North Haven Public Library Hosts Rotary Club

In the spirit of the holidays, Lois Baldini, the Director of the North Haven Library, recently warmly welcomed the members of the Rotary Club with a delicious breakfast buffet.  Assisting her were two key staff members, the Assistant Director, Patricia Dortenzio, and the Reference Librarian, Nancy Haag.

During a tour of a resource area long supported by the club, the members were reminded that back in 1980, the North Haven Rotary Club had donated $800 in seed money to the community’s public library to open a job information center where town residents could go to utilize a shelf of donated books and materials in order to investigate various employment opportunities.  She added that since that first donation, the club has donated over $34,000.  Today, several shelves include books, computer programs, study guides, etc., totaling 636 items which were “checked out” 825 times in the past year.

Located on the main floor, the “Rotary Job and Career Corner” has expanded to not only include books on job hunting, study guides, instructions on writing cover letters, etc., but it also provides volumes about locating colleges, starting a small business, and even focuses on specific careers, such as firefighter, or Registered Nurse. The resources cover a broad spectrum of ages and educational levels and may be borrowed by state residents in the library consortium for a maximum of 28 days.

It was further noted that John Henry Graef, Jr., a 35 year member of the Rotary club, was instrumental in the action that was taken initially, and he serves on the library’s board to this day. Graefstated that, although he originally approached the administration at the high school to propose the idea for a career center in the school library, when the offer was declined, he approached the director of the public library where the idea was accepted with enthusiasm. In retrospect, Graef said that he is pleased that the collection is in the public library because of the greater degree of exposure it provides to everyone.

Nancy Haag said that since the downturn in the economy and the loss of many jobs, the “Corner” has been very busy. She said that there are also several computers for public use in order to research job opportunities and to submit resumes since most companies require that resumes are emailed to them.