Not sure if you are referring to the museum or the massage parlor, but this is the artist rendering of what the area where the bistro currently stands would look like after demolition and building.

Edit: Full gallery with all mockups avail here

https://preview.redd.it/dvc0hn79gjpa1.jpeg?width=2769&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=cb53fe062fd66b6abcd9cada73a1e3804f7a2c20

I would imagine that they wouldn't begin until after the new bridge is open. Would make a nice gateway to the future island park.

Right? It would also get rid of the graffiti and hangout spots below them and replace the blight with a boardwalk if I remember the announcement correctly. Much better than the present panhandling area.

Still 1,000x better than the bistro and massage parlor it will demolish and replace!

First US edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was printed in Brattleboro.

While the original post is not VT related, there is a legit Vermont connection to Harry Potter in that the first US edition of the first book was printed in Brattleboro.

Those that learned it later in life? The internet as we know it has been around since the early 90s and librarians in their 40s and 50s grew up with it. I'm only in my early 40s and was on BBS's in the late 80s. Prior to' 94 databases were housed on floppy disks and CDs. The literature and testing has shown that Millennials and GenZ are actually worse at research online because they lack basic information literacy skills. I teach information literacy to grad students in their 20s that have never heard about boolean operators, truncation, etc. They have no idea how to utilize the CRAAP test or how to access databases. Google has made people intellectually lazy, meanwhile we in the information science field are the ones that write and know how to navigate the metadata. It takes a master's degree to become an academic librarian for a reason.

Libraries are always easy targets to administration in k-12 and higher Ed because they have high cost for materials. Let's say I am a librarian at a small private school and my materials budget is 100k and my new president thinks that no one uses physical books anymore so I am mandated to reduce costs by 50%? Well there goes JSTOR, ProQuest, LexisNexis, and an EBSCO subscription that gave students access to more than 2 million journal articles because the easiest thing to cut is database subscriptions that are paid yearly. Libraries also pay for copyright licenses that cover the school so that you and your professor don't get slammed with fines and charges for sharing a PDF of a textbook chapter. These fees are all based on school size so the higher the FTE the higher the cost. A major school will have a library budget in the millions. We are a profession that is always on the front lines of budget cuts and public apathy and/or misinformation that fuels more cuts. My first gig as a librarian involved making substantial budget cuts due to a president like this and the students and school suffered for it. And while these are all generalities, if the school has an a program with secondary accreditation in education, nursing, law, etc. Those accreditation bodies have their separate guidelines for libraries. Nursing accreditation requirements for one call for materials to be published within 10yrs, so library staff are constantly having to weed and replenish a collection. Imagine doing that with digital books? Separately not all publishers have forever licenses. Penguin previously would make public libraries buy a new license after x-number of checkouts. The rationale being that a physical copy of a popular fiction book can only survive 30 or so circulations. That's the type of greed you're dealing with.

I work with graduate students regularly that have no idea how to search online let alone navigate a database or use boolean operators. Don't assume everyone has your skills.

Good luck finding embargoed articles or dissertations without using a librarian or interlibrary loan. Sci-hub, LibGen, etc. don't contain everything. School accreditation in the area places a heavy emphasis on information literacy and the primary conduit for information literacy learning assessment is via libraries.

The most recent job description for the new Library Director at the merged school had in the first lines language that indicated it was a turn around position. It's still up at the Vermont Library Association website for anyone interested.

Don't overlook the staffing line either, you should have a certain ratio of librarians to students. Previous NECHE requirements had an entire section devoted to libraries but sadly this was all they left in the most recent revision.

Yes. Academic licenses come in a variety of flavors: 1-user, 3-user, multiple users but limited to 365 checkouts in a year, and unlimited. Some, but not all, are DRM free. A number of mainstream publishers like Penguin limit to single user, so if it is a high circulation text the library is forced to buy several licenses at hundreds to thousands of dollars to satisfy demand. There are also annual hosting fees for some vendors like SAGE if you do not maintain a database subscription.

They will still have their journal database subscriptions to lend out, but that doesn't cover a commitment to books. I do wonder how much of an increase there was to database costs with the merger. A school that size easily pays 100k for EBSCO's academic search complete, so I can only imagine the costs for Sage, ScienceDirect, and JSTOR. Hope their database budget is at least 500k!

There are a lot of other factors at play too. Not sure how they will get around reciprocal lending and borrowing agreements for interlibrary loan when you have no physical books to lend out. There are two virtual private colleges in the state and even they maintain their physical collections partially for this reason.

Also want to point out that digital books are more expensive than physical copies. A library license for an unlimited user textbook can easily top $500. How will this save any money when you can get multiple copies of the same book physically?

Printers? Librarian here to say that fair use is only up to 20% of a book and cannot include core elements of the text. Your president is advocating copyright infringement. Would also point out that libraries are part of accreditation. That being said, a digital library is still a library, but good luck telling that to NECHE!

Especially traffic laws like police entrapment. In a lot of states, patrol cars should be visible by up to 100ft, with running lights on, and not at the bottom of a hill.

Across the river in NH, where this person was more than likely heading, it's illegal. It's called Jessica's law.

Ahh BF. Would love to see this person cross the bridge and get pulled over in Walpole for violating Jessica's law!

Mostly the only thing separating places like Athens or Weathersfield from southern Appalachia are the accents.

Personally liked Little Haveli, it's in an old bank across the street from Starbucks https://www.littlehaveli.com/

Was attacked by them as a toddler and ever since can't stand them unless I'm eating them.

If they eat turkeys then the more the merrier.

While not entirely related, I just wanted to throw out some information about EV drivers for anyone not familiar: during the winter we get less range so we might drive more conservatively. I drive the speed limit exactly in my EV because I like getting the best mileage I can because charging away from home in my particular model can take over an hour. Whenever I drive an gas vehicle I might go 5-10 over, but EV driving has mellowed me out. 9 times out of 10 we are not brake checking you, our brakes produce battery power and will automatically engage going down a hill or slowing in order to regenerate power. This especially applies to models that use one pedal driving like Chevy Bolts. I've noticed a lot of road rage since purchasing an EV because of the conservative driving and the brake lights, so I just wanted to spread some knowledge to anyone unfamiliar with EV, PHEV, or Hybrid vehicle operation.