Griswold Memorial Library
Additional Pages
GML is your portal to local history, lifelong learning, tech help, and community connections.
Service hours:
Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Fridays, 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Saturdays, 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Cancellations due to snow: GML will be closed for snow in the events that Mohawk Trail Regional School District (MTRSD) is closed due to snow.
Contact:
Download the Libby app from the play store or Apple, or browse our collection of ebooks, magazines, and downloadable audiobooks online.
Visit our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/GMLColrain and follow us on Instagram @GMLColrain!
We Have a New Catalog!
We've just launched Aspen: our new, easier to use catalog for a better browsing experience. The changes we're most excited about are the user-friendly search function, which now includes predictive text and is more forgiving of misspellings, and search results that group different editions under a single title heading. Click here to check it out!
Keep up with what's new at GML!
Sign up for our newsletter, Wowbrary, and never miss a beat! These weekly updates include news, reviews, and a round-up of new library materials.
Browse to see what's new in our local collection here!
Check out our Library of Things!
Borrow "unusual" items from the Betty Purington Johnson Library of Things! These include:
- Bluetooth Headphones
- Snowshoes
- USB Slim DVD Drive Lecteur DVD compact USB
- Smart Radon Detector
- Ailessom Video Projector L308 - a bluetooth HD projector suited to all of your presentation and movie screening needs!
- Bocce
- Croquet
- 12-Sheet Cross-Cut Paper Shredder
- Zoom H1n Handy Recorder for music, podcasting, and more!
- SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) light therapy lamp
- Dremel kit
- Paper quilling kit
- Cupcake decorating kit
- Field microscope
- Knitting kit
- Embroidery kit
- Crochet kit
- Roku Streaming Stick - used with a TV with an HDMI connection and wireless network, the Roku will allow you to watch library-provided content from AMC Plus on the Roku Channel, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Discovery Plus, Disney Plus, Hulu, Netflix, and Paramount Plus.
Museum passes for loan
Borrow passes to visit the following: Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, the Clark Institute, DCR Parks, Eric Carle Museum, Mass MoCA, or the Pioneer Valley Symphony Orchestra!
Tech help
One-on-one tech help
Schedule a 30-minute appointment to improve or learn new skills, or to troubleshoot a specific issue.
Email griswoldmemoriallibrary@gmail.com or call 413-624-2377 to schedule.
Self-paced learning modules
Computer basics (including mouse skills!), internet basics, job search basics, Word, Excel, and more are available for free! Visit https://www.digitallearn.org/ or https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/ to begin!
Printing and scanning available!
GML can help with printing, copying, and scanning! Send print jobs to griswoldmemoriallibrary@gmail.com.
Color prints and copies are $0.75 per page. Black and white (grey scale) prints and copies are $0.25 per page.
Ms. Betty's Take and Make Crafts
Pick up one of Ms. Betty's Take and Make Craft kits while supplies last ! Watch Ms. Betty's videos or follow the printed instructions to make your own craft of the month.
Join the Carol Purington Poetry Collective!
The Carol Purington Poetry Collective meets the first Friday of every month at 6:00 by Zoom, to share in the love of poetry and honor the memory of Carol Purington (1949-2020). Bring a poem to share or join us just to listen. Email griswoldmemoriallibrary@gmail.com to register.
Her final word -
a window thrown open
to the spring evening .
-Carol Purington
Land Acknowledgment
Every community, including ours, owes its existence and vitality to generations of people from around the world who brought their hopes, dreams, and energy to this place. Some came seeking a better life, some were brought here against their will, and some have lived on this land for more generations than can be counted. Truth and acknowledgment are essential to building mutual respect across barriers of heritage, difference, and time.
We gather on land stewarded for thousands of years by the Abenaki, Wabanaki, Pocumtuc, Mohican and neighboring nations. We commit to learning and action that support Native sovereignty, protect land and water, and uphold the dignity and well-being of all who call this place home.
The People's History of Colrain Podcast!
Thanks to a generous grant from the LSTA, the Griswold Memorial Library was able to help produce a local history podcast. Enjoy our first episodes here:
Online Resources, including HeritageQuest!
Access online resources with a BPL eCard!
An eCard is a Boston Public Library card that you can sign up for online, opens a new window and which provides access to all online resources, including OverDrive and Hoopla.
eCards are available to anyone who lives, resides part-time to attend school, owns property, or works in Massachusetts.
Search city directories, census, military, and immigration records, cemeteries, revolutionary war pensions, maps, photos, and more!
Find your next great read, with NoveList!
Includes reading recommendations to help readers of all ages find just the right book. Comprehensive source of popular and professional book information includes expert recommendations, reviews, articles, lists and more.
Homework and research databases, from CW MARS!
Search encyclopedias, newspaper articles, and more databases here!
Local Annual Reports through the Internet Archive
GML is working to digitize materials in our local history collection, starting with our collection of Annual Reports. Visit https://archive.org/details/griswoldmemoriallibrary to see oure collection, which includes the years 1859-1910; 1911-1930; 1933-1949; and 1950-1968. The years 2013, 2014, and 2017-2022 are available on the Town of Colrain website at /p/8101/Annual-Reports
Mass Legal Help: Free, practical information about your legal rights in Massachusetts
https://www.masslegalhelp.org/
Consumer Reports Buying Guide
Access the our digital subscription to Consumer Reports Buying Guide for 2023 here, since the publication will not be releasing a print edition this year. Contact us for login information if you'd like to view the Buying Guide, and feel free to come borrow the monthly magazines.
Local History
Please note that the Vital Records Collection is presently in the care of the Boston Public Library where the records are being digitized. From there, they will be transferred to secure storage and available only by request (or online). The “Patrie files” have been transferred to the Colrain Historical Society as of January 2025. Please contact us for more information or specific requests.
Celebrating William Apess!
William Apess (1798-1839) was a minister, scholar, and activist from Colrain. His speeches and essays centered on the civil rights of Native Americans and people of color, and proved influential to the growing abolitionist movement. Apess, a Pequot, authored five books in his lifetime and worked with Blind Joe Amos, a Wampanoag minister from Mashpee, and other leaders of the tribe, to draft the Mashpee Declaration of Independence on May 21st, 1833. This important document asserted the rights of the Wampanoag to land and self-governance. Apess, throughout his career, remained a vocal advocate for Native Americans and people of color in the US. His writings offer a rare window into the actual lives and concerns of Indigenous peoples living along the Mohawk Trail in the nineteenth century, and a powerful reminder of how these people asserted their sovereign rights under difficult and oppressive conditions.
In 2021, the Colrain Select Board declared May 21st "William Apess Day." In 2018, a historic marker was raised at the Griswold Memorial Library in honor of Apess' legacy.
Learn more about William Apess here, and check out this interactive map, and also try these books:
- A Son of the Forest, and Other Writings, by William Apess
- On Our Own Ground: the complete writings of William Apess, a Pequot, edited and with an introduction by Barry O'Connell
- Through an Indian's looking-glass : a cultural biography of William Apess, Pequot, by Drew Lopenzina