Book donation honors local Mr. Magic

WALLINGFORD >> The Wallingford Public Library is close to finishing cataloging more than 200 books and pamphlets about magic, donated by a friend of Wallingford’s own “Mr. Magic.”

Thomas R. Prete Sr., known locally as Mr. Magic, was a town institution from the 1950s to the 1980s. Prete taught art at North Haven High School, and he owned an art supply store on Quinnipiac Street called Magic Arts.

The books, which cover magic tricks, famous illusionists and the history of magic, were donated by former North Haven resident Paul Bergantino to honor his mentor in magic.

The library accepted the unique collection because they have “a quality of fun,” said Jane Fisher, library director.

“We know it’s a topic people are perennially interested in,” Fisher said. The library usually turns away book collections, which can be better preserved in an archive.

“Some of them are classics in the field,” she said.

This collection, however, “really sparked our interest,” she said, when they heard the story of how it came together.

Bergantino was a student of Prete’s in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“He used to perform some tricks during class,” Bergantino said. “I ended up working for him as a student at his art store . Everyone knew him as Mr. Magic.”

He remembered his teacher as a very giving individual, who loved performing magic tricks for children in hospital pediatric units.

“It was unbelievable how much he helped people,” he said.

Performing magic helped Bergantino hone is presentation skills, he said, which helped him in his professional life. He’s now president of Lifeway Mobility, a Hartford-based company that sells accessibility products, like wheelchairs and stair lifts, throughout southern New England.

“It turned into a lifelong friendship,” he said.

Prete died in 2007. The books carry memorial nameplates with his name.

“I donated the books to keep his legacy alive,” he said, “by donating them to Wallingford, the town he resided in and had a business in for many years.”

Cataloging the large volume of books is the special project of Pat Johnson, the retired head of library tech services. She’s back working part time organizing and labeling books before they go out on the shelves.

Bergantino provided a list of all the books with estimated prices, which Johnson said was helpful. The worth of the individual books ranges from almost nothing to a couple of hundred dollars.

The donation arrived in September, and it’s taken so long to catalog them all because at least 60 percent require original entries into the library catalog, called Libraries Online or LION.

Johnson takes each book and searches LION to see if the title exists in the system.

“When I’m lucky, I find a match,” she said. “But a lot of them had to be (cataloged) from scratch.”

If there’s not a match in LION, she then looks to other state libraries or the Library of Congress.

Pamphlets, some of which date back to 1930s, take an especially long time because information on author, publisher or date is scant or nonexistent.

“It’s challenging but it’s also kind of fun,” she said.

The delicate pamphlets will go to the Connecticut Collection, which houses historic materials on Wallingford and Connecticut. A n exception was made for the magic pamphlets because of their condition and because the collection honors a Wallingford resident.

People can look at materials in the Connecticut Collection but not take them out.

“They would never survive circulation,” she said. The last step is to shelve the books and find the proper storage for the pamphlets, which need acid-free envelopes and boxes for longterm storage.

Johnson said the library’s current collection of magic books is “nowhere near as many as this.”

The books will be shelved in Wallingford but patrons from other libraries will be able to request the books.

“It’s really a wonderful gift, not just to us but to the whole state,” Johnson said.