Ninety years of reading
Jason Shueh/Valley Press Ashlynn Meckler, age 8, grabs a yellow card from the prize drawing bowl to announce the winner of a new book donated by Waldenbooks in Missoula.
If Plains’ first librarian Marian Coulter were alive today, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine her sipping coffee and gobbling a few cookies at the Plains Public Library’s 90-year celebration last Saturday.
The 90th birthday bash started off at 10 a.m. and finished at 1 p.m. and drew more than 200 people, who came to sample some of the refreshments, grab a library book bag and enter their names to win a few books. Jane Bates, the chairman of the library board, said that the board had been planning the event for the past few months and was happy with the turn out.
“We were just blessed with a beautiful day,” Bates said about the nice the weather. She also added that she thought that the celebration was more than merited for the hard work the library staff has done to serve the community these many years. “I can’t imagine anything more important than books, and I can’t wait to do this again when we turn 100,” Bates said.
Organized in 1918 by Mrs. Fred Dudley and Mrs. J.M. Self the library has been located at three other places since it was first established. The McGowan building was the first site, a room in First National Bank was the second site and City Hall was its last location before finally moving to its current location at 108 Railroad Avenue in 1985.
Bates said that she’s happy with the way the library has progressed through the years. “We have a couple thousand people that go through our library each month,” Bates said smiling. The number of volumes in the library also speak of the extensive growth that has happened. When the first records were kept in 1945 there were only 2,400 volumes and 197 patrons, while in 2008 the library reported their total volumes to be at 24,583 and 2,725 patrons.
Dave Winkler, a 7-12 grade math teacher in St. Regis said that now, more than ever, the library is a fundamental public facility for kids. “If we can get kids to read that would be good,” Winkler said and mentioned the low test scores kids are getting and today’s barrage of technological distractions such as video games, television and Web sites that lead away many youth from earning higher grades.
“It’s hard to just get them focused,” he added.
Since the library’s beginning there have been a total of ten librarians starting with Coulter and ending with Plains current librarian Carrie Terrell who took the job in 1992. The longest time a librarian has worked at the library was from 1960 to 1980 when Eva Goodrich was staffing the library.
Next year Bates said that the board is considering extending the library hours because of the growth she’s seen in recent years.