Richford Library's New Corkboards Are Up — and the Community Notes Came With Them

RICHFORD, Vermont — The north wall of the Richford Public Library looks different now. Three corkboard panels, freshly mounted and trimmed, run the length of it. Pinned to those panels, in roughly the same positions they occupied before, are the same notes, questions, and small exchanges that library regulars have been adding to for the better part of a year.

Colette Aubin-Roy, a staff member who oversaw the transition, confirmed Thursday morning that the carpenter — brought in from elsewhere in the Northeast Kingdom — had finished the job. The installation wrapped up ahead of the original end-of-May estimate, which Aubin-Roy said caught even her off guard.

"More settled than I expected," she said of the finished wall, "but still itself."

That balance — between a cleaned-up surface and an unchanged community record — was something staff paid close attention to during the transfer. Each note was carefully removed from the old surface and re-pinned in its original position on the new panels. Among those preserved in place: a bilingual call-and-response cluster in English and French that had accumulated in one corner and become, for some regulars, something of a landmark.

Also back on the wall: a patron's handwritten question about a possible Episode Seven, the origin of which remains, as far as staff know, a matter of open speculation.

The library board noted the completed installation at its regular meeting. The carpenter declined a second cup of tea and left without ceremony.