"New Hampshire Then & Now" Exhibit at WMCC Fortier Library
Katharine Eneguess, President of White Mountains Community CollegeOur building construction and renovation projects here at White Mountains Community College are chugging along, and although there are still places in our building at our main campus in Berlin that are hidden behind big sheets of plastic, we have areas where there are quieter levels of activity.
Our classrooms, of course, are abuzz with the many discussions among teacher and students that are a welcome part of learning. Our Culinary and Baking and Pastry Arts students are enjoying the expanded baking facility (and the rest of us are enjoying the tasty creations that come out of those new ovens).
The quietest place on our campus, though busy in its own way, is our library. The Fortier Library is located at the south end of our building at 2020 Riverside Drive. We run several programs in the library that are open to the public. Among those programs is our book discussion series which take place on a seasonal basis. This spring the evening book discussion/lecture series is Yankee Crime and the first session will be on Wednesday, March 18. Craig Doherty will be leading a discussion on Primary Storm by Brendan DuBois. The discussion begins at 7 p.m. and copies of the book are available at the Fortier Library and the Berlin Public Library. For more information on this series go to www.wmcc.edu/services/lib/ and click on Library News.
We also host traveling exhibits at the Fortier Library. The current one is "New Hampshire Then & Now," a New Hampshire Historical Society exhibit of 40 pairs of photographs of places, people, and events around the state, past and present. The exhibit, which runs through May 8, is based on the book of the same name by Peter Randall, a well-known New Hampshire photographer, author, and publisher. Mining collections at the Historical Society and other organizations, Randall put together old photographs with his own photos of the modern sites.
From town meetings in Cornish, 1947 and 2000, to New Castle’s Hotel Wentworth in 1880 and the Wentworth by the Sea Hotel in 2005, the exhibit depicts over a century of change in New Hampshire. I browsed through the book the other day, which is on display near the entrance of the library, and thoroughly enjoyed the historical photographs and the modern ones. I think we’ve done a pretty good job in New Hampshire of preserving many of our historical places, from old train stations to covered bridges. I think we’ve done pretty well growing trees, too. If there’s one thing I noticed, it's that old photos in which there were open fields by and large have grown up into thick woods.
Peter Randall will be coming to the Fortier Library on Wednesday, April 22, at 5 p.m. to talk, show some of his photos, and do a book signing. Mark your calendar now. The event is open free of charge to the public.
The Fortier Library is open Monday – Thursday, 7:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m., Friday, 7:30 a.m. - 7:00 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Stop in sometime and view the "New Hampshire Then & Now" exhibit or just browse through our collections.
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