Join the Friends & Join the Fun! 

Please consider becoming a member of the Friends in addition to being a card-carrying library user! Members receive the qurterly Rockland Reader newsletter and receive advance notice of special events at the library.  Contributions help to support library programs & collections, and are tax-deductable.  Consider joining today!

• Print out a Friends brochure (includes application). 
• Mail application & dues check to: PO Box 764, Rockland, ME  04841
  

Membership levels:

$10 Member

$25 Contributor

$50 Patron

$100 Sponsor

$200 Business

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View the current issue of the Rockland Reader, The Friends' quarterly newsletter:

 

 

Volunteering

Friends volunteers may work in the library, helping staff with day to day tasks, and they may also work on activities and projects that the Friends have underway.  While many volunteers work on some kind of regular basis, it is important to note that it is not necessary to commit to a regular schedule for many tasks.  Many Friends volunteer a few hours each week, some, a few hours each month, and some help only on special events like our annual book sale. Some folks are in town only for the summer, and some, only the winter.

A sampling of volunteer opportunities:

• Shelving books
• Mending books
• Covering new books
• Gardening
• Story Time!
• Delivering Books-On-Wheels
• Clerking at the Book Stop
• Sorting books for the Book Stop
• Plan and/or run the book sale
• Plan and/or run special fundraisers
• Participate in program development ideas
• Bring your own personal expertise to the library!

To volunteer, please call Volunteer Coordinator Nancy Eugley at 594-7601.

Recent and On-going Friends Funding Projects

• Underwriting library cards for children who live outside our school district
• Funding free inter-library loans for Rockland Library users
• Substantially increasing the library’s collection, with particular attention to children’s books
• Providing scholarships to library staff
• Offering special children’s programs
• Replacing all of the public access computers in the library
• Funding purchase of new meeting room chairs
• Replacement of A/V equipment

The mission of the Friends of Rockland Public Library is to support the goals of the Library and its Advisory Board in their efforts to serve the City and the greater Rockland community.

 

What does this mean?  Simply put, it means that we, as Friends of the Rockland Library, work to find ways to help the library be the best facility it possibly can. The main things we do are:

• Help find and train volunteers to assist in the library
• Publicize the library’s resources and needs
• Raise funds to support programs and to purchase books and materials
• Help finance the purchase of goods and services that are not provided for in the city budget.

We are a membership organization.

Community support is critical to the success of the library, and one of the ways you can show that support is by joining the Friends. Your annual dues [please see above] play a significant role in the fund raising we do, although it is not the only way we raise funds. We also look for volunteers who can be active within the organization, helping plan events, working at the Book Stop in the library, and providing various necessary services.

For more information, contact Linda Gundel and Katherine Farrell, Co-Presidents, Friends of Rockland Public Library.

Friends of the Rockland Public Library
Board of Directors 2015

A Brief History of the Friends

Who helps buy extra books for the library?  Who saw to it that the Children's room was repainted and acquired new carpeting (before our renovations)?  Who pastes little pockets in the back of new library books?  Who weeds the plantings beside the library walls? Who runs the Book Stop where you can buy inexpensive used books?  Who manages the big annual book sale? Who organizes the Children's Fair? Who has prepared this website?  The answer: Friends! Friends of the Rockland Public Library.

Friends are all volunteers who want to help the library.  There are about 240 of them.  They are organized with officers and a board of directors, a newsletter, a bank account, a budget, and lots of ideas for helping the library.  They are devoted to our library, but they are also one of a great many Friends organizations all around the country.  If our Friends run out of ideas they can learn what other Friends are doing.

The Rockland Friends were active in the 1930s and '40s, then faded away for a time.  A new group became active in 1992 and since then have not only found many ways to help the library function, but have become a force in the community, speaking up for the library, reminding people of its value and its services.  They have published a history of the library; they sponsor an historical lecture series each year; they are paying to restore and preserve important historical documents belonging to the library, and General Knox's portrait.  They have secured grants to help them get all of Rockland's newspapers on microfilm.  Now we can look up stories back to 1846!

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