George F. Johnson Library

This year’s raffle quilt is on display: “French Romance” by quilt artists Carol Bunnell and Sandy Minehan. Tickets are a dollar apiece or six for five dollars and proceeds go to support children’s programs here at GFJ. The drawing will be held September 11. Other quilts, some for sale, will be on display soon.

Join the fun this summer and enter to win a gift basket filled with “Literary Elements”. For every five books read, fill out a reading log and drop in the box in the adult area of the library. Winners will be drawn the week of August 4. Pick up your summer reading packets at the Adult Information desk, beginning June 26. The first 50 have a choice of a pen or book light bookmark!

GFJ will hold its third of five scheduled Petition Carrier Orientation Sessions on Saturday, June 14 from 10 till 11 AM in the library’s basement meeting room. There is no need to stay the entire hour, the forms and information can be relayed in 5 or 10 minutes. If you can commit to getting even just a handful of signatures it will be a big help. We have only attracted two volunteers at the first two sessions, and we have over 21,000 registered borrowers! We have until the end of August to complete the petition process.

Petition carriers and signers must be registered to vote in the Town of Union which includes Endicott, Endwell, Johnson City, and other areas. More information on the vote and the petitions process is available at http://www.gfjlibrary.org/?page_id=4528/a>.

For our non-resident patrons: At its June 2014 meeting the Library Trustees decided to increase the non-resident fee from $25.00 to $50.00 annually, per household, effective January 1, 2015.  This is the first increase in the fee in the 20 or so year existence of the fee, and brings the cost into line with what the average Town of Union taxpayer pays in support of the Endicott and Johnson City libraries.  The fee is per household, enabling everyone in a household to borrow items and use computers at all 43 libraries in the Four County System for a twelve-month period.  It does not apply to anyone who resides or owns real property in Broome, Delaware, Otsego or Chenango counties.  All such persons can obtain a free library card at any Four County System member library.

GFJ needs your help!  Along with the Your Home Public Library (Johnson City) we have not received an increase in funding since 2008.  We hope to place a proposition on this November’s ballot seeking an increase designed to fund the libraries for another four years.  But first we need to collect some 2,000 petition signatures.  We are in need of volunteers to help circulate the petition.  If you can commit to getting just ten signatures (or more!) please contact us at 757-2415 or en.ed@4cls.org.  We will be holding our first Petition Carrier Orientation Session at the library on Tuesday, June 3 from 7-8 PM – you can stop by anytime that hour or stop by the library at your convenience to get a copy.  Signers and carriers must be registered to vote in the Town of Union.  For more information and an FAQ click on the “News & Information” tab above, then on “Library Funding News.”  And thanks!

From GFJ’s Digital Archives: “The Great Wilno” aka “The Human Cannonball” is fired from a cannon 250 feet into the air (and thankfully into his net) during the annual E-J Workers Labor Day celebrations. The event took place in front of an estimated 50,000 spectators at En-Joie Park (behind U-E High School) on Sept,. 2, 1946. Read the rest of this entry »

Community Foundation for South Central New York – Broome Library Foundation’s Diane Brown and Laura Knochen-Davis present a $1250 award to GFJ Library Director, Ed Dunscombe and Village of Endicott Grantwriter Beth Putrino to digitize local newspapers from the 1930′s, as a part of GFJ’s Digital Archives Project.