1925 Crandall Library — Trust fund for Children’s Department

The executive committee of Crandall Library was preparing to establish a trust fund in memory of library co-founder and long-time leader Sherman Williams to benefit the Children’s Department.

“Friends of his and others interested in the same work will have a chance to give to the fund,” The Glens Falls Times reported on Jan. 8, 1925.

In other 1925 Crandall Library news collected from historic newspapers of the region:

• Crandall Library circulation increased 46% in 1924, library trustees announced in an annual report released Jan. 19.

Circulation in 2024 was 97,064, an increase of 30,740 volumes compared with 2023.

The library added 1,281 volumes in 20204, and removed 566 worn volumes, bringing the collection to 21,161 volumes.

Astronomy books were quite popular at Crandall Library in the lead up to a solar eclipse, The Glens Falls Times reported on Jan. 19.

The library also was distributing a booklet that included a viewer to watch the eclipse.

“Small folders giving interesting particulars of the coming eclipse and some large charts of the heavens were placed in the library recently by George R. Lockwood, who lectured before the Women’s Club on the subject,” the Times reported. “There is also an inset of film through watch the sun as it is harmful to the naked eye. These are sold at a nominal sum and are kept at the library merely as a convenient center at which people may obtain them.”

• Crandall Library was a first stop for high school students searching for the right college.

“It has been the policy of the library for some time to carry as complete a file as possible of college catalogues. There are over a hundred of these now provided for consultation in the library,” The Post-Star reported on Feb. 23.

• Crandall Library added the book “Old Glass, European” by N. Hudson Moore.

“This traces the fine art of glassmaking from the early Roman days to the present American work, including information on the markings of old glass and many fine illustrations,” the Times reported on Jan. 19.

The library also purchased a 10-volume set of the writings of John Muir.

• Josephine Demerest, who had been teaching at Nature Study class for several years at Crandall Library was introducing a second class in Elementary Standard Botany, The Post-Star reported on Jan. 31.
• New books added to the Crandall Library circulation holdings included “Washington Heights” by R. P, Bolton, “A Handbook on Solar Eclipses” by Isabel Lewis, and “Youth and the Bible” by Muriel Seibert.

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