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Welcome to the Skidompha Public Library
Upcoming Events
News & Happenings @Skidompha
Giant Art Book Sale at SSBS
The giant half-price sale of art books continues at the Skidompha Secondhand Book Shop. When will the sale end? That's up to you!Store hours are Monday- Friday, 10-4 and Saturday 10-1. 563-7807.
News & Happenings @Skidompha
Friday, May 18 at Noon:
Brown Bag Books: Colonel Roosevelt with Edmund Morris
The
next Brown Bag Books, an hour-long lunchtime video broadcast
conversation with a major contemporary author, presented by Lincoln
Theater, Maine Coast Bookshop and Skidompha, takes place on Friday,
May 18 at noon, when Edmund Morris will discuss Colonel Roosevelt.
The New York Times Book Review called Edmund Morris’s biography The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, “one of those rare works that is both definitive for the period it covers and fascinating to read for sheer entertainment.”
Presented in partnership with The Maine Coast Book Shop and Skidompha Library, Brown Bag Books is a lunchtime conversation with major contemporary authors, captured live in HD from Montgomery Auditorium in The Free Library of Philadelphia in Center City Philadelphia. Brown Bag Books typically run 60 minutes in length; the first part being the talk given by the author, followed by a question and answer session with the Philadelphian audience.
Tickets are $10 (Lincoln Theater members $8). For additional information, please call the theater at 563-3424. Lincoln Theater is located at 2 Theater Street in Damariscotta. Feel free to bring your lunch to feed your body while you feed your mind.
News & Happenings @Skidompha
Back By Popular Demand Film Series
Monday May 21:
The Princess Bride
(1987, 98 min.)
Heartbroken over the death of her beloved Westley, beautiful Buttercup finally succumbs to advances of the wicked Prince Humperdinck. Yet when she's suddenly kidnapped by a motley band of deviants, who comes to her rescue but - Westley! alive and as wonderful as ever. But before the two can live happily ever after, they must overcome formidable odds. This Rob Reiner film stars Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Robin Wright.All movies begin at 6:30 pm in the Porter Meeting Hall, accessible by the Elm Street entrance. A suggested $5 donation will help the library update and maintain its film collection.
News & Happenings @Skidompha
Chats with Champions May 22nd:
The User's Guide to the Human Body with Thomas Myers
Skidompha's Chats with Champions Committee is pleased to invite you to hear featured speaker Thomas Myers at 10:00 am, Tuesday, May 22nd in the Porter Meeting Hall. Everyone has a wonderfully complex body, but sadly it comes without a manual. Beautiful young people are works of God, but beautiful old people are works of art. In this lavishly illustrated tour, we examine the new science of the body, how it grows and moves, and the implications for education and medicine in this 'electronic' age. Occupy your body!
Tom Myers directs Kinesis, which offers continuing education worldwide in the new anatomy of manual and movement therapy. Tom is the author of Anatomy Trains and Fascial Release for Structural Balance, a dozen DVDs, and over 50 articles for journals and trade magazines.
He studied with Drs. Ida Rolf, Moshe Feldenkrais, and Buckminster Fuller, as well as with movement teachers Judith Aston and Emilie Conrad, and in the martial arts. His work is influenced by cranial, visceral, and intrinsic movement studies he made with European schools of osteopathy.
An inveterate traveler, Tom has practiced integrative manual therapy for over 30 years in a variety of clinical and cultural settings, including London, Hamburg, Rome, Nairobi, and Sydney, as well as a dozen locales in the US.
"Chats with Champions" is a free community offering from your national award winning Skidompha Public Library. The series is sponsored by The First, 223 Main St., Damariscotta, a community bank that has grown to serve customers at fourteen branches along Maine’s coast. News & Happenings @Skidompha
The “Tech Doc” is in @Skidompha
Answers Your Computer Questions
Every Wednesday morning, the “Tech Doctor” at Skidompha Public Library sits with her computer near the library’s front desk and answers computer-related questions for anyone who asks.The library introduced its new Tech Doc service in early April. The current Tech Doc is Katie Gormley of Damariscotta, a 2010 graduate of Smith College, who works mornings at the library and, in the afternoons, as a freelance computer consultant.
Gormley, who has been involved with the library since she was 14, says library staff members often have computer-related questions. Library patrons do as well. “We centralized all that into the role of the Tech Doctor” who is available to the public every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to noon. The service is free; no appointment is necessary.
Most questions she answers from members of the public, Gormley says, are not library-related.
“For example,” she says, “a patron wanted help deciding what computer to buy. I asked her what she wanted to do with it and suggested what to look for and what not to bother buying. Most people use a computer for word processing, Internet access, and maybe photo storage and editing. You don’t need a lot of capacity for that.”
She adds that usually, “Once you buy a computer, you’re on your own to figure out how to use it. But there are basic things people need to know, and nobody teaches them. And there’s a whole Internet full of bad advice.”
She recently helped someone set up a browser so that it goes automatically to a chosen web page. She showed someone else how to use the “right-click” function, which “can save about ten clicks.” Gormley calls such functions “best practices,” efficient ways to use the computer that people might not know unless someone shows them.
Often, library patrons bring e-readers or tablets to learn how to download free e-books from the Maine State Library collection. She walks them through the process.
Gormley says that, so far, in her role as Tech Doc she has worked with four of five customers each Wednesday, and has answered 10 to 25 questions each.
According to Pam Gormley, library director (and Katie’s mother), “We decided to offer this service to our community after seeing so many embrace, and sometimes struggle with, new technology. I’m pleased with the response so far and think we are filling a need.”
Besides providing on-the-spot computer advice and instruction, Katie Gormley as Tech Doctor will offer three courses on a rotating basis: Computer Maintenance, how to identify what can be thrown out and how to run a cleaning program; Web Security, about anti-virus programs, (“yes,” she interjects, “even Macs need anti-virus programs”), best practices when surfing the web, whom to call when the computer has been compromised; and Freeware Alternatives, free software to use instead of common expensive programs. A schedule for these courses will be posted on the library’s website once it’s finalized. The courses are free.
Director's Note
And do you know...- If you have an e-reader or portable listening device you can take advantage of our huge electronic library of FREE downloadable audio books and e-books. Use your library card to download them here.
- We have passes! Traveling to Portland? Got company to entertain? Need a road trip with a dose of culture? Reserve Skidompha Library’s FREE passes to the Portland Museum of Art, given as a gift to the community from the Pemaquid Group of Artists. One pass is given out daily, admitting two adults and up to six children for free! Anyone in the community can use them (not just library patrons). Choose your day and call us at 563-5513.
- And more passes! Free passes to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens are available to Skidompha Library patrons throughout the year. The passes admit two adults to the spectacular garden complex with its ornamental gardens complemented by masterful stonework, water features, and sculpture, its miles of shoreland and woodland trails, its Visitor Center, Kitchen Garden Cafe, gift shop, special events, and art exhibits. A valid library card must be presented for the passes, as they are checked out to a patron for a maximum of three days. (Note: The Gardens, located off Barter's Island Road in Boothbay, offer free admission to all from December through March.)
How to Download e-Books and Audio Books
e-Book How-To
Here's the official step-by-step how-to guide to downloading e-books and audio books from the Maine InfoNet Download Library.Good reading!
Director's Note
What is Skidompha Worth To You?
We all know that libraries provides invaluable services to the community. But have you ever wondered just what the Library is worth to your family? Try the Library Use Calculator provided by the Maine State Library and find out what all the Library services you use would cost if you had to pay for them directly. You might be surprised.