Editor’s Note: The Peekskill Herald’s “10 Questions” column is for readers to know more about those who work in city government or education, own businesses, or support our city’s development. This addition to the series features Nora Mulligan, former librarian at The Field Library.
How long have you lived in Peekskill? What brought you to our friendly city?
My husband and I have lived in Peekskill for 37 years this August. We had been renting a condo in Montrose before that, and when I got pregnant, we decided to buy a house. At that time, I was working as a lawyer in Peekskill, and I had a good feeling for the city. It was very affordable, especially for Westchester County, and we were delighted to be able to buy a beautiful Victorian house in a great neighborhood. Not to mention that it was within walking distance of the library, which was also a factor even then.
You have an undergraduate degree in History and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. What led you to library work?
All my life, I’ve loved libraries. When I was a child the family would go to our library every week and we were only allowed (by our parents) to take out three or four books at a time, which seemed like such a limitation even then. When my husband and I lived in Montrose, the Hendrick Hudson library was relatively small, so the Field Library here in Peekskill struck me as huge and rich with promise. Long before I started working at the library, I was a frequent and enthusiastic patron, and when I saw an ad at the Peekskill Coffee House in 2007, looking for a part time clerk, I rushed over there with my husband and daughter to fill out an application that night. I interviewed the next day and–well, the rest is history.
As part of your responsibilities, you’ve led the Field of Mystery Book group and the Field Notes Book group. How did you go about selecting books for both groups? What were some of your most memorable group discussions?
The Field Notes group is unique in that we read everything, from fiction to nonfiction, while the Field of Mystery group was carefully limited to mystery novels.
The way it worked was that I would offer a selection of books to the group and we would vote on which one would be the next one we read. We had it all worked out: in the first round, everyone got two votes, and if there was a tie or a near tie, we would have a second round and if that was a tie, either I’d vote as a tiebreaker, or we would have one book one month and the other the next month.
I would look for reviews of books that showed promise. Not every book is good for book group discussion, even bestsellers. Some of our best discussions, in both groups, involved books that weren’t by well-known authors. I was careful to make sure the library system had enough copies available for all the members of the group, which sometimes meant making sure there were 15 copies (the groups were often large), and to make sure whatever I offered the group was something I wanted to read myself. Often I would enthusiastically push a particular book, and sometimes that would result in our choosing that book (I used to say, “I must use this power for good and not for evil”).
There have been some wonderful discussions we’ve had over the years. One book in the mystery group was so annoying that we actually spent most of the meeting rewriting it to our satisfaction. Another book divided the group pretty much down the middle, and the funny thing was that all the people who didn’t like the book ended up sitting on one side of the room, while the ones who liked it all gathered on the other, purely (I think) by chance. There was one book we read in Field Notes book group that every single person in the group loathed, though it had been listed by NPR as one of the best of the year, and even now, years later, people remember that dreadful book. The groups were especially great in later years because people got to know each other, to know, for instance, which people liked which kinds of books, which one person would look things up on the internet, which person would read the end of the book first, and so forth. They became communities, and warm and scintillating communities at that.
You’ve been at the Field Library for nearly 20 years. Can you tell us what you’ve noticed about people’s reading habits in that time? What’s changed? Which genres are people reading less? Which categories are people reading more?
I’ve been the person who buys adult fiction for a number of years, and I’ve noticed that every year there is at least one book that takes off, that becomes THE big book of the year, where there are thousands of holds and all the libraries have to buy multiple copies to keep up with demand. The funny thing is that there isn’t any rhyme or reason or way to predict which book is going to be this year’s Big Book; it just happens. For example, Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow was such a hot book that you couldn’t get a copy for years. And while you have people like Kristin Hannah writing book books (last year it was The Women), often you have authors who aren’t as well known before their monster book–James McBride’s (wonderful) The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store wasn’t one I would have predicted, but people just loved it.
People will always read thrillers, and authors like Danielle Steel and Nora Roberts always get read. For a while, the unreliable narrator thriller (Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train type) was very hot, and I think domestic thrillers are quite popular. Historical novels are almost all about World War II these days, so there seems to be an appetite for that period.
