Buttresses, etc., being a series of experimental essays made with a view to their being useful to the practical builder,  by William Bland, published 1867 by C. Lockwood.

That's all for the "bridges part" of this post. Next week we'll focus on poppies.

LOOKING BACK

2011 was another busy year for us here in the Bullis Room. Repairing and restoring books, organizing, researching (and searching), displaying, presenting, traveling, monitoring, planning...and reading.

As we've noted before, reading is a "problem" for us volunteers. This room is filled with such interesting stuff that it's difficult to remain focused on a particular task. We walk in the room with a goal in mind, but when we see a stack of letters written by a Bullis family member lying on the shelf - or some interesting books strewn around on the table top - we stop to take a quick look, which sometimes stretches into hours. And we often leave with our original goal unattained.

So as we look back we remember all of the projects we planned but never completed (such as making a timeline of John Lapham Bullis's life and typing transcripts of some newly-obtained letters).  That's the bad news, so to speak. The good news is we can have another go at all these projects in 2012.

Happy New Year!

BULLIS ROOM TO-DO LIST

Our to-do list is always lengthy, which is okay because it reassures us volunteers that we really are needed. For several months in a row, one item toward the top of our list was: "Get John Lapham Bullis San Antonio memorabilia framed." Well, we accomplished that and removed that item from our list. 

NOW, one of our top to-dos is: "Hang framed ... " (you get the idea). We will accomplish this task in due time, also. For now, we've included a photo of it in this post, and if you'd like a clearer look, we invite you to stop by the Bullis Room.

HONORING VETERANS

This week our volunteers assembled books, pamphlets, posters, photos, and medals to include in a display case outside the Bullis Room. Here is one of the posters included:

(Lower caption reads: "Supplement to Engineering News Record, November 19, 1917."

As we worked on the display, we wondered about the history of this holiday, so we consulted Wikipedia's Veterans Day article and learned that November 11 "...is also celebrated as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day in other parts of the world...."  The article also reminded us that on November 11, 1919,  President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Armistice Day as a holiday. President Calvin Coolidge issued another proclamation in 1926 that called for November 11 to be observed with appropriate ceremonies, and in 1938 Congress proclaimed November 11 a legal holiday, "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day'." Finally, 

in 1953, an Emporia, Kansas shoe repair shop owner "had the idea to expand Armistice Day into 'All' Veterans Day...." With the help of U.S. Representative Ed Rees, also from Emporia, a bill for the holiday was pushed through Congress. "President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law on May 26, 1954. Congres amended the act on June 1, 1954, replacing 'Armistice" with 'Veterans,' and it has been known as Veterans Day since."

On this November 11 as you celebrate in your own way, whatever that might be, we suggest you also stop by the library and look at our display. The case's contents are only a small part of similar items in the collection. If you'd like to see more, please feel free to stop by.

BANNED BOOKS

Does the Bullis Collection contain banned books?  For some of us volunteers, our first answer to this questions was, "Surely not." But we were wrong.

There's an impressive number of banned books among the books on the shelves here in the Bullis Room. And some of them will be on display in the case outside the room.

So stop by and take a look.  You might be surprised, like we were.

(We'll post some of the banned titles, next week.)

BULLIS BOOK REVIEW CONTEST

A $100 prize is being offered in a contest designed to raise awareness of this collection. The Friends Endowment for the Macedon Public Library has approved funding for this contest.

Contestants are asked to write a 500 to 750 word review of a book contained in the Bullis Collection. Participants will be divided into two categories, those 18-years-of-age and under, and those over 18 years. A $100 prize will be given to the winner in each category.

The Bullis Committee has compiled a list of eligible titles from this collection. Entrants must choose a book from this list; that book will then be removed from the eligible list. The entrant may choose to read the book in the Bullis Room (these books do not circulate), or may read a digital version of the book online; copies of a number of the books are also available through the Pioneer Library System.

Contestants must register in the Bullis Room at the library by July 5; completed reviews must be submitted by August 13; winners will be announced by August 27. The contest is open to residents of Macedon and the surrounding area.

Those interested may visit the Bullis Room to fill out an entry form and select their book on either Friday, June 25, from 11 AM to 5 PM, or on Saturday, June 26, from 11 AM to 3 PM. Appointments for other times are available by calling June Hamell at (315) 986-5932, ext. 119.

A full description of the contest rules may be obtained from the library or by checking the library website at: http://www.macedon.pls-net.org/index.htm

This is your special invitation to participate in this contest. It's an opportunity to enjoy a good book and have a chance at winning a picture of Benjamin Franklin.

THE WELCOME MAT IS STILL OUT...

...and this is a friendly reminder that you're invited to stop by and browse the shelves in the Bullis Room.

Just call the main desk (986-5932, Op. 3), leave your contact information, and we'll arrange a time to meet you. Or, if you see a volunteer in the Bullis Room on your next library visit, simply open the door and say hello.

Usually, someone is in the room at these times:

Mondays, 1 PM to 4 PM Tuesdays, 12:30 PM to 2 PM

1st Thursday of the month, 10 AM to Noon

Fridays, 2 PM to 4:30 PM

Hope to see you soon. We'll leave the light on.

MAY WE PRESENT...

...the Bullis Room's volunteer of the week. Please take note of his proper attire (white glove) for handling a rare book. Also please note his steady focus on the reading material.

When he comes to the end of that book, he can study Increase Lapham's family tree, which is under the table's glass covering, or chose another book from the shelves (with the help of another volunteer, of course).

We are enjoying this unusual volunteer's company as we go about our various duties. Sometimes, we find ourselves occasionally making a remark or directing a question to him.

We would also enjoy setting up a time for you to stop by and take a look at the collection. You may contact us through this blog or by calling 315-986-5932, Option 3.

FLYING MACHINES

When did our fascination with flight begin? Perhaps back when our species first walked upright and envied the birds soaring across the skies above. There was certainly an interest in this subject a hundred years ago when William James Jackson authored FLYING MACHINES, which he subtitled construction and operation; a practical book which shows, in illustrations, working plans and text, how to build and navigate the modern airship, and the book lives up to this declaration.

This week our country celebrated the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin's walk on the surface of the moon. In between Jackson's 1910 flying machines and the astronaut's 1969 lunar module, many dedicated people gave their time and talents to getting our feet off the ground in a better way. This effort continues and leaves us to wonder what progress we will see in another 40 years.

In the meantime, Jackson's book is on the shelf here in the Bullis Room and you're invited to pore over its fascinating pages and take an imaginary trip in an early-twentieth century "modern" airship.