Ludington Library truly a community center now

Just in time for Ludington Library’s one year anniversary of its reopening, I found another hero, and this time he is a Republican: former Haverford Commissioner Charlie Bloom, Esq., who heads up the Lower Merion Library Foundation, raising private funds so that all six of the township libraries can be renovated and/or enlarged, just like Ludington and Bala Cynwyd.

Last week, I met Bloom and Margery Hall, head librarian, at Ludington Library and I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Just like falling down the rabbit hole and landing in a strange new world. That’s how different the Ludington Library is from the place I remembered, thanks to Vitetta Architects.

It starts with what is now the entrance from the parking lot. Instead of stairs, there is a ramp made of flagstone, inside the building, and the space created by the sloping entrance is called “The Gallery.” Paintings hang along one wall, and sculpture and ceramics are behind glass on the opposite wall. The featured artists are from the Center for Creative Works in Lower Merion.

Bloom donates so much of his time and talent that he and his committee have already raised more than half the private funds that he was charged to raise. That means $2.6 million in donations, and only $2.4 million to go. The township is supposed to be paying for the oil painting reproduction, which will total $28 million for all six libraries.

Hall said the crowds were so thick at the grand re-opening of Ludington that the electronic counters lost track. She figures more than 4,000 people came that day. The daily count since then is about 1,000 people.

When you enter the library, the first thing you see is New Books. And Hall showed me the Playaway section - that’s like a book on tape, except it is a small self-contained unit, with headphones. You can “read” the book while exercising, walking, any place any time.

There are Kindle downloads as well as ones for Nooks and the Sony Reader and iPads and any other electronic device you can name. And you can check your books out yourself on the electronic card reader, located just below the portraits of Charles and Ethel Ludington. Charles endowed the small existing library in the 1920s in memory of his wife Ethel. Their descendants, Nick Ludington and Ms. Fytie Drayton, are still around and have participated in the capital campaign. The original portrait of Ethel is by Cecilia Beaux, and that’s in a museum in New England. But Ms. Drayton donated an impressive and beautifully framed print of the original portrait.
There is a community room that is free to all organizations, and it is equipped with any audio-visual gadget you could want. Just beyond the community room is the original library with its beautiful dark walnut paneling. The handsome large oil painting of Independence Hall by Walter Biggs was donated by the Curtis Publishing Company in memory of Charles Ludington, who was an executive with the company.

Hall pointed out that the library had taken pointers from bookstores, and there are sections marked with large signs: gardening, travel, cooking, home improvement, etc.

Bloom is especially proud of the Teen Room, and Hall showed me the shelves of graphic novels. I spotted a table with built-in chess/checkers/backgammon board. Edie Dixon, widow of F Eugene Dixon, endowed the Teen Room in memory of her mother, Sarah Robb, who had served as president of the library’s board of trustees. The Teen Room is for those 12 to 18, and Bloom said that every library is destined to have one.

Bloom was delighted to point out a treasure which not too many libraries have: a complete set of Fortune magazines, courtesy of Stanley Ginsburg, who donated the collection and $25,000 for the shelves to hold them.

When a professor read about the donation, he showed up and was ecstatic. Seems for ten years he had been searching for an August 1946 copy of Fortune, and even the magazine headquarters did not own a copy. He needed it for his research, and he found it at Ludington.

The plaque in the newspaper and periodicals section lets you know that Julie Jensen Brysen donated in memory of her father, the physician James A. Jensen. John Bogle endowed the Business Section.

Upstairs you can see how the addition has doubled the Children’s Library. It now can be divided into two sections, according to age. I loved the C.A.T.T. sign on the wall. Hall explained it stands for “cars, airplanes, trucks and trains.” So any little kid interested in those four topics knows exactly where to go. The beautiful huge phonographs on the wall are the work of Hall’s niece, Jennifer Anist. The mural in the Children’s Room was created during the last renovation and was preserved and re-mounted and forms the backdrop for Story Time.

When oil and pastel painter Sara Qualey attended the John Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, Indiana in the 1960s, abstract art was in. But she didn’t see the world that way. When she saw a peach, she wanted to smell it, touch it, taste it, not throw it against the canvass and watch it go splat. For a time, however, she thought maybe she was lacking in some way. Luckily, she got over it. At 63 going on 64 years old, Qualey’s on a roll. Nothing can stop this woman from being who she is: an intensely concentrated, representational painter who eulogizes tin cans, light bulbs, extension cords, flowers, fruit, or anything that otherwise might end up in the trash or the compost heap.

Read the full products at http://artsunlight.com/!