Category: Library News

By Norma Marcellino, Chair, Eastham Public Library Trustees

By early Saturday morning, March 3, 2018, around 80% of Eastham residents were without power-the Library included.  The new Library has been opened for about 15 months and has a generator which works in the community rooms. Our intrepid Director, Debra DeJonker-Berry arrived round 7:00 a.m. and had the heat in the area up and running by 8:00 a.m.  The Trustees held a meeting from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. and the Library opened at 10:00.  Our residents started coming in and soon the large Meeting Room was set with tables and stations for everyone to charge their devices and use their computers.  A large coffee pot provided a hot beverage and computers were brought into this area so the Staff could sign out materials for the public. The Children’s Room was unavailable but games and materials for them were moved into a Conference Room and Periodical area.

A musical group of ukulele players, scheduled as part of a Saturday Music Series, entertained everyone in the afternoon in the reading room.  At the Library’s closing time of 4:00 p.m. it became an official “Warming Station” for the Town and remained open until 10:00 p.m.  A Disaster officer for the Town, Steve Kleinberg, was the supervisor.  The Police Chief decided to reopen the Library on Sunday at 8:00 a.m. (we are not yet open on Sundays) and since the Library’s power came back, library staff volunteered to come in to offer full Library services until 4:00 p.m.  The Police Chief sent a call to all the Town residents informing them of this timeline.

On Saturday, 499 people came into the Library, and there were still about 20 people there at 10:00 p.m. The Fire Department/Red Barn even sent pizzas over to those there on Saturday evening.  As someone without power who took full advantage of a place to charge my phone and warm up, I can attest to the amazing amount of good will that these offerings generated.  The atmosphere was electric and the Thank You’s to the Staff and Volunteers were many and heartfelt.  There was a wonderful sense of pride in our Town.  The Director worked closely throughout with Town officials.  She and the Staff made many decisions and will go forward from this experience for future events.  The Eastham Public Library became the “Community Center” we all envisioned during the many years of planning for the building and the building process itself. We are very proud of our Library but never more proud than we were on March 3^rd and never more grateful to the citizens of Eastham for their support.

Click here to see a Lower Cape TV video about Eastham Library becoming a warming shelter.

By Shelley Quezada, Consultant to the Underserved at the MBLC

The town of Chilmark on Martha’s Vineyard was once known for its larger than average population of traditionally Deaf residents.  Decades ago, in the Squibnocket area of Chilmark perhaps as many as a quarter of the population was Deaf.   On this part of the island, almost one out of every 25 people was Deaf compared with the national average of one in 5728.   Today  members of Deaf community may choose to communicate through American Sign Language (ASL) but in past decades a Chilmark a variant known as Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) was practiced by both Deaf and hearing members of the community alike.

The Chilmark Free Public Library maintains a fascinating record of this unique community in their historical archives. As it turns out, The American School for the Deaf (ASD) founded in Hartford CT in 1817 included many students from Martha’s Vineyard who used MVSL as their primary form of communication.

Chronicled in Nora Ellen Groce’s scholarly but accessible book Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language, up to a few decades ago Chilmark was something akin to a Deaf utopia where both Deaf and hearing members of the community freely used sign language as a primary communication vehicle.  People moving into Chilmark from the outside often ended up learning MVSL in order to fit in and indeed there was high acceptance of this communication tool. Most important in examining this fascinating story is the truth that being Deaf was never considered a handicap.

The Chilmark library’s archives note they are, “lucky to have documents of their evocative memories, and to enjoy their stories of how children signed behind a schoolteacher’s back; adults signed to one another during church sermons; farmers signed to their children across a wide field; and how fishermen signed to each other from their boats.”

However, over a seventy-year span, members of the Deaf community began to attend off-island schools, got married and settled in other places so that eventually many of these Vineyard natives either left or passed away. This absorbing piece of cultural history can be further explored through newspaper and magazine articles, a recent YouTube video and the archives of the Chilmark Free Public Library’s historical archives.

Suggested Resources:

Groce, Nora Ellen .Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language:  Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard. Harvard University Press, 1995.

Chilmark Free Public Library- Chilmark Deaf Historical Archive http://catalog.chilmarklibrary.org/pdf ^{[dead link]}

Vineyard  Poole-Nash, Joan (April 3, 2014). Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language (MSVL) of the past (Public lecture/YouTube video). Fall River, Massachusetts: Bristol Community College. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_euOAP8asw

http://archive.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/06/06/vineyards_deaf_past_is_retold_in_drama_of_signs_and_speech

Kageleiry, Jamie.  “The Island That Spoke by Hand” . Yankee. Mar 99. Vol 63 p.48.