Mary Beth Norton discusses her newest book, 1774: The Long Year of Revolution, in a free online book talk July 14.
West Tisbury Library
August 20 is the deadline to sign up for the online open mic August 23.
West Tisbury Library
Poetry
The West Tisbury Library hosts a seed collection event Saturday afternoon to restock the emptied Community Seed Library.
Martha's Vineyard Community Seed Library
West Tisbury Library
The West Tisbury Library presents an online poetry reading with local poet Amarylis Douglas, Wednesday at 5 p.m.
West Tisbury Library
Homelessness
Poetry

2011

MONSTER SPECTACLE

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Public spectacles like the annual monster shark tournament have much in common with the gladiator games conducted in the Coliseum during ancient Roman festivals. Large, adoring crowds immersed in a circuslike atmosphere amid unbridled commercial activity, awaiting the extravaganza of torture, execution and the eventual display of victims.

When the West Tisbury Library opened in 1993, it was already too small. A frantic patchwork of low-cost space solutions over the years have never kept up with growing demand for library services. For well over a decade we have struggled with a severe shortage of space for patrons, materials, programs and staff. Today we have the Island’s largest collection and the highest circulation, but the smallest facility (except for Aquinnah).

Tale of Two Libraries

The West Tisbury and Edgartown library building projects are textbook examples of the right and wrong way to do things.

1968

The public library of West Tisbury, privately owned until the February town meeting voted unanimously to take it over, was conceived in 1890 by Prof. Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, who founded Seven Gates Farms, also. With Rev. Caleb Rotch, pastor of the Congregational church, who canvassed up-Island, he collected $175 for the first step.
 

1922

The presentation of valuable old Vineyard documents and books to the West Tisbury Public Library by Dr. Charles E. Banks, author of Banks’ History of Martha’s Vineyard, was a notable event and there was a large attendance of townspeople, evidence of the appreciation of the generous gift. The donation is further proof of Dr. Banks’ unceasing interest in the Island and its people.
 

1905

By the heart of West Tisbury I do not mean the geographical center of the little town, but the starting-point or points of its social, intellectual, educational, moral and spiritual forces. If you start from the beautiful residence of Squire and Mrs. Everett Allen Davis on the state macadamized road, which is the Main Street of the town, past the Parsonage and the delightful old Whiting manse, past “Brandy-brow” and S. M. Mayhew & Co.’s store, the graceful old church with its steeple and town clock will confront you.

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