When the Milford Power Station was built to supply power for the Eastern Manufacturing Company of South Brewer, Milford was confidently believed to have capacity enough for any possible future need of the paper mill. As time went on, the mill grew far beyond those early expectations and it became necessary to install a 1000 KW frequency changer at Veazie Station to supplement the capacity of Milford.

Provides photographs and extensive biographical information about Lincoln A. Gardner, Ralph A. Fernald, Albert E. Grose, William R. Wray, Leonard A. Austin, Roscoe H. Smith, Vernon E. Cushing, Leroy G. Vose, and Julius W. McDonald, managers at Bangor Hydro-Electric offices across the state.

Features photographs and descriptions of Eastern Manufacturing Co. operations "In the Woods" and "At the Mills." Also includes a profile of Arthur F. Reaviel ("Rip"), Superintendent of Lines in the Bangor District. "Your editors are pleased to dedicate this April number of the Bangor Hydro-Electric Company News to the Eastern Manufacturing Company. This industry located at Lincoln and South Brewer, is of great importance in the continued prosperity of the communities that we serve and therefore of equal importance to our company as the Electric Service Company serving these communities."

Provides photographs and biographical information about the Board of Directors of the company. The board members are Albert E. Bass, Harry A. Chapman, A. Langdon Freese, Harry W. Libbey, Garrett D. Speirs, and J. Norman Towle.

Photographs and narration detailing the new headquarters for Bangor Hydro-Electric Company at the corner of State and Exchange Streets (33 State Street) in Bangor, Maine.

Features a photograph and short article about the installation of cement ties for the street railway system on College Avenue in Orono, a picture of and story about the dam at Gilman Falls, and an extensive article about long-time employee, Elmer C. Cole.

Provides biographical and work history profiles for over two dozen employees of the Bangor Hydro-Electric Company. Also includes photographs and a lengthy description of a canoe trip along the East Machias River by employees of the company.

Details the efforts of the engineering and construction departments of the Bangor Hydro-Electric Company in improving the Veazie dam to accommodate the increasing demand for hydroelectric power. Also includes a profile of W. E. Bagley, a freight agent and substation operator for the company, who had worked for the company for 26 years.

Endorses employee participation in the "Empty Socket" campaign, a competition to sell cartons of 60-watt lamps. " A very large portion of the profits of the lamp sales are handed on to our employees but the Company will benefit by the increased load that will be derived if the campaign successfully fills every empty socket in every home that the Company serves." Also reports on the wedding of employees Grace Ethel Cotton and Harvard Edgar Moor, and ends with a memorial to Alvin R. Mann.

Profiles salesmen for Bangor Hydro-Electric Company in offices from Millinocket to Eastport. Honors long-time employees George W. Austin and Allen P. Royal.

Covers the history of the street railway business in Bangor, Maine and surrounding areas, from 1893 to 1928, as it transitioned from the Bangor Street Railway to being operated by Bangor Hydro-Electric Company. Profiles employees Edson E. Comins, Assistant Superintendent of Transportation in the Bangor office, and Mortimer D. Wentworth, a 30-year veteran trolley car operator.

Provides an extensive description of the Park Street Substation for the Bangor Hydro-Electric Company. At the time, the substation controlled all the lighting power and railway service in the cities of Bangor and Brewer and the towns of Hampden, Orrington, Newburg, Dixmont, Hermon, Levant, Etna, Carmel, Kenduskeag, Glenburn, Corinth, and Charleston. These services were to be in the near future extended to Garland, Exeter, and Bradford. The substation was also the headquarters for the Line Crew of the Bangor district, the Meter Department, and the Electrician's Crew. Also includes profiles of employees Arthur L. Davis and Charles H. Johnson, a legendary figure in the history of the company.

"The story of the Veazie Plant is almost the history of the whole development of hydro-electric plants in this country, for it is said to be the third to be put in commercial operation."

