518-842-1080 www.amsterdamlibrary.com

summer 2019

Amsterdam Free Librarysunday Book ClubThe Amsterdam Free Library’s Sunday Book Club has completed another year, with its discussion of “Educated” by Tara Westover on May 26th. The club will take a break for the summer and resume meet-ing about every six weeks beginning on September 15 at 2 PM at the library.

The book for September 15 will be ”Un-common Type” by Tom Hanks. Mary Ann Lewison will be discussion leader. The book will be available at the library some-time in August. The club is open to all and all ages are welcome.

October 27 at 2 PM will be the second club meeting; with “Sing Unburied Song” by Jasmyn Ward as the chosen book. Other books for the year and meeting dates will be chosen on September 15.

This past year the books discussed were “The Boys in the Boat”, “A Man Called Ove,” “Lincoln at Gettysburg,” “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet,” “Winter Sisters,” (A Poetry Day), and “Educated.” The discussion leaders were Jeff Shelby, Gloria Martucello, Mary Ann Lewison, Deb Glock, Karen Zack. John Naple has been the organizer.

21st Century Library Initiative A single hour will make a difference in your community. A single hour will help Amsterdam Free Library plan for its fu-ture.

The Library is seeking community input, not just about the Library, but also about the community as a whole. Obtaining this feedback is essential in developing a plan for the programs and services that the Library will offer in the years to come. The Library has already hosted one-hour workshops involving dozens of partici-pants, and the discussion has been wide-ranging and useful. Participants shared ideas about education, community revi-talization, recreational opportunities, job creation, transportation, environmental

concerns, and much more.

Yet, this is just the beginning of the pro-cess. Amsterdam Free Library welcomes the opportunity to host additional one-hour workshops for groups, small or large, who are interested in sharing their ideas for the future of their community. If you are interested in participating in this pro-cess, please reach out to the one of the contacts below:

Wade AbbottCommunity Relations SpecialistMohawk Valley Library Systemwabbott@mvls.info

Nicole HemsleyLibrary DirectorAmsterdam Free Librarynhemsley@mvls.info

Don’t want to miss another wonderful event or communiction from your library?

Sign up for e-mail communication today. Visit our website or facebook page to opt in.

The 2019 spring Culture and Travelogue ProgramThe 2019 Spring Culture and Travelogue Program was held on Thursday evenings in April and May. This year’s speak-ers were Michael and Jodi Feldman who spoke about their 600 mile Adirondack Mountain backcountry bike race. Dr. Roger Ramsanny shared his life experi-ences about his rise from poverty in Trini-dad to becoming the president of Hud-son Valley Community College. Christy O’Callaghan Leue spoke about winning a contest that enabled her to write about Portugal’s Azores Islands. Robin DeVito from FMCC shared her experiences about her step daughter’s wedding in Rwanda. Sister Kitty Hanley spoke about traveling to France with college students to find the roots of her religious order. We hope you can join us next spring.

If you would like to share your excit-ing travel or cultural experience with the community next spring please contact Ni-cole Hemsley or John Naple.

Bottle Drive ContinuesDid you know you can help support your Library just by returning your bottles and cans? You can donate the money from your bottles and cans to the Amsterdam Free Library. When returning the bottles and cans just tell them they are for the Amsterdam Free Library. 

Bottles and cans can be returned at:

Country Feed Store 5040 State Highway 30 or at 

Pic N Nickels 4303 Route 30 North Perth

Thanks for donation!

Amsterdam reADs Book of the Year. Winter sisters, by robin Oliveira

In Aug. 2018 the Amsterdam Reads Selection Committee chose 5 books for the community to vote on for the 2019 Book of the Year.   The 5 book choices were:  Winter Sisters by Rob-in Oliveira, Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, The Woman in the Win-dow by A.J. Finn, The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah, and Educated by Tara Westover.  Voting took place in Octo-ber, and the winning book, Winter Sis-ters, was announced in November.  

Several events were planned in con-junction with Winter Sisters.   First, a Kick Off Event was held in January 2019 at the library.  Bob Cudmore, the moderator, Skyped with Robin Olivei-ra, the author of Winter Sisters.  Pat-rick Naple, a meteorologist, discussed the epic blizzard that struck Albany in

1888.   From March 11 to 14, 1888, a Nor’easter immobilized the East Coast, dropping 46.7 inches on Albany. Oliveira modeled the blizzard in Win-ter Sisters after that storm.  

