Meekins Library

09/04/2026

09/04/2026

Pokemon Club is back! Join us the 2nd Wednesday or Thursday of each month. Bring your cards if you have them, but you don't need to know how to play.

09/03/2026

For All Those Who Labor:
This rewind has become a tradition at Meekins—to say thank you to our communities near and far. This is for all of you.
Whether you work in the garden or in the kitchen, or on the farm or in the library. Whether you work with words on a computer or with pencil and paper, or with complicated machinery, or simple tools, or in an antiseptic environment or in the dirt.

Whether you drive a truck, fix cars, create art, heal people, minister to people, design systems, teach children, mentor adults, build houses, keep a shop, grow food, serve food, grow flowers, feed people, keep things organized, fly a plane, serve the town, the country or the world as first responders, protect our community and our country or take care of your family and friends. Whether you have an unusual job or a more traditional job.

Whether you work for yourself or for another. Whether you work from your home or away from home. Whether you are in your first job or your last job, or your favorite job, or the job you need. For all of you who toil in any way—this Labor Day, 2026, we at Meekins Library salute you! Thank you for laboring for all of us. Daria D’Arienzo, Meekins Archivist and photographer. ; .

09/02/2026

See what's new this week at the Williamsburg Public Libraries at:

*** http://wowbrary.org/nu.aspx?fb&p=6725-816 ***

There are four new bestsellers, 20 new audiobooks, 23 new children's books, and 82 other new books, including 72 that are available online.

The new bestsellers this week include "What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking: Make It Fast," "The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State," and "What to Make of a Life: Cliffs, Fog, Fire and the Self-Knowledge Imperative."

08/27/2026

Gristmill and East Main, Late Summer, c. 1900: The trees are full but not yet big enough to obscure the view, big puffy clouds are in the sky—it must have been a warm day, c. 1900. With a picket fence in the foreground and the metal bridge crossing the Mill River close, we are just up on Nash Hill, perhaps near #4, looking west southwest across the bridge on East Main. The gristmill on Mill Street is on the far left. The Hiram Hill house ( #10 East Main) is at center, and the Russell Hill house ( #11 East Main) is at right. Today, in 2026, this mill, built after the Mill River Flood of 1874 washed away the original building, is part of the Williamsburg Historical Society, and the Hill homes, both of which survived the Flood, are now beautifully renovated and restored private residences.

If you look closely at the lawn to the right button manufacturer Hiram Hill’s large house, you will see what perhaps looks like a woman in a white dress, and a dog lying in the grass. Who might they be?

This is one of a small collection of Henry Everett photographs taken in Williamsburg at the turn of the 20th century. In the 1980s his daughter donated a handful of photographs to the Meekins Library, and they are now part of the Local History Collection. Daria D’Arienzo, Meekins Archivist. ; .

08/26/2026

See what's new this week at the Williamsburg Public Libraries at:

*** http://wowbrary.org/nu.aspx?fb&p=6725-815 ***

There are four new bestsellers, one new movie, 23 new audiobooks, two new children's books, and 41 other new books, including 68 that are available online.

The new bestsellers this week include "Delusional," "Cooking con Omi: A Love Letter to Puerto Rican Home Cooking," and "Immortal Rose." The new movie this week is "Project Hail Mary."

08/24/2026

🌶️Thank you to everyone who joined us for this past weekend’s Salsa Showdown! We had so many delicious entries, and the competition was incredibly close, with many of the final votes separated by just one or two points!

🏆 Congratulations to our winners!
Mild Category: Dolly Hanson (peach salsa)
Hot Category: Oscar Schiff (pineapple habanero salsa)

A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to make and submit a salsa. Your participation made this event a success, and we couldn’t have done it without you.

📣 A reminder to our salsa makers: Leftover salsa jars and containers are available for pickup at Meekins Library during open hours this week.

08/21/2026

Tomorrow (8/22/26) is the last day to return your reading logs & bingo boards. Stop into Meekins to claim your tickets and prizes!

08/20/2026

Helen E. James House on an old Summer Day and a new Summer Night: The vintage summer image of the James house, all decked out with summer awnings, trellises along the porch columns and lush plantings, is a “real photo postcard” c. 1915, from the studio of the Eastern Illustrating Company, in Belfast Maine. The young R. Herman Cassens started his niche company in 1909—at the turn of the 20th century when post cards were a popular way of keeping in touch with family and friends with pictures and words. And they were often saved by the recipients for years.

Eastern Illustrating Company postcards were actual photographic prints—distinguishing them from the usual mechanically reproduced postcards that were the standard.

According to the Penobscot Marine Museum, Cassens’ idea was to travel to all (at the time) 48 states to photograph local landmarks, street scenes, country stores and businesses, events and people in the small towns of New England and New York. He and his photographers captured the life of these rural communities until 1947. The more than 50,000 exposed glass plate negatives they made on the road were sent back to the studio “factory” in Belfast, Maine, where they were processed and printed. The postcards themselves were sent to general stores for sale at “2 for 5 cents.”

In Williamsburg, the c. 1890 shingle style Helen E. James mansion was a local landmark—exactly the kind of thing the Eastern Company would photograph for their postcards. In 2026 the house still offers a striking image on a summer night.

Vintage “real photo postcards” by companies like the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company are widely collected today. This vintage postcard is part of Meekins Library’s Local History Collection. The Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine, now holds the photographic negative collection of the Eastern Illustrating Company and can offer more history and a tour through many real photo postcard images at: https://penobscotmarinemuseum.org/eastern-illustrating-publishing-company/. Daria D’Arienzo, Meekins Archivist and 2026 photographer. ; .