When I arrived a little later than I had promised to help set up for the Haines library reception honoring Ellen Borders' 30 years of service (I'm on the board), librarian Barb Blood reminded me that I was supposed to pick up lemons for the punch. When I returned from the market, she handed me the giant coffee urn and said to make a whole pot.

Together we put down tablecloths and set out dozens of plates of cookies and savory snacks that volunteers had baked and prepared. We displayed plaques honoring Ellen, and her co-worker Reba Heaton, who has worked at the library for 20 years.

Barb worried that the mayor may not make it. Mayor Hill had been ill, but was feeling better and promised to present Ellen a key to the Borough. Barb hoped we had enough food. I feared we had too much. January in Haines is kind of quiet, and the ground under the snow is so slick that it may be safer to stay inside.

Patty Brown, the library director, slipped on the ice and broke her arm and was in Juneau for surgery. Ellen was still in a wheelchair recovering from a December fall that broke her leg. At presentation time we read a note from Patty joking that she was looking forward to keeping Ellen company in the library's new physical therapy room.

Well, everyone must have worn their ice grippers, because there were so many people in the room -- babies, elders with canes, a pack of pre-teens scarfing up the cookies -- that when it was my turn to speak about Ellen (Barb spoke about Reba) I was overwhelmed. (And flustered from botching the coffee. I hadn't connected the percolating stem to the basket.)

I took a deep breath, and said that Ellen is the most widely-read person in Haines (or anywhere, I suspect.) She reads about three books a week. A sampling of titles she has reviewed for the library include: "Unaccompanied Women: Late Life Adventures in Love, Sex and Real Estate," "The Titanic: The Legacy of the World's Greatest Ocean Liner," and "The Sacred Heart: An Atlas of the Body Seen Through Invasive Surgery." Of that one Ellen wrote, "the photographs are quite graphic, so if the sight of blood bothers you, don't check this book out!"

Ellen also reads books on bears, cooking, making mosaics, children's music, history, and travel guides from Cape Cod to Katmandu. She enjoys literary novels too, like Tim O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods that she recommended. "The author is a poet and has a wonderful way with words," Ellen wrote.

Ellen orders all the new books for the library and weeds out the unused ones. The reason we are so well read (they say the Haines library has the highest per-capita circulation in the state, and one of the highest in the country, and the new library is the nicest building in town) can be attributed, in large part, to Ellen's choice of materials, and the non-judgmental way she recommends them to patrons. She is as enthusiastic about romance novels as she is about academic journals like Granta.

Ellen never balked at changing information technology, computers or library Internet services. She says the library is our window to the world, and it's important to keep it wide open.

By looking at her you'd never guess she was so hip. She always wears skirts and is soft bosomed with a gray bun, rosy cheeks, and twinkling eyes. She bakes the best chocolate chip cookies in town.

After I said all that, or at least some of it, I was still worried that I hadn't done Ellen justice. I know from working at the local paper that she is a trusted source, and was relieved that editor Tom Morphet was in the crowd. He had said earlier he'd speak, if he had time. (He was on a deadline.)