WELCOME TO THE BECKET ATHENAEUM
In 1887 a small group of people from Becket met "to maintain a library, reading room, and to promote education, temperance, morality, good citizenship and the general welfare". The incorporation papers were signed by the secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on March 8, 1888, establishing the Becket Athenaeum, Inc. A board of trustees has governed the Athenaeum since that time.
About this time Miss Blanche Perkins purchased a building used in Becket as a saloon and gave it to the library, "to remove from the community a source of evil and to substitute a fountain of good". However, on November 4, 1927 a tragic flood destroyed a portion of Becket Village and the records of the library from 1888 to 1927 were lost. After this tragedy, Miss Cerelia Snow donated her Pleasant Street home to the library and it remained there until 1965. This building was somewhat isolated from the rest of the town so when the trustees were offered the Becket Grange, formerly the First Congregational Church built in 1849, they hired an architect to redesign the interior so it could be functional as a library. The library remains in this building today and serves the people of both Becket and Washington.
SERVICES
BOOKSThe Becket Athenaeum has a permanent collection of nearly 17,000 fiction and non-fiction books for adults and children. In addition to these books the Western Massachusetts Bookmobile brings materials from their extensive collection every eleven weeks. At this time around 300 books are exchanged providing a variety of fiction and non-fiction for all ages that otherwise the library could not afford to purchase. Books may be checked out for two weeks.
VIDEOS AND AUDIOSThe Athenaeum now owns over 1200 video and DVD’s and has increased purchase of books on tape as well, bringing that total to about 300 items for patrons’ home use. In addition to this when the regional Bookmobile comes the library exchanges around 200 videos and audios from their extensive collection.
INTER-LIBRARY LOANA fine feature of the Massachusetts Library System is the Inter Library Loan service. Staff can order patron requests for items the library does not own according to title, author or subject through CWMARS and Western Massachusetts Regional Library System. These items usually take a week or two to arrive through the weekly van delivery from WMRLS and come from numerous libraries throughout the country. Patrons can borrow them for two weeks.
NEW MATERIALSThe staff purchases new books, DVD’s, and audio books every four weeks keeping in mind patron interest and collection needs. The library receives many donations of new books from generous patrons that add to the permanent collection. In 2006 the Athenaeum was awarded memorial funds from various patrons for specific items. There were also two large memorial grants from The Beatty Family and the Elizabeth Wilson Family for children’s books, that helped the library update and enrich a much out dated part of the library’s children’s section.
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