The Library Vault

Have you visited our Activity Room lately? Even if you don’t spend much time with children, you may have been in this room for our Secrets of Russell Library tours in 2022 or 2023. Many Middletown patrons remember this room before the 1983 Lobby addition, when it was a freestanding children’s library. Some patrons even remember this room in its first life as a local bank.

In recent years, half of the Activity Room has been taken up with large rectangular tables that were impossible to move. Librarians from Russell’s Youth and Family Learning department used the tables for kids’ crafts and projects. The open half of the room near the windows served as a space for story times and other group activities.

In 2023, Russell Library received generous funding from Middletown’s American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA). We used some of that money to purchase oversized blue blocks, a new child-sized kitchen unit, stacking blue benches, and life-sized dinosaur bones that can kids can use to create entire dinosaurs! But where could we house them? We didn’t have much space left in the Activity Room.

With the help of our Facilities department, we dismantled the big tables and replaced them with foldable tables on wheels that we bring out as needed. We relocated the big campfire rug out from under the train table in the Virginia Hatch Room and placed it over the newly exposed floor tiles. The rugs protect little ones from bumps and bruises. We also purchased new green leaf rugs. Now we have a large, rug-covered area where kids can play with all the new toys.

Our Youth & Family Learning librarians love to play and we also love science. We wanted something big and friendly for kids to climb on, so we ordered a new friend name Sydney with additional ARPA funds. Sydney is a 9-foot-long stuffed climbing snake. Sometimes kids read books on Sydney. Sometimes parents play peek-a-boo on her. Sometimes kids stuff Sydney in our new giant tunnel. You never know what Sydney will be up to when you go into the Activity Room these days.

Since redesigning the Activity Room, we’ve been hearing from many families who appreciate having a free indoor play space. Parents and caretakers bring their kids here for low-key, low-cost playdates. During the week, we hold play-based programs like Play Pals and Fables & Frolic story time in the Activity Room in the mornings. The rest of the day, the play space is generally free for play.

In 2024, stay tuned for new movement-based programs on Friday mornings in the Activity Room. On the weekends, however, we will be moving most of our family story times and programs to the Hubbard Room to free up the Activity Room for unstructured play. So if you haven’t been to our new Activity Room yet, fall and winter are the perfect times. We’re open Monday-Thursday 9am-8pm, Friday & Saturday 9am-5pm, and Sunday 1-5pm through March.