The long necessary book-storage addition to the library building was assured for 1958 by the unanimous action of the City Council on July 22, 1957 whereby was authorized a library bond issue of $100,000 and tax levy therefor...The addition will be a cube 100' x 30' x 30', with flat roof, directly at the rear of the present book-storage section of the library building. But three walls are required, as the fourth will be the rear wall of the present building. To save heat window area will be kept at a minimum. The new construction will provide one complete floor of shelving, at the level of the present main floor, with the necessary supporting columns below. The remaining floors of shelving, for which space is provided, may be added in later years as need requires and means permit. In the new building will be an automatic elevator, 3'6"'x4'8", to serve all levels of both buildings. There has never been any elevator in the present book-storage area of four floors. This has been a conspicuous lack.

It is gratifying to be able to report that the use of the library, as measured by the home use of books, increased 10% as compared with 1955. The total for 1956 was 322,642--for 1955, 292,553. The 1956 figure is the largest annual use in fourteen years. All departments–adult, children's, extension, music-shared in the increase. Obviously public interest, rather than any one thing that may have been done by the library other than meet the demand, is the explanation. The full use of clear plastic covers over the publishers' colorful book jackets may have whetted public interest. In two words, "improved packaging."...The supplying of home reading is far from being the only activity of the library. There is the reference department answering 12,329 questions--there is the job of giving out the Tello-Test answers 13,417 times--there are the book boxes supplied in 175 school rooms and 99 sets of encyclopedias in schools in Bangor. There are the 144 teaching units sent out by the children's department, the 102 story periods, the annual author's tea. There are seventeen exh1bits in the lecture hall and the 266 public meetings held free by 43 organizations in various rooms of the library. There is the intensive use of the reading room by high school students from one o'clock to four o'clock daily. There is the doctors' library at the Eastern Maine General Hospital and the law books in the Penobscot County Bar Library. The list could be extended a long way.

Our number one problem continues to be more space for books. A simple building addition to the book storage area is the answer to our need. When we can obtain $100,000 for construction our difficulty will be solved. On April 18, 1955 we told the City Council of this need. On June 21 we had the privilege of meeting with the council chairman and the city manager to discuss the problem, particularly in its financial aspects. The year 1955 did not bring solution of the problem. Solution in 1956 is, therefore, more than ever urgent...Among innovations in the library service were the opening of the children's room for two evenings weekly--the transfer of the children's story period from Saturday mornings to two afternoons for two different age groups--and the provision by the Junior League of Bangor of a book delivery service for shut-ins.

The library needs more room to put books. That is our principal problem. The process of discarding books no longer as necessary as they once were cannot be stepped up further. The makeshift of constantly moving books in the storage area, as more books are received, has gone as far as it can. The makeshift of adding shelves in the corridors a most inconvenient arrangement is nearly exhausted. The distribution of books to users has developed to a very high level. A simple addition to our book storage area is the answer to our need. This is not news to any of us associated in the management of the library. The approach of the suffocation point in the book storage area has been chronicled in the annual reports for the past nine years. When we can find $100,000 for construction our difficulty will be solved. That figure would give us storage space for thirty-six years.

"How has television affected the use of the library ?" was the question most often asked during 1953 by statistically minded people. The quick answer is, "Very little." The home use of books was 289,062, only 3% less than in 1952, which was the final year without television. It is only 9% less than the highest point in the past ten years. A more careful answer is that television is only one of many forces acting on the use of library books. Among forces are rather full employment, the wjdespread sale of paper-covered books, increasing quantities of periodical subscriptions sold by organizations raising money for their own projects, 3-D movies, and the lack of phenominal best sellers...On December 26 Alice M. Wetherell resigned from the position of children's librarian which she has held since October 23, 1923. To generations of children she has been ''the lady who owns the library." Her influence, extended through her knowledge of books, her delightful story-hours, and, above all, by her gracious personality, has been of immeasurable value. All of us who have been privileged to be associated with he are grateful for that privilege and happy for her in her marriage to Rowland G. Rice.

