Category: Inside Stories
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How to check out at the library with your phone.
If you’ve ever seen a librarian at Russell pointing their phone at a pile of books, they’re probably using Meescan. We library staff love to find good books and movies while we’re on desk, and when we do we’re the first to check them out. We’re a bit greedy that way, sorry. Using Meescan is…
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A Haunting Experience
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…
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Have you heard about the new Activity Room?
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…
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Storytelling at Russell Library
Winter is the season of storytelling. In some cultures, November 1st marked the start of the New Year: the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter. True to form, this year in Middletown the first frost came between the dusk of November 1st and the dawn of November 2nd. Now the remaining crops…
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Eastern Connecticut Paranormal Society: The Second Investigation
This time it was a dark and stormy night. I stood in the bay window of the old white house next door to the library that serves as extra office space and stared over at the library. I could see lights moving around the upper level of the tower. Thunder rumbled and lightning lit up…
The Library Vault 