The second event was an Informal Book Discussion which was held in March at the library.   For the final event, Amsterdam Reads sponsored a bus trip to Albany in May.  A step on guide, Maeve McEneny from the Al-bany Visitor Center, highlighted places of interest discussed in Winter Sisters. The group viewed a home on the cor-ner of Madison and South Lake that may have inspired Dr. Mary’s clinic.

We stopped at Washington Park and viewed the tulips. Washington Park was once a burial ground. Approxi-mately 20,000 souls were moved to other burial grounds. The park is 81 acres and Dr. Mary’s clinic would have been on one side of the park while Van der Veers were on the other side. We could picture Jakob’s walk from one side to the other.

Lunch was enjoyed at Jack’s Oyster House, and then a guided tour of the Albany Institute of History and Art was provided.   We were able to see Ankhefenmut, the mummy.

A great time was had by all!

The Selection Committee is hard at work reading and choosing the 5 books for next year’s Book of the Year.  Look for our announcement coming in the fall of 2019. We would love to have you participate by reading the new selec-tion and participating in our activities!

Fossil found on the premises of the Amsterdam Free Library This past month, Library staff uncovered fossil remains of sea creatures in the retaining wall on the southern side of the library. First a large ancient coral was found. Upon further investigation, more fossil material was found, this time belonging to a flower like sea creature called a crinoid. The fossils were found in the retaining wall on the library’s southern side.

The building materials in the retaining wall are mostly limestone and dolostones and were more than likely taken from a quarry in the city of Amsterdam. We be-lieve the wall itself was built there sometime before the library itself. Much of the city of Amsterdam sits on bedrock called the Amsterdam Limestone formation. This rock was laid down roughly 450 million years ago in a time pe-riod scientists call the Ordovician, meaning that 450 Million years ago, the city of Amsterdam sat at the bottom of a tropical shallow sea. This sea was filled with many unusual sea creatures.Like: the first sharks, crab like creatures called trilo-bites, sea scorpions and small armored fish. On the seafloor, Corals and sponges were common. The coral found at the library was a coral called favosites. (Fav-O-Site-ees) or A honeycomb coral for short. Corals as a group first appear roughly 575 million years ago, making Amsterdam’s Ordovician aged corals some of the world’s old-est. The Crinoid we found was small and we only located the stalk, (called a col-lumnal) It would have eaten debris that floated close to it, much like today’s sea anemones. Crinoids still exist today but their descendants take on two forms, some float through the water (These are called feather stars) and some crinoids retained their stalk and survive the same way their ancestors did.

Sources:Wikimedia Commons, Historical Geology 4th edition, by Wiccander and Reed, Union College Geology department (Field Trips in the Schenectady area, 1965)

Flower Beds at the Amsterdam Free Library

The Amsterdam Free Library has applied for a grant to make the flower beds in front of the library and near the parking lot a floral display that is worthy of the 1902 historic Carnegie Library. Several Master Gardeners have been consulted. Day Lilies and Daffodils and Tulips are high on the list for our garden.. Several persons and groups have helped in past. It is hoped that they and other volunteers can be formed to care for and maintain the restored flower beds. If you are inter-ested please contact Nicole Hemsley or John Naple.

Friends’ CornerDownsizing and Decluttering

In January 2013 Marni Johnson stood paralyzed on the threshold of her childhood home, a fully loaded house where her parents had lived for nearly fifty years. This is how she described that moment in her book Downsizing the Family Home:

“Waylaid by emotion and the respon-sibility for doing the right thing – whatever that was – with my parents’ lifetime worth of possessions, I felt ill equipped.”

Sound familiar? Whether you are dealing with your parents’ belongings or your own things, we all know that things can have an intense hold on us. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind.”At different times in our lives we have to decide which things are impor-tant enough to keep. You might have stumbled upon this dilemma as part of the tiny house movement or the zero waste challenge. Perhaps you merged

two households. At least those chang-es are voluntary. The task seems more difficult when brought on by an unex-pected health issue of a loved one or a death in the family. You must be pre-pared to make thousands of decisions.Mary MacVean in an article in the Los Angeles Times on 3/21/14 said: “Consider these statistics cited by pro-fessional organizer Regina Lark: The average U.S. household has 300,000 things from paper clips to ironing boards.” Imagine deciding what to do with 300,000 items.

