Reading is alive and well on the Vineyard, librarians agreed this week, as they reviewed circulation numbers that show material lending is trending upwards across the Island. Circulation statistics from each of the six Vineyard libraries tell similar stories.

Congratulations to Island libraries. The Library Journal is out with its annual ratings and both the Vineyard Haven and West Tisbury libraries are ranked among the best in the country.

Remember when summer meant reading for fun just because you wanted to? The Martha’s Vineyard Library Association likes to perpetuate that feeling every summer with the launch of its summer reading program.

Edgartown School students joined town and library officials Monday to celebrate the first visible marker of Edgartown’s new library: a sign announcing the beginning of the project.
A group of students from kindergarten, first grade and third grade at the school posed for a picture in front of a sign that says: “Watch your new library being built here.” The sign is in front of the old brick Edgartown School, which will be demolished this summer to make way for the new library.

My granddaughter Shealyn Smyth attended the West Tisbury story time recently. She loved the other children in the group, sat quietly while the story was read and appreciated the friendly atmosphere. At two, she’s already a book-happy person.

Edgartown Public Library children’s librarian Deborah MacInnis counts herself as an astronomy fan. On her desk is a color photograph of Comet Hale Bopp which she shot herself years ago. And she has fond memories of getting the late Edgartown resident Maxamina Mello up before dawn to see Halley’s Comet in 1986, knowing that the 85-year-old woman had seen it as a youngster 70 years before.

But it took much more than enthusiasm for Mrs. MacInnis to become the NASA-certified guardian of some bona fide moon rocks.

As libraries across the country search for new ways to stay relevant in an online world, Vineyard patrons have remained dedicated to their small town libraries, and their access to materials in three towns may soon get even easier.

The libraries of Aquinnah, Chilmark and West Tisbury have each applied to join the Cape Libraries Automated Materials Sharing network, better known as CLAMS, a nonprofit cooperative of libraries on the Vineyard, Cape Cod and Nantucket that allows any in-network patron to borrow books and materials from some 36 participating libraries.

Thanks to a new service purchased in this new fiscal year by the Edgartown and Vineyard Haven Public Libraries, card-holding patrons in both towns now have access to free songs from the Sony Music catalog of recording artists.