Somehow I thought I’d posted about this earlier, but I hadn’t on this blog. As a little summer project, I’m visiting every public library in Rockingham County, New Hampshire. Rockingham is in the southeastern part of the state and includes all of New Hampshire’s 18-mile seacoast. There are no big cities. Portsmouth, which I think is the only city in the county, has about 22,000 people. Three towns are bigger. The difference between a town and a city in this state is the form of government, not the population. Derry, the biggest town in the state at about 34,000, has two libraries, and the people at the smaller one in East Derry firmly say it’s not a branch library.

It’s been an enjoyable project. Many of the buildings have some noteworthy history, and the people are always interesting to talk to. It’s common for town libraries to have an original building from the nineteenth century and an expansion built onto it. In one case, Seabrook, the old library was bodily moved so it could be attached to the new one. One library building started life as part of a firehouse, another as a barn. One librarian has worked at the same library for 50 years.

Some of them have odd parking issues. At one, the entrance to the parking lot was unmarked and went around the back of a church, while the exit had a conspicuous “DO NOT ENTER” sign. The directions could be very easy for others. By leaving home and going up the road that starts as Main Street, I was able to hit four libraries, counting my local one.

An album of the libraries I’ve visited is on Flickr.

As I’m writing this, I have two libraries left to visit. Also, I somehow don’t have photographs of the Atkinson and Portsmouth libraries, even though (because?) I’m there a lot. There’s snow in the picture of the Plaistow Library because the picture is from last winter.