Librarian

Esther L. Sandstrom, a former middle school librarian and a world traveler, died May 26 of heart failure at Franklin Square Hospital Center. She was 95. Esther Louise Plancon, the daughter of French immigrants, was born and raised in Springfield, Mass., where she graduated in 1933 from Classical High School. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from American International College in Springfield in 1937. She worked as a telephone operator after college and in 1937 married John Russell Sandstrom.

Margaret M. Guccione, a retired Goucher College information technology librarian and volunteer who helped place stray animals, died Oct. 8 of colon cancer at her Butchers Hill home. She was 67. Margaret McFarlane, the daughter of a physician and a nurse, was born and raised in Alton, Ill. After graduating in 1961 from Marquette High School in Alton, Ms. Guccione earned a bachelor's degree in education in 1965 from St. Louis University. She taught English in St. Louis until moving to Germany in the late 1960s with her first husband, David Guccione, whom she later divorced.

Carol N. Kelly, who was head librarian at St. Paul's School for Girls for two decades and an active church member, died Sept. 29 of Alzheimer's disease at the Maples of Towson, an assisted-living facility. She was 71 and had lived in Cockeysville. Carol Ann Newman, the daughter of an insurance executive and a homemaker, was born in Hartford, Conn., and graduated from East Hartford High School. She was an undergraduate at Drew University in Madison, N.J., when she met and fell in love with a classmate, John Frederic Kelly.

In advance of Banned Books Week (Sept. 25-Oct. 2) I want to thank the often unheralded defenders of my First Amendment rights — librarians — who have quietly fought and continue to fight censorship. Large amounts of great literature have been banned at one time or another by self-appointed arbiters of the public morality — churches, school boards, censor boards, etc. — because these books have asked questions or described situations that made the rich and powerful uncomfortable or offended someone's sensibilities.

For 39 summers, Columbia filmgoers have thronged to the Lakefront Film Festival. Its host and programmer, Tom Brzezinski, aka Mr. B, was holding summer community screenings two years before that. As he said in a series of e-mails, he wanted to give "something back to the community" after he helped open, in September, 1968, the first Howard County public school in Columbia — Bryant Woods Elementary, where he served as the first media specialist/librarian in the county school system.

Any kid can have a bookmobile come through his or her neighborhood. But in Annapolis, kids last month were treated to what Tyler Heights Elementary School staff called a bookmobile/bookmocycle — a Honda Accord with a trunk full of children's books that was led by a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. It is no wonder that a group led by Tyler Heights librarian Paula Borinsky Hendry and second-grade teacher Matt Schlegel gave away about 1,000 books to Annapolis-area youngsters during July.