Librarian

Eleanor F. "Ellie" Vernon-Williams, a retired librarian who restored an Eastern Shore home, died in her sleep Aug. 6 at the Caroline Home for Hospice in Denton. She was 83. Eleanor F. Dunham was born and raised in New Bedford, Mass., and earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in library science from what is now Case Western Reserve University. The former Roland Park resident was a librarian at the Enoch Pratt Free Library on Cathedral Street for 30 years until retiring in 1975.

Knock on Carla D. Hayden's door and you're greeted by an unexpected bonus: Her mother, Colleen Hayden, is visiting from Chicago, and it's amazing how alike the two look. Hayden, Enoch Pratt Free Library director, is dressed for work in a comfortable, but tailored beige pants suit. Mom is wearing a beige pants suit from People United. It's fashionably cut, but made from cozy sweat-shirt material. Both women have on handsome earrings and their hair is cropped.Hayden, an honorary chair of Monday's Women's Housing Coalition Annual Kitchen Party, has learned volumes about dressing in Baltimore's wilting summer heat.

THE DECISION by the library system in Carroll County to block pornography on its public-access computers may fly in the face of the American Library Association's view that such filtering amounts to censorship. It may be rare among library systems in Maryland, most of which don't filter or do so sparingly. But that doesn't make the action wrong.The decision in Carroll, one of the best-used and best-funded library systems in the state, is sound recognition that both children and adults use the Internet, and that protection of minors should be a significant concern.

Calvin Frederick Sinclair, 72, Roman Catholic priestThe Rev. Calvin Frederick Sinclair, former associate pastor of St. Veronica Roman Catholic Church in South Baltimore, died Monday of pneumonia at St. Joseph Manor in North Baltimore. He was 72.Father Sinclair, who retired in 1996, served as associate pastor of St. Veronica's in Cherry Hill from 1979 to 1980 and 1984 to 1985. He was associate pastor of St. Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church in East Baltimore from 1980 to 1981.Born in St. Louis, Father Sinclair served in the Navy from 1944 to 1946.

Faye Houston is having none of this talk about myopic, spinsterish librarians with pinched noses and hair pulled back in tight buns.Houston, chief of humanities at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, once crowd-surfed at Lollapalooza. So there.Still, she does have one thing in common with those storybook librarians. Houston, 56, loves books. She thinks of them as friends with stories to tell.They have been with her ever since her girlish days in Springfield, Ohio. And they will be with her long after tomorrow's retirement party honoring her 33 years of library service.

When librarian Winnie Flattery meets alums of St. Paul's Lower School, she counts on them asking about the bathtub.Her answer is always the same: Yes, the tub is still a fixture in the library, a coveted spot to settle in and enjoy a good book.For almost longer than anyone can remember, elementary students at the Brooklandville school have been able to climb -- on a first-come, first-in basis -- into a spacious old-fashioned bathtub for part of their weekly library period.There, they can lie back, not among bubble bath and rubber duckies, but into red corduroy-covered pillows with a stuffed animal -- or a book buddy -- by their side.

Rhea W. Brocato, 88, nurse, teacher, studied artRhea W. Brocato, who overcame childhood polio and went on to train hundreds of nurses in the area, died of cancer June 4 at her son's Baltimore home. She was 88.Born on a farm in the small town of Conneaut, Ohio, the former Rhea Whaley was inspired to become a nurse by her experiences after she contracted polio at the age of 9 and was hospitalized for a year, said her son, Baltimore attorney Francis S. Brocato.A sister held her foot as she determinedly practiced walking -- until at the age of 18, she was able to abandon her crutches and walk without a limp, he said.

BALMVILLE, N.Y. - Heidi Benson's house is also her hometown.The 19th-century carriage house near Newburgh, where Ms. Benson, a senior editor at Family Life magazine, lives with her husband, Matthew Benson, a photographer, is part of a one-acre village of carpenter Gothic outbuildings. They were built as a gentleman's farm for an Italianate Hudson River mansion next door. In addition to the carriage house, there is a farm manager's house, a barn, a milking parlor, a stable and an icehouse, with a village green between.

Marion W. Stoer, a retired Baltimore County public schools librarian, died June 4 of complications of pneumonia at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. She was 88.Mrs. Stoer, a 50-year Wilson Point resident, began her career as a librarian at the old Chase Consolidated School in 1952. She later established the library at Hawthorne Elementary School and ended her career in 1972 at Carney Elementary School.After she retired, she was active with Literacy Volunteers of America, teaching adults to read.

Ediciones Vigia uses standard Cuban government-issued tan paper, which is easy to tear and highly acidic. Many of the books have a short shelf life: 50 years at the outset, though temperature and humidity control can help. Deterioration shows almost right away; some page edges are frayed and curled.This concerns local book artist Jeanne Drewes, head of the preservation department at Johns Hopkins University. Drewes visited Cuba in May, one of several people to bring book-art supplies, including high-quality paper, to the artists.

