Our Catalog
The Collections
The Ester library has approximately 6,000 items on the shelves and another 15,000 in storage. The collection includes books, audiobooks, movies, puzzles, and board games. It also includes the Growing Ester’s Biodiversity program seed library, a collection of flower, fruit, and vegetable seeds. Almost the entire collection has been donated by local residents. Some books have been donated by libraries around the state or by government agencies. We are also quite proud that we feature many books that have been banned or have suffered attempts at banning in libraries and schools. Ideas are revolutionary things and upset the status quo, expand the minds of their thinkers, and generally cause a ruckus. The librarians feel that this is a good thing.
Using Our Online Catalog
 
Use LibraryCat.org to Search
Use JTEL’s librarycat.org online catalog to search for the title, author, or subject that interests you.
Access the LibraryThing Catalog
LibraryThing.org is the online catalog that is shared between JTEL and the Calypso Resource Library.
Use the drop-down menu in the upper left-hand corner to select a specific collection.
LibraryThing Menu Items
Your Library
This includes books at the Clausen Cabin, and in storage inside the “White Building”.
Clausen Cabin
Books that can be immediately retrieved from the main library building.
White House Storage
If you wish to have a book retrieved from storage, please contact us at info@esterlibrary.org.
Calypso Resource Library
Calypso Farm’s catalog of farming and gardening books.
Wish List
Books that may round out a specific collection or are otherwise needed at the library. Please contact us if you have a book that you wish to donate from this list.
Search by Tags
To the right of the collections drop down menu is the tag menu. In addition to subject tags, we also have tags that identify donors of large collections. To date, these include Bowling, Guinn, Helfferich, Koponen, Mull, Four Winds, UAF Women’s Center, Hadley, Chesnut, and Trigg.
Browsing our books
We are open at least a few hours nearly every day of the week, so come on down and browse our collection of books, games and puzzles! These are a few of the sections that we have:
- Juvenile Picture Books — picture books, read-alouds, and beginning reader books, in tubs arranged by first letter of author’s last name.
- Young Readers — juvenile literature through 6th grade, alphabetically by author
- Young Adult — fiction for teens and young adults, alphabetically by author
- Fiction — Adults and general fiction, alphabetically by author
- Poetry — alphabetically by author
- Nonfiction — separated into Alaska/Yukon and general nonfiction, catalogued by Dewey Decimal numbers
- Puzzles
- Games
Book Donations
For now, we are requesting that folks hold off on donating books, unless you have any books on our wish list (see above section “Our Catalog”), as we still do not have enough space for them all. Our new building will be able to accommodate many more books, but until that library is constructed, we just don’t have the space. Thank you for your patience!
For our volunteers: if you are a collections volunteer, click here for instructions on adding books to our collection.