More friends from afar

Well dear readers we're feeling very cosmopolitan here in Stromness Library this week. Following our visit from Milli from Finland,  *waves at the Etela-Haaga Library folk*, we received a lovely email from Mike Goldstein  from America, who had visited us back in 2008. Mike sent us a lovely photo of Seamus, one of the cats who used to live next door to the library and adopted us as his second home.

We were delighted to hear from Mike, and asked if we could share his photo with you, in case anyone else remembers Seamus, or even had the dubious pleasure or being drooled on/ covered in ginger fur/ nuzzled/scratched/ or bitten by him. 

Seamus was quite a character with a bit of a split personality. He would rub himself affectionately against your legs or jump up on your lap to be petted, but could get very grumpy if you dared to shift him off a chair he had chosen for a nap. We even took to bringing in a pair of leather gardening-gloves to work,  in case he objected to being put out when it was time to go home!

Unfortunately Seamus' owners moved house, and following Bubbles' tragic accident we have been without a library cat for quite a while now. Maybe we will be adopted by one when we move to the new library?!

We were very interested to read about Mike's research at Cornell University, where he is Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Eleanor J. Gibson Laboratory of Developmental Psychology. His research focuses on  the development and evolution of communication, taking a comparative approach studying both human infants and songbirds, to try to better understand the mechanisms by which communicative development takes place.

We look forward to welcoming Mike back to Stromness in the future, as he plans to return to carry out research in Orkney. He is interested in studying the effect of a noisy environment on vocal learning, and hopes that making recordings of the seabird colonies in Orkney will help him to get an idea of the acoustic challenges faced by young birds in a large breeding colony. 

It is so lovely to hear from library visitors and blog readers from far afield - it really makes us feel like part of one big library family :-)

Remembering Bubbles

As some of you may know we recently lost one of our regular visitors in tragic circumstances, when Bubbles the cat was hit by a car as she crossed the road from her home to the library.

Bubbles was waiting at the door most days at opening time and was never happier than when she found a welcoming lap to curl up in for a bit of a stroke and a quick nap. In the absence of a suitable human cushion she would make herself at home on top of the library bag display on the counter or take up her vantage point on top of the printer.

Needless to say we were heartbroken to lose our faithful companion and still miss her cheerful meow, her happy purring, and even the cat fur on the chairs. We would like to share these photos of our friend as we will remember her, in some of her favourite spots in the library.