PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Whether they’re helping to maintain unique local history projects or setting up galleries to showcase Maine artists, Steven Vance and Clifton Boudman, volunteers at the Mark and Emily Turner Memorial Library in Presque Isle, have found a space that has given them much more than something fun to do after retirement.
Vance is the library’s technology and networking coordinator and has volunteered regularly since 2005 after he retired from his position as technology coordinator for MSAD 1. Library Director Sonja Eyler is one of his former students from the 25 years he taught science at Presque Isle High School. He remembered that on the day he joined the volunteer staff, he was simply helping out and hadn’t expected the offer from Eyler.
“One of the computers broke down at the library one day and I fixed it,” Vance said. “I’ve always been a computer person and I had some spare time, so since then I’ve helped fix little things with the computers.”
Aside from doing simple repair work on all of the library’s computers, Vance spends much of his time managing the library’s computer server room. One of those computers holds the server for the library’s oral history records, obituaries and other historical documents. The library has oral history records, which consist of older residents sharing stories about their lives in Aroostook County, that date back to 1954 as well as 25,000 obituaries from 1910 to the present.
The obituary server allows people to come to the library, search for their relative’s name and find what issue of a local newspaper their obituary appeared in. Vance noted that the library is in the process of scanning microfilms of newspaper obituaries so that when people look up their relative’s name they can view the actual obituary instead of just the information.
“We hope to have 50,000 obituaries of people from all over Aroostook County when we’re done,” Vance said, as he looked through the obituary server on Thursday, March 1. He also noted that the server system allows him to keep track of who uses the history servers and where they are, which has led to him discovering people from all over the world who have used the servers.
“I noticed someone from Syracuse University was looking up information about Fort Fairfield at the university library and it turns out that person was from Fort Fairfield. Another time I noticed that somebody in China was looking up Aroostook County history.”
When asked about what he enjoys most about volunteering, Vance said he admires the camaraderie among staff members and the opportunities that the library provides to the region.
“I get to see people that I normally wouldn’t run into and it’s a nice community space,” Vance said. “I don’t interact with the public as much as other volunteers, but it’s great that people like Cliff (Boudman) bring people to the library that might never have come before.”
As the library’s artist-in-residence, Boudman produces and schedules at least 12 exhibitions per year at the library’s five art galleries and operates the bookstore on the first floor. He began volunteering four years ago, soon before he retired from the University of Maine at Presque Isle as a fine art professor.
Boudman took with him from the university 25,000 photo slides that contained historic images of northern Maine and cultural images related to art history and converted them into the library’s computer genealogy database.
When putting on art exhibitions, he most enjoys interacting with the artists and local attendees and discussing a subject that has always been one of his biggest passions in life.
“It’s great to give back a little bit of my knowledge to the people of Presque Isle,” Boudman said. “Every show has an opening exhibition where people can come in and I enjoy hearing them express their views about the art.”
Like Vance, Boudman credits the library staff with allowing him to use his talents to provide cultural education opportunities to people in and around Presque Isle.
“The staff members are all very kind and good at helping each other out,” Boudman said. “I think a space like the library provides a cultural center for the community.”
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- Clifton Boudman, artist-in-residence for the Mark and Emily Turner Memorial Library in Presque Isle, shows off a favorite photograph from the exhibit: “Past is Present: Presque Isle Year 1900” in the library’s Fort Road Gallery. (Melissa Lizotte)
