Guest Perspective: I Visited 95 CT Libraries In 4 Weeks – Here’s What I Learned

Connecticut has more libraries than municipalities. That’s a good thing. Libraries provide important services to their communities; they’re friendly, clean, well-organized sanctuaries. Some boast brand-new buildings with brightly lit rooms, while others celebrate a century of well-preserved history and exquisite details.

But they all have this in common: You can show up, be welcomed, helped or entertained – all without spending a single dollar.

To celebrate all the libraries have to offer, the Connecticut Library Association organizes a Passport to Connecticut Libraries program every other year. Residents pick up a paper “passport” at their local library, then take it with them to get stamped at other participating libraries across the state during the month of April. Those who get five or more stamps can enter their “passport” into a raffle drawing for Visa gift cards, which happens in June.

Each library that chooses to participate pays a fee that covers the raffle prizes. This year, 171 libraries or branches were on the list, representing 137 of the state’s 169 municipalities. Counting all library branches, there are more than 200 libraries in Connecticut.

In 2024, 153 libraries participated. That was up from 124 in 2018. The program was first introduced in 2014.

My goal was to get to 50 libraries, improving on the 30 visits I completed two years ago. This year I ventured out on 12 separate days, driving over 1,000 miles and stopping at 95 libraries.

I learned a lot about Connecticut – about the libraries, the towns, the back roads – and met many amazing librarians along the way. I also came home with quite a collection of pens, pencils, stickers, keychains, notebooks, pins, rubber duckies, and chocolate.

(To be honest, the chocolate was eaten along the way and never actually made it home.)

For being a small state, Connecticut is actually pretty large — at least when it comes to driving from Bethany to Stonington, North Granby, or Canaan. I didn’t even complete the entire western half of the state. But I did make it to Scoville Memorial Library in Salisbury, the oldest library in Connecticut with roots dating back to 1771.

To save time and avoid parking hassles, I avoided the larger cities; several of them (Bridgeport, Danbury, New Haven, Stamford) weren’t participating anyway. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to a single town in the Quiet Corner. The town of Kent also eluded me; a stop there would have cost me an extra hour.

On most of my routes, however, I found libraries within about 15 minutes of each other. Several towns — Hamden, West Hartford, Shelton, and Trumbull — have multiple branches near each other, but they don’t all keep the same operating hours. Some towns like Branford, Essex, and Groton have two or more library branches that operate completely independent from each other.

With cellphone service dropping at random in Salisbury, Redding, and Killingworth, I was thankful to be near a library’s free Wi-Fi so I could pre-load the map on my phone before heading to my next destination. Routes were mapped out carefully, with minimal allowance for detours. I wanted to avoid getting lost with gas prices as high as they are at the moment.

After librarians started seeing 20 or more stamps, everyone wanted to know “which has been your favorite so far?” The more libraries you visit, the harder that question is to answer. It’s like picking your favorite pet.

All libraries are great in their own way – sometimes it’s the architecture, sometimes it’s the location, cute statues or cleanliness of the bathrooms. If your library has pets, like the two sweet cats at the Mystic & Noank Library, it obviously brings it to the top of my list. The dog at Minor Memorial Library in Roxbury was also very cute.

My favorites were also when something unusual or unexpected happened, such as when a toddler in Canton abandoned her dad in the parking lot, eagerly ran inside the library, then popped her head back out of the door to see if he was coming in. Similarly in Middlebury, a young boy walked through the library’s automatic doors, reached both his arms straight up in the air and shouted “Yes! We’re here!”

Pure library joy is contagious.

One day during their April vacation, I brought my two godchildren along. Unsure how much patience they’d have, I was shocked when they both insisted we stop at “just one more library before we go home.” We ended up doing 10 that day, and almost forgot to have lunch.

Another favorite moment was when I found a book I had been looking for at the Edith Wheeler Memorial Library in Monroe, and I learned that not only can you borrow a book from any library in Connecticut with your local library’s card, you can return said book to your local library instead of driving all the way back to where you got it. It made me so excited, I picked up a second book as well in Monroe.

This convenient exchange is made possible through Connecticut’s BorrowIT CT program, which provides reimbursement to local libraries from the state-funded Connecticut State Library. Gov. Ned Lamont had proposed a 20% cut to this program for the 2027 fiscal year budget. Luckily, after some serious lobbying by library advocates, that funding was restored.

If 95 library stops sound like a lot, you should know I didn’t even come close to setting a record. Several people had visited more than 100 libraries already in the first two weeks, when I was still aiming for 50.

A few librarians made me feel special by “oohing” and “aahing” over my many stamps. Others quickly brought me back to earth by informing me “they’ve seen a lot more.” And based on social media posts, I know at least three people made it to all 171 libraries by April 30.

But this was not a contest. Visiting 95 libraries was plenty.

Now, it’s time to return to the safety of my own home and stay off the roads for a bit. After all, I have several books here that need to be read.

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Viktoria Sundqvist is a veteran Connecticut journalist, a Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists board member and a former newsroom data analyst. She also runs the CT Missing People & Cold Cases Substack.

This column first appeared on CT News Junkie and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.