Our most pressing problem is lack of space for more books. Our net annual growth (additions less removals) for the past seven years has averaged 6,692 items. At this rate the suffocation point will be reached in two years. A new stack building added to the rear of the present one is the desirable solution of the problem, if only funds for building can be obtained. This problem was discussed, previously, in my annual report for 1947 and, recently, in a detailed special report to you...The packing, by our staff, of the museum collection of the Bangor Historical Society, occupied much time from early November to December. The move to the Society's new quarters at 159 Union Street was finished on January 22, 1953. After rehabilitation, the vacated space will be opened for library use. The Society is generously placing with us on permanent loan such of its books and papers as will add value to our collection. There will be many.

In 1951 two major improvements were effected--the re-modelling of the combined lecture and exhibition hall and the opening of the fiction room in the basement. In the lecture hall were installed two windows, museum walls of monkscloth over plywood, an asphalt tile floor, and folding doors. The whole room was refinished in a light color. The fiction room supplied a browsing and lounging area with open-shelf space for 3,000 books, in what was formerly a hallway area occupied, in part, by the military collection of the Bangor Historical Society. By arrangement with the society part of the military collection was packed and stored until such time as the society shall have its own, independent rooms, and part, was placed on display in the historical room on the upper floor of the library.

Our collection of phonograph records of music of enduring worth was put in operation at the music branch on June first. We have 484 dises in 107 albums. The collection is popular. Because of the difficulties of processing records on very tight work schedules it does not grow as fast as we would like. One of our greatest needs is for more shelf space open to the public where many books may be handled and inspected before being borrowed. Our plans for 1950 undertook to correct this, by providing an open-shelf fiction room for 2,500 to 3,000 books in the quiet basement hallway. Easy chairs and a browsing room atmosphere were parts of the plan. In July the shelves were ready for erection. They have had to be stored ever since, at some cost for insurance. The reason for this delay is that the Bangor Historical Society, whose weapons collection, through our courtesy, has for many years occupied the space now needed for the book room in the basement, has not yet succeeded in finding a place to which to move the weapons. The plans for the book room in no way affect the continuance of the Bangor Historical Society collection of pictures and relics on the top floor of the library building.

One of the interesting tasks set this library by the Public Library Inquiry of the Social Science Research Council, which was concluded in 1949 and whose results are now being published in a series of books, was to define the purpose of the library. In abridged form, my definition was as follows: The purpose of the Bangor Public Library is to preserve and disseminate knowledge and thought as recorded in print--to provide recreation through print--and to provide a maximum of assistance to its clients in the use of its collections. We are a general library yet we are also a library of record. We aim to provide printed material on all subjects likely to be of concern or interest either to present or potential users of whatever age or education. We recognize the scholarly resources of our neighbor library of the University of Maine and are interested that each library shall complement the other. The home-use privileges of the Bangor Public Library are free to all residents and to whoever, regardless of place of residence, works, goes to school, or pays taxes in Bangor.

The library operated not merely from its central building, but from a total of 142 different locations: 1 central library, 2 branches, 116 collections in all public and parochial schools, and 23 collections in institutions. Most popular of the library distributing points outside the central library as indicated both by the statistics and the appreciative comments of users was the patients' library at the Eastern Maine General Hospital. There two members of the Bangor Public Library staff each spend ten hours a week lending reading matter throughout all the wards and rooms. They issued 11,119 books in the hospital in 1948.

The library now contains 251,116 books. That is 8.42 books per capita. During the year 11,000 books were added and 3,696 were removed, making a net gain of 7,304 in 1947. Home use of books in 1947 amounted to 308,058. That is 10.33 per capita, or 16.14 per registered borrower. There are 19,087 registered borrowers. The library operated not merely from its central building, but from a total of 141 different locations: 1 central library, 2 branches, 117 collections in schools, and 21 collections in institu-tions. For 41 weeks the central library was open 72 hours a week. For the 11 weeks of summer the central library was open 54 hours a week. Twelve per cent of the cost of running the library in 1947 was supplied by city appropriation and 88% was supplied from other sources, mostly income of trust funds. These percentages were the same as in 1946.