Lynne Peterson & Angela Vaughn

00:00 My name is Angela Vaughn and I work at the Salem Public Library. And I am interviewing Lynn Peterson. And where were you born and in what year?

00:11 I was born right here in Salem, Ohio, in 1948.

00:16 Where were your parents? Families from.

00:18 Both of my parents were born in what is now New Kensington, Pennsylvania.

00:24 If you could give advice to your younger self, what would that be?

00:30 Don't give up. There's always a brighter day out there.

00:34 I love that. What kind of books do you read now that you could have never imagined reading as a child?

00:41 Boy, I don't know. I read a lot of things and I guess maybe future. Not a lot of actually futuristic, scientific. What might this be? Could we do this type thing? When I was a kid, I wasn't interested in that.

00:57 That's interesting. Yeah. It's funny how it changes too. Did you like to read as a child?

01:04 I love to read. I lived in neighborhoods where there were no other children. And my mother worked, my father worked. So I was a latch school. Latchkey child is what they call it. And books were my friends. I would get a book and I could go into the book and become like one of the characters. And so that's. That was how I passed my time with books.

01:28 I love that. What were your favorite books back then?

01:31 Oh, Nancy Drew. I read every Nancy Drew book I could put my fingers on. And then other mysteries. And I got. As I aged a little bit, I got into biographies and autobiographies especially. I'm trying to think of the man's name. He did a lot of biographies that were fiction that he did. I think his last name was Stone, not Irving Stone. But anyhow, he would write stories. I remember I read about Michelangelo, I read about Abraham Lincoln. All these very prominent, well known people. He would spin stories around the bits of truth we knew. Fascinating.

02:14 And it keeps you engaged too.

02:16 Yes.

02:16 About somebody famous. Did you ever have a teacher or a librarian who challenged you to think about the world differently?

02:27 I had a teacher, the librarians. I didn't bother very much because they were busy. They had their work to do, so I didn't bother them. But I had teachers that would talk to me because they knew I was a reader.

02:43 How can you envision libraries of the future?

02:46 I'm worried about libraries of the future. We are. And I own an ebook and I love using it. But I'm afraid that may become the norm instead of the exception. And there is nothing like opening up a book and holding it in your hands. And I remember as a kid the old library here I would walk up the front steps and open the door and come up the wooden steps to the main floor. And the smell of old books was just the best thing in the world. That'll go away if we don't have books.

03:23 That's true. That is true. So this was your library?

03:26 This was my library.

03:27 Oh, my gosh.

03:28 Before, it looks like it does now.

03:31 That's incredible.

03:32 I loved it.

03:33 So you remember how it looked?

03:35 Oh, yes. And I remember, you know, you come up the front steps that now we don't use that entrance. And then the basement was where the Daguerreotype types were. And you could go down and spend hours checking out those and looking at them. Yeah, this was. The great big card catalogs took up the whole center of the library's main floor. And I could never quite figure out the Dewey decimal system.

04:04 Yeah, I think you and me both. What advice would you give to a younger person who only wants to read social media and not books?

04:16 Social media is generally one person's opinion and you are getting inundated with their thoughts. Go to a book and expand your own thoughts and you might be amazed at the things that a book that you're reading will. Doors that it will open for your brain to go into.

04:36 Yes, very true. Has the library, and I guess the Salem Public Library, or even books in general, had an influence on your life?

04:47 In a couple of ways. One, it taught me to read. And as I said, books were my best friend. And normally to this day, I usually have a book either in my hand or in my purse. When I lived in California, I rode the BART train every day. And I was just. I read dozens of books on that train. I'm sorry, I lost the second part of the question. Oh, the influence.

05:13 Yeah. How has the influence?

05:16 It has influenced me in the way that I appreciate books. When people say, oh, have you read this? I don't say, oh, no, I wouldn't be interested in that. I try it. If I don't like it after a few chapters, I will stop reading it. But when I first started really reading high school, probably if I got a book, I forced myself to read the whole thing because the author had those words in there for a reason. And now I don't do. There's so many books out there that I would enjoy reading. Why suffer reading something that I'm not into?

05:53 That's true. Do you think that libraries are an important part of a community?

05:59 Most definitely. Most definitely.

06:03 So it sounds like you have always liked to read.

06:06 I have.

06:07 And you still read?

06:08 I still Read?

06:09 Yes. Do you keep track of what you read and how much?

06:11 No. No. There are some books that they put out and they don't tell you. This is a reprint. Yeah, they changed the cover and I'll start reading it. Man, I know what's gonna happen. Did I see the movie or. And then it dawns on me. It was a. It was a reissue. And I've already bought this book, but now I've got two copies.

06:34 As a child, were you able to go to the library? And if so, what is your first memory at the library?

06:40 This is the. As I said, my mom and dad both worked. I was latchkey. And this is the one of two places that my mother would permit me to go on my own. I lived right up on the corner of 4th and Lincoln, and I was allowed to walk down here to the library, spend as much time in here as I wanted to, check out however many books I wanted, and then go back home. So, yes, this library had a lot of memories for me. And as I've already told you, walking up the front steps, coming into the card catalog, hearing the floorboards creak because it was the old oak floors, and then just smelling all the books in the library.

07:23 Do you remember the staff at all back then?

07:25 No, I don't. You know. No, I don't remember. I tried. Not like I said, I tried not to bother them. And I didn't want to get in shushed because I talk a lot. Yes. If you didn't know. And I didn't want to be shushed. So I don't remember who any of the staff was.

07:43 All right, final question. Which is better, the movie or the book?

07:48 The book.

07:49 The book.

07:51 You can. You can take the. The author's descriptions and form, the characters in your mind, and one of the ones that I have read all of Diana Gabaldon's books on the outlaw. The outlaw. Outlaw. Outlander.

08:09 Outlander, Yep.

08:11 The two stars that they have got playing the two main leads do not look anything like they were described in the book. And I have a tough time watching it, really. I have. I've got in my mind what a Scottish warrior looks like, and it's not hunka hunka.

08:31 Well, thank you so much for this interview today. I really enjoyed it.

08:34 Thank you.

08:37 Perfect.