There are many books that can help you through it. I found these two par-ticularly helpful when faced with ma-jor downsizing tasks: Downsizing the Family Home by Marni Johnson and Let It Go by Peter Walsh.

Marni Johnson was tasked not only with handling all the possessions her parents had accumulated over nearly 50 years but also with selling their house. She talks about making rough cuts first: toss, sell, donate, and keep. When deciding what to keep she says you should consider condition and quality. She advises doing your home-work when handling valuable items. Separate them and then ask a certified appraiser to give them a closer look and give you a marketable cash value. There is terrific information about set-ting up and pricing items for an estate sale.

After the estate sale, a substantial part of Marni Johnson’s book discusses updating her parents‘ house before putting it on the market. Area by area she walks you through all the steps and gives you the cost as well. The up-grades included stripping wallpaper, painting, updating floors and mold-ings, painting the kitchen cabinets inside and out, tiles, faucets, light fix-tures and blinds. All this was complet-ed in one month at a cost of $14,500. Of course you would be hard pressed to do all that in one month or at that

price today. I think you would need to double both the time frame and the costs, but the advice on the types of things to consider is priceless.Peter Walsh in Let It Go gives wonderful advice on how to approach stuff. He recommends starting with the objects you never really liked and things you re-gret having paid too much for. Gifts you hold on to out of a sense of obligation but that you don’t use. Books you don’t read, and bakeware you don’t use. These are all candidates to be recycled or trashed. His guiding advice is to ask “What will mark your achievements? Who are you? What provides you with comfort and creates meaning?” And the overriding condition is that “Every possession must earn its keep.”

Walsh lists three categories of things: Important items that mark peak experienc-es 5%; I might need it items 80%; and trash or recycling items 15%. He walks you through each category and helps you assess which ones are important to you. He emphasizes eliminating things that remind you of negative or painful moments.His book talks about pacing yourself and even finding time to exercise and med-itate. He counsels you to plan easy meals in advance and to be sure you have the ingredients on hand. Your commitment can be as little as two hours a day. You can proceed area by area (kitchen, living room etc.) or category by category (clothes, photos, dishes etc.). “The secret of getting started is breaking your com-plex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on the first one.”

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The Amsterdam environmental study Team meets Here at Our Library

The Amsterdam Environmental Study Team is an award winning, year-round, science based youth development pro-gram for youth ages 12–18 yrs. old, living in the Amsterdam area. The Schoharie River Center Inc. runs the program, and meets regularly on Thursdays, after school from 4–6 pm, at the Amsterdam Free Li-brary. We get young people out-doors where they learn about local ecology and how to conduct environmental research by actively studying and documenting the water quality of our local streams, rivers, and lakes. We go out into the field and learn how to do the work to conduct wa-ter chemistry testing, Macro-invertebrate assessments, documenting our findings, and presenting our research to the public. In EST we like to hike, bike, and cross-country ski, all in the name of science and having fun. However, on the more seri-ous side, we are committed to doing what we can to make Amsterdam and the sur-rounding area a better place live and grow up. All the while, having experiences and learning important skills that will help each of our youth prepare for a bright fu-ture. If this sounds like something, you are interested in, or, if you know of a young person who would be interested in joining our team have them get in touch with EST. Its free and its fun.

Contact John McKeeby, Executive Direc-tor, at the Schoharie River Center at 518-875-6230, or e-mail us at SchoharieRiver-Center@juno.com.

Want to learn more about EST check out our video at: www.schoharierivercenter.org

Amsterdam urban ecology Field school provided by the Environmental Study Team Program at the Amsterdam Library

A Five-day ecology studies field school programs for youth ages 12-17 yrs. Led by experienced field biologists, the pro-grams will run generally from 9 am-4 pm and begin and end at the Amsterdam Free Library. Participants will study watershed ecology through conducting hands-on as-sessments of water quality of local streams, rivers and lakes in the Schoharie and Mo-hawk watersheds. Each field school fo-cuses on various environs and locations in

the area. We will assess water quality, wa-ter chemistry and conduct macro inver-tebrate analysis. Our programs integrate the study forest ecology, wildlife, and the impact of invasive species. Programs use hiking, cycling, and boating to get to vari-ous study sites throughout the week-long Field School. Cost: $250.00 / per person for the week.

