There was a lot going on this year, but that didn't stop our patrons from enjoying the various offerings from our collection! Lets take a look at the most popular titles this year at the Meredith Public Library.

The Dewey Decimal System. Taught to most of us sometime in elementary school, is a numeric way of finding non-fiction books on the shelves of libraries. There is an organizational method to those numbers, seemingly cryptic except to those in the library-know, but not very user friendly to those wishing to browse our shelves of non-fiction.

Some public libraries have decided to switch to the bookstore model of organizing books, where words such as TRAVEL replace the Dewey number 910, HISTORY replace 930-940 & GARDENING replace 630 to make their shelves more user friendly.

After some debate, we at the Meredith Public Library decided to experiment with switching some of our popular non-fiction collections to the bookstore model (called BISAC) to see what our faithful library patrons think of it. Joyce has been working tirelessly researching BISAC and making the switch and so far has completed Travel, History, Cooking and Gardening.

So for example in our Cooking section, all cookbooks will have the main heading of COOKING on their spine label. Then there are subheadings. So if you are looking for Italian cookbooks, the spine will look like:

Taking a trip across the pond? The spine label would look like this:

Need to learn about Germany's past? The spine label would look like this:

We are still working on the best way to organize the shelves since most of our books are still in Dewey and it makes it confusing to see both systems being used. We are still working out some kinks. New non-fiction books, regardless of their spine label, are still shelved with new non-fiction on the main floor.

So, we welcome your feedback. What are your thoughts on using the bookstore model over Dewey? Would you like to see us switch all of our non-fiction books over to the bookstore model of change back to Dewey?

We are looking for ways to make our collection more accessible to everyone, so your input would be most appreciated. While checking out your books, please give your opinion at the front desk and this information will be forwarded to me.

-- Erin Apostolos, Library Director.

There were a lot of great titles out this year! "Check out" the most popular picks of our patrons after the cut!

Darktown by Thomas Mullen.

Grappling with race issues, Atlanta hires its first black officers. They are then faced with a crime where a black woman goes missing and was last seen in a car with a white man. The description compares the tone of the novel to Dennis Lehane. It is "a vivid, smart, intricately plotted crime saga that explores the issues of race, law enforcement, and the uneven scales of justice" [1].

The author of many great and well-lauded titles, Kate Atkinson is our author of the month for September. All this month, check out our display of her available titles in the fiction room!

Some of her titles available in our catalog:
Case Histories
Life After Life
A God in Ruins
Started Early, Took My Dog
One Good Turn

The Meredith Public Library benefits from a wide collection of digital titles via Overdrive. All you need is a library card with us and you can plug in and take your reads on the go. Our ebook collection also has many titles that we do not have in our building.

So, whats new for ebooks and eaudio books this month?

This year the Meredith Public Library is pleased to present our Summer of Local Authors, part of our adult summer reading program.  Each month (June, July and August) the library will welcome in a different mystery author.  Each visit will begin at 10:30 AM and is scheduled until 12:00 PM.  Some of each of their books are available in print and digitally on the library’s two Kindles. 
On Thursday June 2nd, we greet Dr. Jack Polidoro, who writes under the pseudonym J.P. Polidoro.  He has written eight books, seven of which are novels.  He also has a number of other accomplishments, including being a singer and songwriter.  He has been a performer for fifty years and has seven albums of original acoustic music.  His stage name is Dr. Jack.  He has also earned a PhD in the Veterinary and Animal Science from the University of Massachusetts, and has worked in the biopharmaceutical industry for thirty-five years.  
Several of his books are set in New Hampshire and the Lakes Region including The Dog in the Outhouse, The John Stark Marauders, Tattoo: Incident at the Weirs, and Return to Raby.  He currently lives in Belmont and performs throughout the Lakes Region.  To learn more about J.P. Polidoro visit    www.longtailpublishing.com 

On Thursday July 14th the library welcomes Philip Soletsky.  Philip Soletsky holds a PhD in physics and is a decorated fourteen-year veteran of the Brookline, New Hampshire Volunteer Fire Department.  He has previously published several short stories including the short Sweet Stash in “Live Free or Die, Die, Die” a New Hampshire themed mystery anthology from Plaidswede Publishing, as well as four books in a mystery series about a volunteer firefighter, Jack Fallon, who becomes embroiled in mysteries.  The first of the series is Embers.  His most recent book is a crime thriller set in Los Angeles.

On Thursday August 4th Killarney Traynor will be visiting the library.  Her debut novel, Summer Shadows, came out in November of 2014.  It received Bestseller ranking on Amazon’s Cozy Mystery category within a month.  Her second novel, Necessary Evil was published in September of 2015.  As well as being an author, she is an actor/stuntwoman, singer, martial artist, and historian. 
We are grateful to all of our great local authors, and the Friends of the Meredith Library for supporting these events.  Look for more details about each author as their visit approaches.  We hope you will be able to join us.

Looking for a classic that has fallen into public domain? Free ebooks? There are lots of great ways to read books for free right on the internet! Lets look at just some of the options:

http://www.gutenberg.org/
"Project Gutenberg offers over 50,000 free ebooks: choose among free epub books, free kindle books, download them or read them online. "

https://openlibrary.org/
"The World's classic literature at your fingertips. Over 1,000,000 free ebook titles available. "

https://books.google.com/
Google Books is a great resource! One I use all the time. It has many searchable books, excerpts, etc. A great resource when researching or looking into a topic you would like to know more about. 

Every family has some skeletons in their closet. When it comes to Benjamin Smith -- the donor of the historic Meredith Public Library building -- he may have had a little more than he reckoned. After some inquiry into his Mudgett relatives (His mother being Mary Mudgett Smith), it was discovered that: "Benjamin M. Smith is a third cousin once removed to Herman W. Mudgett (better known as H. H. Holmes). The nearest common relative is John Mudgett (b. 17 Dec 1700 in MA) and Susannah Scribner (b. c 1746 in Brentwood)." We thank Ray Scriber for this information.

H.H. Holmes is best known as a notorious serial killer, originally from
Gilmanton, NH, who did most of his nefarious deeds during the Chicago's World Fair in 1893. He is sometimes known as America's First Serial Killer and his crimes were recently detailed in the wildly successful book Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (and soon to be a film staring Leonardo DiCaprio).

It just goes to show the incredibly varied individuals that make up a
family tree - both good and bad.

For more information, visit these links:

The Official page for the Erik Larson book Devil in the White City

Variety: Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese Reunite for 'Devil in the White City'

A Documentary Film on Holmes, entitled: America's First Serial Killer

A Little Bit about the History of Meredith Public Library and Benjamin Smith

An Earlier Blog Post About Benjamin Smith's Donation to his Parent's Legacy