Special Events

Friends of the Library 2012 Annual Meeting
Sunday, January 29th from 2:00–4:00 PM at the Southside Library
Everyone welcome!

Our special guest will be C.S. Merrill, author of two books about Georgia O’Keeffe. C.S. Merrill spent seven years of weekends with Georgia O’Keeffe from 1973-1979, working as librarian, secretary, cook, nurse, companion, confidante, reader, and caregiver. Her journal from that time was published by the University of New Mexico Press as Weekends with O’Keeffe. In his column in the Santa Fe New Mexican Marc Simmons included this volume in a list of six most notable books of 2011 in New Mexico. La Alameda Press published her book of poetry, O’Keeffe Days in a Life, in 1996. Merrill will describe her experience, read from both books, and answer questions. These books contain rare insight into the life of Miss O’Keeffe as she was losing her vision, facing old age and death. C.S. Merrill has loved serious reading and writing since early childhood, but did not publish much until she was encouraged to do so by Georgia O’Keeffe. She became very active in the world of poetry and playwriting and worked overseas teaching English as a Second Language in China. Trips to Europe, China, Japan, and Peru continue to inform her poetry. After 30 years of teaching, Merrill has retired to be volunteer librarian at Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, New Mexico. Before that for eleven years she was librarian at Santo Domingo Pueblo School and Cochiti School as well.

2nd Annual Santa Fe Alternative Gift Market

Shoppers enjoyed free Java Joes coffee, hot cider, and holiday-baked goods while choosing gifts that benefit those in need at the second annual Santa Fe Alternative Gift Market. The shopping list for the Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library included books and DVDs for the library, sponsorships for Children’s Programs, prizes for the Summer Reading Program, computers for the Teen Afterschool Homework Program, and supplies for the Books-and-Babies Program and the Feed-A-Teen Program.

The Market began with a grand opening celebration Friday, December 16th and continued through the weekend at the DeVargas Center in Santa Fe.

Santa Fe Mayor David Coss cut the ribbon to officially mark the opening of the Second Annual Santa Fe Alternative Gift Market on December 16th. With the mayor, from left to right, is Tony Princ, executive director of Alternative Gifts International who flew in from Wichita, Kansas; actress and author Ali MacGraw with Pat Hodapp, director of the Santa Fe Public Library System; and, in front is five-year old Keifer Fitzgerald who was the first official shopper at the gift market. He selected as his purchase a night in the Interfaith Shelter. (Photo by James McGrath Morris)

Dedication of the Vanity Bench

 

Peggy van Hulsteyn at the dedication of the Vanity Bench honoring her literary calico, Vanity, narrator of The Diary of a Santa Fe Cat, at Southside Library. (October 2011)

Farewell to Wayne Hammar

 

Wayne Hammar accepts a farewell gift from Co-Presidents Alana McGrattan and Susan Sheldon in appreciation for his six years of service to the Friends as Administrative Assistant. (September 2011)

James McGrath Morris at the 2011 Annual Meeting

 

James McGrath Morris, author of Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print and Power, and Andrea Gross, outgoing Co-President, after Morris’s dynamic presentation about the epic rise and tragic decline of Joesph Pulitzer, the American icon who transformed the press and created the modern mass media, at the Friends Annual Meeting on January 30, 2011. (Press Release)