Another levy campaign promise kept

The ren­o­va­tions at the Delaware County Dis­trict Library’s Pow­ell Branch are com­plete, and the trans­for­ma­tion is dra­matic and amaz­ing! Dur­ing the library’s levy cam­paign, we made a pledge to the com­mu­nity to upgrade the exist­ing facil­i­ties, as well as to build the new Orange Branch. The ren­o­va­tions to the Pow­ell Branch are a step in ful­fill­ing our cam­paign promises.

I think you will be delighted with the star­tling changes that we have made to make this branch more func­tional and invit­ing. By relo­cat­ing some of the essen­tial depart­ments in this build­ing, we have cre­ated a com­puter room, teen area, quiet read­ing areas, and a great space for chil­dren to read, learn and enjoy story times. We also relo­cated the cir­cu­la­tion desk to allow room for self-pick-up of holds and self-check-out.

I invite you to attend the grand reopen­ing Open House from noon to 3 p.m. Sun­day. The fun begins with a vari­ety of activ­i­ties that include self-guided tours with a “Choose Your Adven­ture” theme. DCDL staff will be on hand to pro­vide vis­i­tors with infor­ma­tion about the build­ing, dis­cuss ser­vices and pro­grams offered by the library sys­tem, and reg­is­ter new patrons for a DCDL library card. Refresh­ments and enter­tain­ment will also be pro­vided through­out the open­ing. Hope to see you there!

Why am I see­ing so many stink bugs these days?

The brown mar­morated stink bug (BMSB), an insect not pre­vi­ously seen on our con­ti­nent, was appar­ently acci­den­tally intro­duced into east­ern Penn­syl­va­nia in Sep­tem­ber of 1998. The stink bug is more likely to invade homes in the fall, sur­viv­ing the win­ter as an adult in houses and other struc­tures. Adults can live from sev­eral months to a year. Once inside the house, they will go into a state of hiber­na­tion but often the warmth inside the house causes them to become active. The stink bug’s abil­ity to emit an odor through holes in its abdomen is a defense mech­a­nism meant to pre­vent it from being eaten by birds and lizards. How­ever, sim­ply han­dling the bug, injur­ing it, or attempt­ing to move it can trig­ger it to release the odor that smells some­what like cilantro. These insects are not known to cause harm to humans, but it is becom­ing an agri­cul­tural pest, pro­duc­ing losses in some apple and peach orchards. It also has been found feed­ing on black­berry, sweet corn, field corn and soy­beans. Cur­rently there are no known preda­tors of stink bugs in the US. The Organic Gardener’s Hand­book of Nat­ural Insect and Dis­ease Con­trol helped with this answer.

Does Bar­bie have a last name?

I checked in The Good, the Bad and the Bar­bie: A Doll’s His­tory and Her Impact on the US for infor­ma­tion about Bar­bie and found that she indeed has a last name. Her full name is Bar­bara Mil­li­cent Roberts. By the way — Ken’s last name is Carson.

How often do the tokens in Monop­oly change?

When Charles Dar­row first started sell­ing the game, he sug­gested using house­hold items, like but­tons, as tokens. Accord­ing to The Book of Games: Strate­gies, Tac­tics, and His­tory, it was only after Parker Broth­ers pur­chased the game from Dar­row in 1935 that they decided to offer actual tokens. Darrow’s nieces were fond of mak­ing Monop­oly tokens from their charm bracelet baubles. The Parker Broth­ers liked the idea because it was dif­fer­ent than what any other board game was using at the time, and because they were already on friendly terms with a com­pany who pro­duced such trin­kets. Dowst Man­u­fac­tur­ing already had 15 perfectly-sized charms on their pro­duc­tion line, so Parker Broth­ers appro­pri­ated four of them, includ­ing the thim­ble. The tokens changed again because of metal con­ser­va­tion efforts dur­ing WWII-crude tokens vaguely shaped like cars, irons and ele­phants were made from a com­pos­ite mate­r­ial and in some edi­tions, col­ored wooden pegs replaced the shaped tokens entirely. After WWII, Parker Broth­ers went back to metal play­ing pieces and added a fighter plane for a brief period of time. In the early 1950s, tokens such as the lantern, the purse, and the rock­ing horse were replaced by our mod­ern main­stays: the dog, the wheel­bar­row, and the horse and rider.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked!

Posted by Mary Santos on Feb 22 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.