Joan Nilsen is library friend & 2006 volunteer

HAWLEY - “Books have always been my life. Anything in the Library I am always willing to do. I want to protect the books as best I can,” says Joan Nilsen, who has been named the recipient of the Hawley Librarys 2006 Alma and Charles Hames Volunteer Librarian Award. A library volunteer for 18 years since her retirement from McGraw-Hill Publishing Company in New York, Nilsen has served the library in many capacities starting with accessioning books and magazines, helping to organize the early used book sales, covering books, and working at the main desk. She describes her passion for books this way, “A room without books is like a house without windows,” and that passion goes way back to her childhood. Born in Queens, N.Y., to Norwegian immigrants John B. and Ruth Nilsen, she reports that as soon as she was able, “I started with ‘A’ and read all the way through my local library’s collection.” After graduating from college, she was hired as a clerk by McGraw-Hill and began her climb up through the company ranks to be senior editor in charge of professional and reference books, the post from which she retired in 1988. Her long-held desire to have five acres of land away from the city brought Nilsen in 1973 to northeastern Pennsylvania, “where I literally fell in love with a perfect five acre property that had a beautiful old oak tree.” Within two years she had built her present home on the property near Beach Lake and it became her permanent home upon retirement. Now as president of the recently-formed Friends of the Hawley Public Library, she and her fellow Friends are expanding their efforts to assist the library. The Friends had its beginnings with a group of volunteer librarians who, according to Nilsen, “saw that, as the library and the community it serves have expanded, fundraising become more critical, and job functions more segmented, advocacy to the public is much more vital to the entire library.” Commenting on her obvious love for and commitment to the Hawley Library, Nilsen says, “There is a special feeling here at the Hawley Library, a warmth that is just great. I feel it’s a home for me, that our books are my books!” The Alma and Charles Hames Award was established in 2000 by the Hawley Library Board of Directors in honor of charter board member and board member emeritus Alma Hames and her late husband Charles.