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seacoastonline.com
  • Get hands-on with library's How-To Festival

    n Portsmouth library plans first ever How-To Festival for August
  • And for its next trick, the Portsmouth Public Library will lift words from the page and bring them to life.
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    • WHAT: How-To Festival
      WHERE: Portsmouth Public Library, 175 Parrot Ave.
      WHEN: From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 2
      COST: Free
      CONTACT: Call 427-1540 or visit www.cityofportsmouth.com/library
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      WHAT: How-To Festival
      WHERE: Portsmouth Public Library, 175 Parrot Ave.

      WHEN: From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 2

      COST: Free

      CONTACT: Call 427-1540 or visit www.cityofportsmouth.com/library
  • And for its next trick, the Portsmouth Public Library will lift words from the page and bring them to life.
    This bit of magic will take lots of assistance, but that's exactly what will happen at its first How-to Festival, a free event.
    The festival will offer 37 presentations — demonstrations and hands-on experiences — with five or seven running simultaneously. They will range in subject matter from kid- to adult-appropriate.
    "This just kicks the whole thing up a notch," says Sarah Cornell, supervisor of technical services and the event's organizer. "It's the whole shebang — using our library as a place not to just go pick up a book or grab one thing, but as a place you can learn and work along with your neighbor and discover new things you didn't even know interested you."
    Once you've seen how it's done firsthand you can grab a book, take it home, delve even deeper and give it a go on your own, Cornell says.
    The staff has spent months on the project, successfully pulling together a broad spectrum of programming — lifted from books and area folks with expertise.
    Want to know how to turn a smart phone into a microscope? The library staff is taking that one on.
    Do the steps to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" dance interest you? Lisa Griffin will lead you through them.
    "She's the same woman that ran the show for the Halloween Parade," Cornell says. "Someone brought up the idea and we all said, 'Let's get her to do that here!'"
    Someone will teach the art of making kombucha, and the Seacoast Permaculture Organization will demonstrate how to open a beehive.
    "Amy Antonucci (of Seacoast Permaculture) will also bring all the gear and show the parts of a beehive, how to assemble it and how the process works," Cornell says.
    The festival has brewed since last September.
    "Everyone I ran the idea by said, 'Oh, we could do that. That would be great,'" she says. "The feeling was Portsmouth and the Seacoast could do an awesome job."
    A team of staff and volunteers started working out the details in December.
    "We brainstormed what topics the Seacoast might like and what is special to us that maybe no one else might have, or what skill we might use others might not," Cornell says, adding, "and, of course, what would just be fun."
    They worked ideas, broadened the circle, then started tracking down possible presenters.
    "We called on practically everyone anyone on the committee had met in their entire lives," she says, laughing. "We dug deep and wide."
    Port City Makerspace is one of the festival's community partners.
    Clint Crosbie, Makerspace's co-founder, will lead a hands-on LED reading light project.
    "I've done it maybe 10 times now. Everyone seems to enjoy it," Crosbie says. "It's a great project to get kids involved — kids and adults."
    With a few simple, straightforward items — a power supply, components and connectors — people will create something useful, Crosbie adds. "When you break it down it's a half-dozen components. ... It's a very visual thing. It's not so daunting. People can wrap their heads around how the basics of electricity works."
    "It allows (people) to see how the electricity flows," Crosbie adds. "And it's one of those things where everyone has a takeaway — which people always like too."
    Tom Kozikowski, supervisor of the Portsmouth Recreation Department, jumped on board immediately when asked, Cornell says. The department will lead four programs: pitching a soft ball, putting, kicking a field goal and handling a lacrosse ball.
    "The fun thing is, Tom got 'How to Kick a Field Goal' because he said it's something he wanted to know," Cornell says. "That's how we got a lot of presenters. The members of the organization or committee knew someone because they'd learned from them or because they wanted to know how to do something themselves."
    The projects will be tucked into every available library location: the Levenson Meeting Room, the lobby, in the youth department, the courtyard, and the fiction and graphic novel section. A few will be held in the Hilton Garden Inn Room, the computer classroom, as well as outdoors.
    The Children's Museum of New Hampshire will offer "Build your own Rotocopter."
    Says Cornell: "You fold, drop it in the air and it spins down like a helicopter seedpod."
    There will be lessons in cheerleading, yoga, chess and ballroom dance, she says, "there's a lot of dance."
    Farm Hack will teach "civilians" how to work with yard or garden aerial images for soil and plant health.
    Artstream will give instructions on making foam stamp.
    Judy Ringer of Power & Presence Training will give instructions on conflict resolution — "how to breathe, learn and talk through a difficult situations."
    The Seacoast Science Center will explain what a person should do when finding a marine mammal on the beach.
    All the presenters are volunteering their time, "So it really is a partnership," Cornell says. "We're still a month off and we would already call it a success, because we've made new partnerships, with people that would like to work with the library in the future in another context."
    The idea happens to be fitting the library's current year-long visibility and outreach initiative as well.
    Though it's mere blocks from its original downtown location, now occupied by Discover Portsmouth, the library is on a road less traveled and less noticeable, Cornell says.
    To keep residents apprised of the library's new programs and expanded services, it's taking it to the streets, setting up booths at gatherings such as Market Square Day and the farmers markets.
    And now, Cornell says, "we're bringing all those folks here."
    The How-To Festival's tagline is "Learn 25+ things in five hours."
    "Instead of thinking of the library as a grocery store, we want them to think of it as a kitchen. It's a place you go and do the things you learn," Cornell says. "Instead of coming and getting the book to make that new dish, you come here and learn how to do it. So it's bringing it all to life."
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