A sliding scale and scholarships maybe available. Contact the SRC at 518-875-6230 or register on-line at www.schohari-erivercenter.org.Learn how to: •Conduct field research•Collect macro invertebrates and study

their habitat•Use digital cameras and video cameras•Read maps, use a compass and a GPS•Make friends, have fun and get wet!

Other books offer hints such as: Start in the basement. Forgot you had it? Then you won’t miss it!I like the idea of choosing to keep rath-er than choosing what to let go. Con-sider your various designated spaces to be containers. Take everything out and choose what to keep. Once full, if you find something else you would like to keep, swap out something of less importance.

My favorite books are available on line through the Library Libby application. Others can be found and borrowed at the Library by searching for books on downsizing or decluttering. And if you are lucky you may find these and other helpful books at our next book sale.

Consider all this a worthwhile chal-lenge. Ask a friend to help and re-member the best things in life aren’t things!

Save the Date – Take the Garden TourThe 3rd annual Garden Tour is sched-uled for July 13, 2019 . This year we hope to provide a shuttle bus to take people around to the various gardens. Tickets will be $10 to ride the tour bus or $15 per car if you prefer to go around on your own.

Join the Friends of the Amsterdam Library

Every Library needs the support of its Friends. Sign up forms are at the Li-brary or can be obtained by email at: RBarger5@juno.com

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Local Artist showcase Each month, beginning in January, 2017, the Amsterdam Free Library has displayed the paintings and photo-graphs in the community of talented local artists. The Friends of the Library host an artist reception. Refreshments are provided and the artist is welcomed and is available to share their work.

Our first local artist was painter was Kathy Oakes. She is shown here with some of her beautiful work.

Our most recent photographer was Stephanie Obkirchner. Here is a picture depicting her photographic talents.

Our July artist is Susan Peters. Susan is a watercolor artist. She graduated from Gloversville High School and SUNY Cobleskill with an AAS in Nutrition Services. Susan worked for St Mary’s Hospital for 23 years and Sunnyview for 7 years until she retired. She be-gan painting in 2011 during her win-ter stays in The Villages of Florida. She pursued her love of watercolor painting and took class with Rebecca Swartz.

Susan and her granddaughter Ellie Peters are providing watercolor class-es for children in the community at special events - the Amsterdam Rec-reation Department is having Italian

Fest and Kids Night out. She has also started watercolor painting classes for the Sanford Home Ladies where she is on the Board.

Susan is happy to be giving back to the young and old of our community as she feels there is so much joy in art!

Susan’s art will be on display. Her re-ception date is Thursday July 11, 2019 from 6:00-7:30. Please stop by to speak with her and view her artwork. Here is a sample.

Our August artist is Marion Kratky.

Working primarily in oil, Marion’s fo-cus has been on landscapes of the Ad-irondacks.   Color, texture and brush-work are evident and communicate their visual qualities in each painting.

She has earned numerous awards for her artwork. Her recent awards include her painting Hatch Creek, awarded Best of Show at the Paul Nigra Center’s Winter Show January 2019. She has also been the recipient of the  People’s Choice Award, North Country Arts Center, February 2019 as well as the Mary Garrison Memo-rial Award, Cooperstown Regional Art Show May-June 2019.

Marion participates in many regional shows and has her artwork displayed at the SVAN Gallery and Gift Shop, 305 South Main St., Northville and the Vail Mills Visitor Center Gallery. She is a founding member of Rotary’s Wood-working and Fine Arts Show. Marion currently lives in Northville, on the Great Sacandaga Lake, with her hus-band Michael.

This is her painting “Waterways.”

Watch for Marion’s reception coming in August! She would love to have you stop by and enjoy her work.

Our September is Peter Michalski.

Peter Michalski is a lifetime Amster-dam, NY resident.  He has always been interested in art, which began in his school years.  Early inspiration came from his mother who began doing oil and watercolor paintings in night school.   He was also inspired by his sister and they both became members of the Amsterdam Art League in the 1970s.  It was there that he met many great local artists.  He started painting with oils but watercolor won out.  Over the years, he continues to paint peri-odically and has received a few “Hon-orable Mention” awards at the Haga-man Art Show and prior to that, at the Walter Elwood Museum Art Show.  He resides in the town of Amsterdam with his wife and they enjoy time with their two married sons and have three grandchildren. 

Here is a picture of one of his beautiful paintings.

HurrY!!! Limited seating and tickets are selling fast.