January 4, 2021

Dear Library Patrons, Members of our Community and Visitors:

We hope you and your families are doing well and staying safe as the pandemic unfortunately persists into the New Year.

During this difficult time, the Trustees and our Librarian are constantly challenged to provide essential Library services to our community while ensuring both your safety and that of our staff. This challenge is made all the more difficult because our Library is a small building with limited interior space to social distance appropriately.

We are reviewing recommendations issued by the State of New Hampshire and “best practices” put forth by the State Library to ascertain how to best serve the public while providing a safe workplace for our employees. We are being careful and thoughtful as we move towards reopening our Library. Hopefully, this will happen in the near future on a limited basis. Your continuing patience and understanding is much appreciated.

We welcome hearing from you during these challenging times. Please feel free to email the Trustees at chlibtrustee@atlanticbbn.net or call the Library at 603-253-6950 with your ideas, comments and suggestions about reopening.

Although our building remains closed to the public, we are now offering curbside pick-up to borrow books, CDs and DVDs. You place your requests through our website https://centerharborlibrary.org using your Library card, or you can email ch_library@metrocast.net or phone the Library. Inter-library loan is back in operation, so if what you want is not in our Collection, our staff can easily find it for you at another library. Curbside pick-up is available Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10am to 2pm.

If curbside service is not for you, please take advantage of our expanded online services. These services are provided at no charge to you through our website. You can download books using NH Downloadable Books, and stream videos, TV shows and music through Hoopla and Kanopy.

On a different note, the Trustees recently accepted the resignations of two of our valued staff.  After 8 years as our Library Assistant, Glenn Walter resigned in November, and our Librarian Jon Kinnaman retired on January 1st after 15 years of service. On behalf of the entire Nichols Library community, we sincerely thank Glenn and Jon and wish them the best.

A search is underway for our next Librarian. In the meantime, please join us in welcoming Lois Brady to our staff as Library Assistant. Many of you may remember Lois from when she worked for us during the past summer. We are fortunate to have her back with us.

In closing, we look forward to a truly “new” year at our Nichols Library. Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2021!

The Nichols Memorial Library Board of Trustees