Roots

It is intriguing to trace a local Library’s beginning. That beginning is often as a makeshift center run by a few volunteers in some already existing space, the collection being of not many books, but enough to establish a small lending Library. Even today, we see pop-up Libraries. There is one at the front of Laird Hall, one at the front of the Rewind Shop in Export. The history often continues with how that particular service evolved into so much more, managed by a professional staff of trained librarians. The subject has been treated before in this column, even in a larger historical context.

For an example of the larger historical context, there is the story about Benjamin Franklin’s Junto Library in Philadelphia in Walter Isaacson’s “Benjamin Franklin: an American Life” (2003), which was a sharing of hard-to-come-by books. Mostly then they were printed in faraway England and shipped at some cost. Franklin’s was a subscription Library, with subscribers being charged upkeep with right to borrow books from the clubhouse. Ultimately, Franklin became a homegrown printer as well, as he recognized the commercial need for domestic sourcing.

For another example of larger historical context, there is the touching story of an English World War II isolation (prison) camp and the birth of its little Library. The story is told in the “The Island of Extraordinary Captives: A Painter, a Poet, an Heiress, and a Spy in a World War II British Internment Camp” (2022), by Simon Parkin.

These two historically significant examples both started with individuals who just had to have a Library to share dear books. They are archived as numbers 120 and 155 at https://www.murrysvillelibrary.org).

The Stratford Public Library in Ontario Province has, as a community example with a keen sense of its own roots, its own personal history book, “Stratford Library Services 1846 – 2003” (archive #175). It has chosen to share its history in text and with photos.

Most of our local Libraries have started in a like way to the above, driven by a nucleus of sharing readers. It is the case for Murrysville Community Library, whose humble origin dates to 1922. And it is true as well for Delmont Public Library (DPL), which last year shared its 90th-year and meandering roots with archival photos mounted in timeline on the wall of its Community Room. DPL has its story online at its web site as well.

How interesting it is considering that the new and more expansive DPL Library building only opened in 2021, and now boasts of its having the newest “green” technology as its signature. Delmont Public Library’s history includes four very basic, makeshift sites on its path to modernity. Today it boasts of solar collectors on the roof, geothermal heating, and electric car charging stations outside the front door in the parking lot. What a contrast!

So as a considerable benefactor from my own little community branch Library years ago, my message is this: Don’t take your community Library for granted. It has taken a lot of effort, whether by Ben Franklin or just ordinary citizens who cared, to grow the deep roots that today have fostered so much top growth, not just in paper collection-building, but also in building an online presence across communities, as well as educational and informed, fun programming for all ages.