FALMOUTH – Jill Erickson, book lover, recently removed an accumulated 30 years worth of resources from the Falmouth Public Library. How? She retired.
Those resources seemed almost like a permanent part of the collection to many people who love the library, but those resources are no longer readily available to library patrons.
Erickson, the longtime head of reference and adult services at Falmouth Library, is the owner of the well-read brain that possesses those 30 years worth of research, accumulated knowledge and lessons from a curious life well lived.
“That kind of knowledge and that kind of experience, that is not replaceable right now,” said Sue Henken, a reference librarian who has worked at the library with Erickson for the past three years. “The rest of us are going to have to learn.”
A Question For The Reference Desk
I had a Dewey Decimal system question. I asked around. Where would a hypothetical book be filed about, say, a beloved local librarian who has recently retired after decades on the job?
Biographies? Books about libraries? I was led to 920s or 025s, but I was also emphatically told that Jill Erickson would have the answer.
So I asked by email.
Erickson replied, “Definitely the 920s, but I also think it could be turned into a novel!”
From the beginning: Books! Books! Books!
Of course Erickson remembers her first book.
“What a miracle it was,” Erickson said of her experience reading ‘The Cat In The Hat’ at age 4 in the “can’t imagine anyplace better to grow up” town of Plainview, New York on Long Island. She was in her bedroom with her best friend, Lisa Domenico when the miracle happened.
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