Engage, Enrich, Entertain
If you have a student (age 9+) using the library after school without a guardian, we would love for you to fill out this form with information we may need in order to reach you in an emergency or to communicate updates about any ongoing issues at the library after school.
Please give us some contact information in case of an emergency, or in case your student is unable to stay at the library for the day.
We are so thankful for our amazing Outreach Coordinator, Janice. Did you know she delivers books and other library materials to patrons who can’t come to the library? You can e-mail her at outreach@newport.lib.nh.us to be added to her route or to ask any questions. She makes deliveries and pickups on Fridays!
Thank you, Janice, for all that you do to keep the library services available to everyone in the community!
Overdrive, the company, is a vendor we use for downloadable library materials. Together with all the public libraries in the state of New Hampshire, we are able to purchase and lease shared content to offer a wide variety of downloadable ebooks, audio books, and magazines.
Overdrive, the app, is going away. Libby, the new app to access our Overdrive content, has been available for a few years now and will officially replace the Overdrive app on May 1st.
Libby is a very user-friendly app and Justine, our Library Director, has posted a few tutorials to help you get started with Libby!
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out by email to rfl@newport.lib.nh.us or by phone at 603-863-3430. You can also reach out to schedule a one-on-one appointment to learn more about Libby and how to access all of the great content right from your smart phone or tablet!
Check out Justine’s tutorials for Libby and other resources on our tutorials page.
When you think of an archive, what comes to mind? Do you usually picture a physical place with old and rare materials? While this is absolutely correct, modern technology has allowed for archives and preservation to be moved online and into digital archives.
Richards Free Library has a wonderful local history room that functions as our in-person archive, but I’m also developing our digital archives. There are many benefits to digitization and digital archives, and I hope that adding more materials to ours will serve as a benefit to our community.
Some of the exciting things about digital archives include easier access for homebound patrons and folks from out of town who are looking for Newport History. Digitizing also acts as preservation – physical materials deteriorate even with the best care, and are always at risk for loss or damage. Having a digital archive doesn’t mean the physical one goes away – it’s simply an additional way to access the materials!
So, what goes into digitizing?
While it can seem like a daunting process, all you really need is a scanner and a place to store the files. Some of the quickest materials to digitize are photographs, as they are single items and don’t require scanning multiple pages. However, with photographs you often have to be more aware of the resolution and color quality of your scanner than with text-based documents. Right now, RFL is still benefitting from the generous loan of a scanner from the New Hampshire State Library, and I am working my way through digitizing pictures from Newport’s past. The second part of digitizing is about resource description. Wherever your materials are ending up, they need to be easy to find. A description makes this possible. Photographs can be harder to describe than a document, especially if the photo has no description written on the back. Using things like subject headings and descriptive tags can help make photographs findable. We have some wonderful pictures of Newport’s past that I’m excited to share with our community! Stay tuned for updates on those projects.
We’re in the process of applying for a grant toget a scanner that RFL could have permanently, which would be a great asset to the archives. Digitizing is often slow and steady work, but permanent access to a scanner would allow for continuous additions to our digital archives.
As always, don’t be afraid to reach out to me if you have questions, a research request, or want to chat about Newport History!
Take care,
Juls
jsundberg@newport.lib.nh.us
We’re creating a new gaming collection for Richards Free Library. This collection will include board games, card games, video games, video game consoles, and all the accessories needed to run spectacular gaming programs here at the library.
COVID-19 cut into a lot of our programming just as it was ramping up, including our game nights. When we wrote this grant application, we had hoped we could get games into your hands and have you run your own game nights at home while we waited for it to be safe to bring game nights back to the library. Thankfully, it looks like we’ll be able to reinstate library game nights sooner rather than later! We’re planning after school gaming programs in the ballroom, family game nights, and board game lessons (we know some of these rule books can be intimidating!).
I know some of you are thinking “why games?” Games are really just another way to tell a story, and we’re pretty big fans of storytelling here at the library. Plus, games are a great way to engage teens who come to the library after school, looking for entertainment (and somewhere warm or cool to spend the afternoon). We also hope they’ll be a useful tool for families to find time to spend together.
We’re planning a “kick off” event on Saturday, June 4th, which just happens to be International Tabletop Day (a big day in board game circles). Join us at the library to check out the new collection, learn a new game, or play an old favorite. We hope to see you then!
We’re really excited about this new collection and the incredible grant money from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the New Hampshire State Library that made it possible.
If you have a game you’d like to recommend for the library, you can fill out this form!