Inglourious Basterds * 1/2 ( 1 1/2 STARS) $38 million $38 million 1 week Rated: R Running time: 2:33 What it's about: A band of Jewish-American commandos (including Brad Pitt, above) bedevil the German army, and a French Jew seeks justice for the Nazi slaughter of her family. Our take: It's so hollow and protracted that it transforms mayhem into monotony. District 9 ** ( 2 STARS) $18.2 million $72.8 million 2 weeks Rated: R Running time: 1:52 What it's about: A government agent comes to the aid of an alien race (above)

District 9 ** ( 2 STARS) $37.5 million $37.5 million 1 week Rated: R Running time: 1:52 minutes What it's about: A government agent comes to the aid of an alien race (above) forced to live in slumlike conditions on Earth. Our take: It's mainly a compost of other sci-fi movies, some as old as "RoboCop" and "Aliens," and some as recent as "Cloverfield." G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra ** ( 2 STARS) $22.3 million $98.5 million 2 weeks Rated: PG-13 Running time: 1:58 minutes What it's about: Team leader Duke (Channing Tatum, above)

Jacqueline Evelyn Williams, a retired Garrett County mathematics teacher and librarian, died of a heart attack July 28 at St. Joseph Medical Center. She was 66. A Glen Arm resident, she had lived in Grantsville in Garrett County. Born in Baltimore and raised in Northwood, she was a 1960 Eastern High School graduate. She earned a bachelor's degree at what was then Frostburg State Teachers College. Miss Williams was a math teacher and high school librarian for 25 years in Garrett County before retiring in 1989.

Adelaide C. Rackemann, a former librarian who was also a poet, conservationist, horticulturist, bird watcher and a freelance writer, died Sunday at Maryland Shock Trauma Center after suffering a fall at her Bare Hills home. She was 86. Adelaide Hardcastle Crawley, the daughter of a lawyer and a homemaker, was born in New York City and raised in Port Washington, N.Y. After graduating from Port Washington High School in 1941, she earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Wellesley College in 1945.

Paulette Tanenbaum, a retired Harford County librarian, died of malignant melanoma March 8 at her home in Street. She was 79. Paulette Townsend was born in Paris, the daughter of an American pastor and a French mother. After the Germans occupied France, the family fled to Lisbon, Portugal, where they boarded a ship for New York. They lived in southern New Jersey before moving to Providence, R.I., where Mrs. Tanenbaum graduated from Mount Pleasant High School. She later moved to Harford County, where she worked as a county librarian in Bel Air and Fallston for 30 years.

Founded on belief in the inherent dignity of everyone, Dignity Players begins its fifth season at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis continuing its mission of presenting plays that focus on social justice. This season's opening production of Arab-American playwright Yussef El Guidi's Back of the Throat illustrates the effects of the U.S. Patriot Act on Arab-American citizens. In this dark, sometimes comic drama examining post 9/11 attitudes toward Muslims, protagonist Arab-American writer Khaled is visited by two initially friendly but puzzling government officials, who become menacingly probing and later abusive toward an astonished Khaled, who discovers that he is the focus of a government inquiry into his alleged terrorist ties.

Every once in a while, you hear a story like the one recently about the librarian who left more than $650,000 to the Enoch Pratt Free Library in her will - more money than she earned during her entire career there. It makes you wonder: Why are some of us great savers despite modest incomes, while others are living paycheck to paycheck even with healthy salaries? And could this recession spur a new generation or two to become avid savers, as the Depression did before? The recession is already having an impact.

Enoch Pratt Free Library officials happily discovered the esteem one of their retirees held for the place. At her death, Sara Siebert directed that more than $650,000 of her assets go to the library, a figure that exceeds the total of all the paychecks she took home in her 34 years as Pratt's director of young adult reading. Siebert, an energetic and popular librarian who sought no attention as a donor during her life, left an estate of more than $2 million after her death at age 88 last year.

Laurene J. "Laurie" Baccala, a retired librarian and teacher, died of pneumonia Tuesday at Franklin Square Medical Center. The former Potomac resident was 84. Born in Gardenville, Mrs. Baccala graduated from Eastern High School and enrolled at what was then Towson State Teachers College. She was later accepted at the Johns Hopkins University and earned a bachelor's degree in modern languages while working in the school's chemistry lab. She held various jobs in the publishing industry until her 1949 marriage to James N. Baccala.

Mildred G. Knauff, a retired librarian, educator and homemaker, died of a stroke Sept. 8 at Glen Meadows retirement community in Glen Arm. She was 97. Mildred Grace Fielder was born in Baltimore and raised in the city's Raspeburg neighborhood. She graduated in 1928 from Eastern High School and earned her teaching certificate in 1931 from what is now Towson University. After college, she was trained to operate a Comptometer - an early adding machine - and later taught others how to operate them.