I’ve noticed that fewer people take out DVD’s these days (years ago we had lots of people who would come in and get out the maximum number of DVD’s they could; now I think they’re more likely to get content by streaming).
How have you seen the library change over the past nearly two decades?
Physically, the Field Library has changed a lot since I’ve been working there. The children’s room has been remodeled, and the layout of the desks and computers in the adult room has been changed (for the better, in my opinion). We created a special teen area, for the benefit of teens and adults alike (it was hard for adults to use computers for resume writing or the like when there were enthusiastic teenagers next to them playing Roblox). We’ve gained program rooms downstairs, which has enabled us to offer more programs for more people, and to give people in the community places to work and gather. When I started my book groups, we would meet upstairs in the gallery (and sometimes in the teen area), and it was a great improvement to be able to meet in the program room without worrying about disturbing other patrons.
Over the last 18 years, and especially over the last five or six years, I’ve noticed that a lot more people are taking advantage of the library system’s electronic resources. Libby and Hoopla, easily accessible with a library card, provide ebooks and e-audiobooks so people can acces them from anywhere. The streaming resources the system provides, like Kanopy for movies and medici.tv for music performances, dance performances and opera, are just incredible, and I have to put in a plug for the Spanish language multimedia platform, Estante Infinito. The pandemic forced a lot of people to look to electronic resources when they couldn’t get to the physical library, and I believe many people discovered that they enjoy the electronic materials, either in place of or alongside our physical resources.
You are a regular visitor to the Peekskill Coffee House every morning, walking back and forth from your home. What do you observe during those early morning jaunts?
I love the change of seasons–my husband and I walk all year and in most weathers. We get used to seeing the same people in the same places every day, whether they’re walking dogs or heading for work. During the school year, we know and anticipate which groups of kids we’ll see at which corners in the mornings, waiting for their buses. We notice the birds, especially the (loud) mockingbirds which stake out their particular territories in town, and we know where all the outdoor cats on our route live (we look for them whenever we’re walking).
What book do you regularly revisit? Why–what draws you back to this particular tome?
One of my all-time favorite books is T. H. White’s The Once and Future King, which I first read when I was 14, and have read frequently since. The Arthurian legend has always fascinated me, and every time I read this again, I pick up something different, or see it in a different light.
Are there any memorable experiences you’d like to share about being at the library in regard to the “regular” patrons?
I loved interacting with our regular patrons, the ones I got to know well through the years. There were people who had very particular preferences, and I would try to make sure I accommodated them (the woman who had a special love of Highlander romances, for instance, or the patrons who liked particular authors, even if they weren’t bestselling authors). There were patrons who kept taking out the same DVD’s time and time again (to the point where I told one of them that if I were her offspring, I would have already given her the whole set for a present years ago), and patrons who would come in and basically take out anything that was new. New fiction would come onto our shelves every Tuesday morning (my favorite morning), and there were a number of patrons who would come in eagerly on Tuesdays to get their pick of the new books before they were gone. It was also great fun to recommend books to people, especially if I knew their taste, which I often did.
What do you plan to do in your free time?
More of what I’d been doing in my non-work time: writing, reading, quilting (I have a backlog of quilts I’m making at the moment), practicing my cello. I’ll be spending more time visiting my daughter and grandchildren in Indiana, as well as other traveling.
Where’s your favorite place to go in Peekskill and why?
It’s a tie between the Peekskill Coffee House and the library. Both of them are places full of friendly, interesting people. The library has books, and the Coffee House has coffee, and what more can you ask of life?
What would you like to say to the Peekskill community? I love Peekskill. I love our beautiful riverfront, I love the streets in my neighborhood with the old Victorian houses, I love how you can go in Depew Park and feel as if you have left the rest of the world behind. I love our diversity, our energy, how you can walk downtown and find great places to eat and hang out. I’m so glad to live here, and to have a history with this great city.
