Linda and I were totally delighted to see the photo and caption last week giving tribute to Carol and Joe Roinick.
When we moved up here 12 years ago from Philadelphia, one of the first sights that hit us was the window of the Sullivan County Library, filled with photos of superb high school artwork. Soon we realized that just about every week there was a new, equally engaging window. But the real experience, of course, was inside the library.
Carol, as librarian, has raised what might well have been a reading byway to a literary super highway. Within limited shelf space, she has maintained an open, enlivening, invigorating atmosphere that presents bestsellers, unusual but accessible non-fiction works, large-type and tape books for us dodderers, movies and, perhaps most important in this changing technological age, online access to just about anything.
If you haven’t been to the back room – the home of children’s literature and story hours – go there. It’s wide, inviting, light, airy, everything a kids’ area should be.
I doubt there are many towns the size of Dushore (pop. 650) or counties the size of Sullivan (pop. 6,500) that can boast of a library like ours – or a librarian like Carol Roinick.
To say we’re sad to see her go is the understatement of our decade here. Carol is and symbolizes everything that makes Sullivan County the place that we wasted urbanites should be.
It’s all too easy to walk in the library’s blue door and simply accept what’s there. Nope. It’s something special, yet another mark of why we’ve never regretted for a moment moving here.
Derek Davis
Cherry Township