BUCKFIELD — At the June 2015 Buckfield annual town meeting, voters accepted making the library a full-fledged municipal department. The library trustees then turned the library, its contents and its trust funds over to the town and disbanded.

The library and the Buckfield Selectboard will instead receive ideas and projects from the Library Committee, which is an advisory committee appointed by the Buckfield Selectboard. Current Library Committee members include Buckfield residents Cami Warren, Cynthia Riley, Belinda Kleeberger, Michelle St. Pierre and Everett Tilton, plus Bill Glass from Sumner and Jen Adams from Hartford.

Katie Clukey is Zadoc Long Free Library’s  newly promoted assistant library director. She lives in Buckfield with her husband, Scott, and their cat, Zabra. Katie has been volunteering regularly for almost a year at the library helping run the fall, winter, and spring children’s weekly Story Hour sessions and Summer Children’s Reading Program. She has been a pre-school teacher and a nanny and is planning to complete her degree in early childhood education.

The Library Committee appreciates all the help the library received from Lynet Guthrie of Buckfield during the past nine months. She was an energetic and enthusiastic substitute assistant library director.

Currently, the Library Committee is meeting to create a plan to address the library’s unsafe lower front steps and to create two or three paved parking spots on the library’s side lawn off Loring Hill Road.

The library’s 2015 Children’s Summer Reading Program was a great success this year. Participating children read or listened to more than 200 books. There were also visits from Jordan Messan, a master drummer from Togo, West Africa; Farmer Minor and Daisy II the Pot Bellied Pig and Star Wars’ “Mandalorian Merks,” a family of Star Wars Cos-Players, including two sisters from South Paris.

On Sept. 7, Bonnie Santos and Katie Clukey hosted children on the library’s front yard lawn and distributed bubble blowers and snacks of apples and cantaloupe during the Community Day Parade. The Friends of the Library hosted the annual Book Sale at the Masonic Hall.

Teens are invited to come on alternate Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to noon, beginning Sept. 19, to help volunteer Bud Santos build a donated kit of a four-room, wooden, two-story doll house. The doll house will be raffled off in early December. Interested teens can contact Miss Bonnie at 336-2171 or by email at [email protected].

Fall Children’s Story Time will begin on Wednesday, Oct. 13, at the library. Sessions are scheduled from 10 to 11:30 a.m. and include time for crafts, snacks, creating community events or projects and show-and-tell or discussions.

Other on-going events include a fiber arts group from 6 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday nights, starting Oct. 14 and an adult book group that meets from 6 to 7 p.m. at the library on the third Monday of the month. Call the library for more information.

New ideas are in development to include a tea or coffee hour, once a month at the library. Suggestions for the time frame and day and a volunteer host or hostess is needed.

The Library Committee is looking into creating a monthly event on Saturday evenings where an artist can show her/his creations and discuss the processes they use and demonstrate how art is an integral part of the lives of us all. Anyone interested should contact the library.

Bud and Bonnie Santos are interested in creating a Readers’ Theatre at the library once a month, probably on a Monday evening from 7 to 8:30 p.m. to create simple radio plays for listeners. Adults, teens and children with parents will be welcome. Anyone interested should call 336-2171.

Teens reading to children is a great community service project. Buddy matches can be created for one-on-one partnerships or small groups of children can work with a teen mentor. Teen volunteers are needed, as well as young readers who would like an hour-long session with a teen at the library. Two adult volunteers are needed to organize and train the teen volunteers and monitor their weekly sessions. Contact Bonnie if you are interested.

The Library Committee is considering offering computer classes to adults. The cost would be $10 for each hour-long class and must be paid in advance with no refunds. Due to space, each class/seminar session will only have eight adult students. Contact Bonnie and/or Katie at the Library.

A program for parents with babies, “Learn American Sign Language And Play Together,” is under consideration. It can be scheduled for eight parents and eight babies on Saturday mornings, twice a month, for a 30-minute session. Anyone interested should call the library.

The library’s Web page and its Facebook page are in the process of being updated. A volunteer is needed to be the library’s Webmaster to help Bonnie and Katie.

There are 175 adult large print books and more than 100 adult audio books available on CD. Children and early readers book selections continue to expand. Used books and VHS tapes are for sale at the library.