John's Library Mission

The Tutwiler Library is small and not open many hours each week. But the library certainly has benefitted from the Sheil community but it's biggest fan and contributor is John.  Here is his update.

TUESDAY -

I made a visit to the Tutwiler Branch of the Tallahatchie County Library Monday afternoon to drop off a box of books I brought down.  This saved the cost of shipping it down.  I have been shipping stuff down here for several years now.  Last year we sent down a pallette full of books and DVDs before heading down so that it arrived while we were here, so I spent some time during the week helping Roshella the librarian sort through all the stuff.  I have been told that I can be a little compulsive about this activity, and last year, all those boxes were stored in the Sheil basement.  The Sheil staff were not sorry to see them go, so this year, everything has been shipped down a box at a time - or several boxes at a time, as the case may be.  

I recently discovered that the generous folks at Half-Price Books recycle tons and tons of stuff in two large bins behind the store.  HPB discards materials based upon how much room they have for it in the store and whether or not someone is likely to buy it, so they often thrown out books that are in perfect shape or practically brand new.  Then I found out that they also throw out DVDs, so I have been scavenging some of those as well.  The result is that eight boxes of materials arrived just before we did this year.  

(Note: Contributions to help pay for shipping are always gratefully accepted.)

The Tallahatchie County Library is small in size, staff, and budget, which is the main reason they can use the materials we send down, but also the reason that some of the boxes I shipped a few months ago are still sitting waiting to be unpacked.  Roshella the librarian has since been promoted to be the director of the whole system, so she is only in Tutwiler part of the time.  I suggested to the lovely woman running the Tutwiler branch yesterday that I could come in and help her sort through stuff.  She called Roshella and although I did not hear the other end of the conversation, I gather that her reply was something along the lines of, “Hurry up and lock the door before he has a chance to chance to change his mind.  

The library is only open from 3:00-7:00, Monday through Friday, a mere twenty hours a week, and it has closed completely at least once in the time that I have been sending stuff down here.  But when the doors opened at three o’clock yesterday afternoon five people promptly showed up.  Not bad for a tiny little town like Tutwiler.  And one of them was returning three of the DVDs I had sent down earlier.  When I started collecting them, the library had about twenty total.  Since then, I have sent down hundreds.  

So I have spent the last two afternoons helping to sort things in the library.  (Just for the record, this is not an excuse to stay out of the 86 degree heat, which feels like 92.)  The internet was down today, so I spent most of my time there re-shelving books and putting things in order in the children’s section.  Roshella tells me that this task is often made a bit more difficult as a result of the assistance of some of the library’s young patrons, who organize books by size, color, astrological sign, or some other category.  Never too early to cultivate a love of books.