The JTPL Blog

Towards the end of October, thoughts turn to spooky things, like ghosts, goblins and graveyards. Did you know that there are a lot of famous (and infamous) people buried in New Jersey cemeteries?

For example, poet Walt Whitman is buried in Harleigh Cemetery in Camden; punk rocker Joey Ramone is buried in Hillside Cemetery in Lyndhurst; President Grover Cleveland is buried in Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton; singer Sarrah Vaughan is resting in Glendale Cemetery in Bloomfield; and writers Stephen Crane and Mary Mapes Dodge are buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside, NJ.

Old Burial Grounds of New Jersey: A Guide, written by Janice Kohl Sarapin, is a fascinating compendium of grave inscriptions, designs and motifs, ghost stories and legends, and a guidebook that describes old and notable burial grounds by county. These cemeteries “reflect the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity” of the people who settled in New Jersey. This book is available in the Jefferson Township Library’s New Jersey collection.

A personal favorite epitaph is from the 1798 grave of Daniel Sale in the First Presbyterian Burial Ground in Elizabeth:

“As you are now, So once was I
In Health & Strength, tho here I lie,
As I am now, so must you be
Prepare for Death & Follow me.”

Happy Halloween!

The library has a limited amount of space, and so can house a limited number of books. Part of my job is “weeding” the collection — taking books out of our collection to make room for new books.

I’ve heard it said in library land that “Just like the backyard garden, aggressive weeding will encourage healthy crops: timely and desirable books, tapes, CD, DVDs, etc.” I weed by condition, by age, by use (or lack thereof). I weed out books with midleading or factually inaccurate information, books that have been superseded by a new edition, or a better book on the subject, books that are trivial or of no value to our collection, and books that are just plain ugly (eg: yellowed pages, moldy-smelling, tattered, scribbled in, etc.)

I’ve been doing this for quite some time, so it is like second nature to me. The one area I have difficulty weeding is the biography section. I know it is necessary to make room on the shelves for new books, and that in this day and age people can get what they want through interlibrary loan quickly and easily. However, when I select a book to weed, — say Elton John, or Frank Lloyd Wright or Jack Dempsey — I can’t shake the feeling that I’m “discarding” a life.

It’s tough. And of course I know that as soon as I weed the book, someone will want it for some reason, even though it hasn’t been borrowed since 1995!

162 years ago today, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre was published in London by Smith, Elder & Co.  It appeared under the pseudonym Currer Bell, and was an immediate success.

Jane Eyre is one of the few books I’ve re-read, and it is also one of the books that made me a lifelong reader.  As a teen, I was thrilled by the love story. I related to the intense and intelligent Jane, who lived by her wits and not her beauty as did  so many other fictional heroines. My imagination was captured by the setting, and by the moody and unconventional Mr. Rochester.

I read it again as a literature major in college. There, I related to  Jane as a “liberated woman,” a warrior, a completely independent spirit.

I recently read Jane Eyre again with one of the book discussion groups I belong to.  As an adult, I love the symbolism in the novel, the forshadowing, and the almost mythic proportions of the narrative. The book continues to appeal to a diverse audience, and it was one of our best discussions and most popular books.

In addition to reading the novel numerous times, I’ve seen many of the film versions of the story. I consider the best one to be  the “lush and sensual” 2006 Masterpiece Theatre production, starring Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens, and directed by Susanna White. If you haven’t seen this one yet, get it and watch it at your earliest convenience!

Long live Jane. She’s truly a “woman for all seasons!”