MASSENA - The Massena Public Library is mounting a new campaign, asking patrons to “adopt a magazine.”

Director Elaine Dunne-Thayer said the move is meant to ease the burden on the library’s budget at a time when they and all the other town entities are being asked to scale back.

“The cost is about $3,000 for all of our magazines and newspapers,” she said.

Ms. Dunne-Thayer said retired library Director Paul Schaffer had worked in the past with local non-profit organizations such as veterans’ groups and civic clubs on magazine purchases.

“They’ve all been very supportive. They’ve always supported it in the past,” she said.

Now, she said, they want to solicit help from patrons.

“My hope is to expand it and encourage families to find a magazine in the children’s or adult’s reading room and commit to paying for the magazine for a year,” Ms. Dunne-Thayer said.

“They can come in and choose. If they don’t see the ones they really want on the shelves, we’ll be happy to order it,” she said.

Local businesses or groups could also chip in for a subscription, she said, and the average cost would be from $25 to $25 a year.

“We have various groups that hold their meetings in the library and we don’t charge any fees. We help them out,” she said.

There are benefits to adopting a magazine, according to the library director.

For starters, she said, a sticker that will be placed on the magazine’s plastic cover will indicate who paid for the adoption.

“The current issues will always have ‘adopted by a family or individual’ if they like, or an anonymous donor. We want people to know the community is stepping in and helping us out when we very much need it,” Ms. Dunne-Thayer said.

Patrons will also be able to check out the magazine instead of needing to read it at the library.

“The fact that people are paying, we’d like it to circulate in the community,” she said.

Patrons can also adopt one of several newspaper found at the library. They subscribe to the Daily Courier-Observer, Watertown Daily Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and other print publications.

“It everyone chipped in, the collection would be covered,” Ms. Dunne-Thayer said.

The magazines and newspapers are important to the library’s patrons, she said.

“It’s a very nice reading room, especially on a day like today with the fireplace on. We have people that come in every day and read the paper. Many of them have no computer and some of the older patrons wish to read a real newspaper or a real magazine. It’s a real pleasant place to come in and pass the time,” she said.

This will likely be one of several fundraisers to come in the future, Ms. Dunne-Thayer said.

“We’re looking for different opportunities that we can use as a fundraiser. This comes up as one we think would work. It’s not a huge amount of money, but it does mean a lot to our library,” she said.

Thousands of readers like you have made Northern New York Newspapers the number one ranked website* for local news and sports coverage in the north country.

You can continue on to this article in a few seconds, or you can visit one of our websites:

• Watertown Daily Times
• The Ogdensburg Journal
• Daily Courier-Observer