Mineola Library Connects with Texas Counterpart

When you mention the Mineola Memorial Library, you could be talking about the one on Long Island. Unless it happens to be the Mineola Memorial Library from Mineola, Texas.

They’re not the only culprit of misdirected mail and distantly returned books with the moniker of Mineola, however. Through some research Jessica Breitman the New York Mineola Memorial Library discovered several other Mineolas as well.

The Mineola Memorial Library from Mineola, Texas though recently participated in an exchange with the Long Island-based version. Jessica Breitman, a library sciences graduate student at Long Island University Post, helped organize the exchange with help from library director Charles Sleefe.

“It was something he always wanted to do. He came to me to set it up,” Breitman explained.

They were made aware of the doppelganger library because mail and books would mistakenly be sent to their counterpart half way across the country and vice-versa. In October some of the first e-mails were sent out.

“I tried to find some information about them, found an email and got in touch with Mary who thought the idea was great,” Breitman said, but couldn’t recall the last name of Mary – of Mineola Memorial Library in Texas – only remembering her as a pleasant lady who was enthusiastic about the exchange.

The two discussed sending “a newsletter, history books about Mineola and Long Island and they sent us history books of their area, and lists of 10 top distributed books from our libraries. They even sent us a mouse pad with the library cat on it. They have a library cat there.”

The mouse pad with the Lone Stat State library cat can be found on display with the other items sent from Mineola, Texas just to the left as you enter the NY library. Both libraries bear identical names and there is a distinct familiarity of the Mineola Memorial Library from Texas, as seen in the photo sent.

“It’s fun to see and a little weird to see,” Breitman said.

Legend has it that Mineola, Texas was founded by a resident of Mineola, NY who travelled there and bore such affinity for his hometown that he gave the town the same moniker. Due to Mineola’s distinct name and it’s regional connection to Native American tribes the speculation seems well founded. As for the truth Jessica couldn’t confirm the urban legend, but nor did she outright deny it.

“I don’t know about that but it’s possible,” she said with a curiously rising tone in her voice.

Initially Hurricane Sandy put the project on hold, but in January both parties were moving ahead again. The Mineola, NY library received the items from Texas in about the middle of February and then sent a shipment of items from New York about two weeks ago. The display will be up near the front of the library through the end of March and will probably be on display somewhere in the library after that.

As for future plans with their twin, Breitman said there were no definitive plans for future exchanges, but she has a couple of ideas, one of which included an exchange with other Mineola libraries, noting one in Georgia as well as several others.

Another idea was a pen pal program between children of the respective libraries in New York and Texas, stirring nostalgia for the art of letter writing, a skill too oft forgotten in a time when we refer to standard mail as “snail mail.”

Some of their counterparts were a little closer than Breitman or Sleefe ever imagined, the former explaining they saw audience members on the Today show with a sign who, when asked where they were from, responded “Mineola, Texas.”

Both laughed about and speculated that they might be receiving a visit if in fact some of the Texan librarians had come to see New York and the library first hand. “I doubt it but it's fun think about,” she said. “It’s all been a lot of fun.”

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