My day began with a really fine breakfast at George’s Linworth Diner with a good friend of almost 50 years visiting in Ohio from New Mexico.
After breakfast, my friend headed for Zanesville, and I figured that since I had already had a diner meal, why not make my library visit for this week. I got to thinking how nice it would be to take a leisurely country drive up along the Scioto River, so I decided to go to the Ostrander Branch Library in Delaware county about 23 miles NNW of where I live. The drive north along the east bank of the river was indeed quite lovely, especially along O’Shaughnessy Reservoir north of the Columbus Zoo and then the part on OH-149 between US-42 and US-36, where the road runs right along the river and at times seems like it’s tunneling through the trees.
Ostrander is a village of about 700 people near the western edge of Delaware County—just south of US-36 and midway between Delaware and Marysville. The library on the NW edge of the village is the smallest branch in the Delaware County District Library system at about 3500 square feet. Just inside entrance doors I found the Friends of the Library book sale shelf and an announcement of a folk music concert at the library for the 4th of July.
Proceeding on into the library, I could see down the length of the library past the circulation desk. I had a wonderful conversation with two librarians there about my retirement project visiting libraries. They informed me of some of the many activities at the library. Just 10 days earlier there was a Medieval Faire at the library. And I had just missed the morning’s Summer Yoga for Families.
On past the circulation desk is a very inviting children’s area set off by shelves with lots of books for younger children.
Off to the side is a nice meeting room with a colorful alphabet rug that looks like it might be a good place for a children’s story time. By the time I left some people were setting the room up for a COSI:CSI program for teens later in the afternoon—described as teens digging into real, true crime case files to explore the science that is part of criminal investigations.
Off to the left from the library entrance are the shelves for new books and adult fiction, and on down past them is a very nice well-lighted seating area. I spent some time browsing in the fiction shelves and found two books to check out.
Proceeding widdershins around the fiction stacks (one of my all-time favorite words—look it up if you need to) and on past the seating area and the racks of periodicals, I came to shelves along the wall containing books for teens and young adults. Turning back toward the circulation desk, I found four computers for the use of library patrons.
On the wall above the shelves is a hanging that depicts Ostrander landmarks (including, I noted, the Ostrander Presbyterian Church).
The two photos below provide a sense of the library as a whole: the one on the left is looking north from alongside the new books shelf; the one of the right is looking south from the children’s area back toward the library entrance. The high pitched ceiling and the green walls in this small library give it a nice, comfortable feeling.
As I walked around the library my eyes kept being drawn to the wingback chair near the entrance since I particularly like wing back chairs. This was a particularly comfortable one for sitting and reading for a while with a nice view back toward the circulation desk. I really enjoyed sitting there in the corner and reading.
Some time later I checked out the two books (below) that I’d found from my Amazon Want List, and the checkout slip informed me that by borrowing these two books instead of buying them I had now saved a grand total of $1,499.71 in the past year (which made me smile). I bid goodbye to the librarians and headed out to my car, looking forward to a return trip south along the west bank of the Scioto River on this hot summer day.
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