The Library Vault

Secrets of Russell Library is over for another year. On three Fridays in October, staff led after-hours tours in the dark, telling visitors about the history of our old building and adding a few ghost stories. And with each tour I led, I secretly yearned to see some sign of the paranormal activity that staff had experienced in the building.

Disappointingly, nothing happened that first Friday. We had a lot of folks take the tours but other than our own spooky decorations, nothing else materialized. The second of week of tours was the same. I conducted the first tour of the final week and was once again disappointed.

As I neared the end of the final tour of the night, I had resigned myself to just telling stories of the unusual happenings that staff had experienced in what used to be the basement of the old church and was now our teen area.

But as my tour group entered the area, I spotted two CD racks with their drawers standing open.

Doesn’t sound very eerie, does it? However, our CD racks have drawers that open by themselves. Not a lot and not always the same drawers, but every now and then, the drawers mysteriously slide open.

After the last tour, we held Secrets After Dark, a fundraising event offering a chance to talk with members of the Eastern Connecticut Paranormal Society. The ECPS team investigated Russell Library twice, once in April 2023 and again in August 2023. (If you would like to read about those two investigations, check out my blog posts: Ghosts at the Library? and Eastern Connecticut Paranormal Society: The Second Investigation.)

They all knew about the CD drawers. Once I had finished the last tour, I spoke to one member of the team about it.

They trotted off to investigate. About 20 minutes later, a team member returned, looking excited.

“We closed the drawers and then jumped up and down, trying to create a vibration that would cause the drawers to open. They didn’t budge. Then, as we were leaving, one drawer slid open. We closed it and a few minutes later a different drawer slid open!”

That did it. A group of us trooped into the media area to watch the CD drawers. A drawer slid open. We closed it. Another drawer slid open and a member of our staff caught it on camera. I wondered if whatever or whoever was making the drawers open was having as good a time as we were.

A fitting end to our tours this year!

If you would like to hear more about what the Eastern Connecticut Paranormal Society found at Russell Library, you can attend Spirits of Russell Library on Saturday, December 9^th at 3pm. The ECPS team will discuss their fundings and the methods they use to prove and disprove claims of hauntings.