WELLSBURG - To help the Brooke County Public Library adopt the latest technology, the Brooke Area AARP Chapter is stepping into the past.
And the group invites area residents to join them for a Victorian tea to be held at 2 p.m. July 28 at the Wellsburg Moose Lodge.
Tea sandwiches, Jell-O salad, vegetable chips and cookies will be served by men from the chapter.
Article Photos
TEA TIME — The Brooke Area AARP Chapter will hold a Victorian tea party on July 28 to raise money for the Brooke County Public Library to provide e-books. The event will be held at 2 p.m. at the Wellsburg Moose Lodge. Donning period clothing to announce the special event are, seated, from left, Grace Nickoles; Nancy Patterson, event chair; and LaVaughn Coulter; and back, Cathy Sykes, Cathy Cipoletti, Bill Reck and Mary Cay Lyle. Louis Hensler and Reck are the group’s community service chairs. -- Warren Scott
Victorian attire is optional, though several planners of the event said they had fun dressing for the period for a photo to promote it. Attendees also may bring their favorite cup and saucer.
Tickets are $10 each, with proceeds going to help the library make e-books available to the public. They may be purchased at the library or by calling (304) 737-0654.
Friends of the Brooke County Library members are helping it to gain access to a downloadable network needed to obtain the books, and the AARP event will raise funds for the books themselves, said Nancy Patterson, event chair.
Mary Kay Wallace, library director, explained the Friends group is providing the one-time membership fee of $1,500 required of West Virginia Reads, a database through which the library may make e-books available to its patrons.
The Friends of the Library also is helping the library with a $1,000 annual fee for the database.
The cost for the books is expected to be at least $962 per year. Wallace said the number of available books will depend on the funds raised. The books may be downloaded to Nooks, Kindles, iPads and laptop computers by entering one's library card number.
She hopes to make the service available to library patrons in the fall.
"This has been a dream of mine for the last four years. We're very fortunate the Friends (of the Library) were receptive to the idea as well as the executive board of (Brooke) AARP," Wallace said.
She said e-books have been requested by many older patrons who have received e-readers as gifts, and she also sees the service appealing to local students who have grown up around such technology.
Wallace said she sees libraries offering both traditional and electronic books for the foreseeable future but she believes it's important for libraries to keep up with changing technology.
Under her leadership and with the support of the library board, the library became Internet-accessible.
(Scott can be contacted at wscott@heraldstaronline.com)
