Main Street News

Scoville Memorial Library – Salisbury, CT

Everyone, as the old saying goes, has a book in them. In a two-session workshop scheduled for Monday, August 3, and Tuesday, August 4, artist Lilly Rand will help you make a book of your own design and fill the pages with whatever inspires you — poetry, a story, favorite sayings or quotations, notes to yourself, a letter to a friend.

The time for both workshops is 1-3 p. m. Registration is required on the library website. Tweens, teens, and adults are welcome. Rand is also an art teacher at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.

Paper, binding and collage materials, drawing and watercolor materials, and a variety of art supplies will be provided. You’re also encouraged to bring your own materials, drawings, writing — anything you’d like to fill your book with.

In the August 4 session, the books will be completed, adding text or drawings, using collage materials, photos, watercolors, whatever you choose from our assorted art and collage supplies, or whatever you choose to bring from home.

Hudson Area Library – Hudson, NY

Primed to change jobs but could use a boost? Can’t hurt to have an expert give things an eyeball, or help with your overall approach to a prospective employer.

Nationally certified career services provider, Beth Gordon, will work with you one-on-one to bring your resume back to life or brush up on your interview skills to land that next job. Gordon is available by appointment for one-one-one sessions in person at the Hudson Area Library or by telephone, Skype, Zoom, or FaceTime. Email programs@hudsonarealibrary.org or call 518-828-1792 x100 to schedule a one-on-one appointment.

As the library notes, studies have shown that having a qualified person work through the process of seeking a job gives an individual a much greater chance of success. Beth Gordon provides professional development and advocacy to a diverse group of people who are out of work, looking to re-enter or join the workforce. She inspires and empowers individuals to achieve their career and life goals by consulting on resume writing, job search guidance, interview preparation and work ready assistance. Gordon has training to help with, not only resumes and interview skills, but online job applications, and finding the right market for your particular job skills. She has access to job search resources online and in our area and has successfully taken many people through the process of searching for a job.

Lee Library – Lee, MA

On Thursday, August 6, from 4-5 p.m., author Mills Kelly will present a talk on his new book, “A Hiker’s History of the Appalachian Trail.”

Describing himself as an “historian, a podcaster, a hiker and backpacker, a photographer, an author, and an award-winning educator,” recently retired from George Mason University where he taught history for nearly a quarter-century, Kelly has been hiking on the Appalachian Trail since 1971.

“To make sense of the experiences of all AT hikers over the past 100 years,” writes Kelly on his website, “I dug through hundreds of trail shelter registers, hiker accounts submitted to trail clubs, newspaper and magazine stories about the experiences of casual hikers, photographs, old films, and many other sources. What did those hikers eat 50 or 100 years ago? What kind of gear did they carry? Why did they go hiking in the first place? What was their relationship to the natural world they found along the trail? What was it like to hike as a woman, as a person of color, as someone with a disability? And how did all those things change over the 100 years of the trail’s history?”

Kelly has been a volunteer with the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club for almost 15 years, taking care of the trail, working as a co-maintainer of an historic cabin in Shenandoah National Park, and since 2018 has been the maintainer of the Manassas Gap Shelter, one of the original shelters built along the trail in the 1930s.