Tour of Community Library with Director Rachel Cring

Tour of Community Library with Rachel Cring

TOUR Of
COMMUNITY
LIBRARY
MAY 1986

Rachel Cring narrating

RC:
... Sunbury and today we're going to take you on a very brief tour of the library to
show you basically what we do there.

Um we're standing out here on the Sunbury Square right now because I wanted to tell you a little
bit about the history of the library before we start.

Um, Community Library is named that because it does not represent just the Sunbury community, but
the Sunbury, Galena, and Center Village or Harlem Township. Back in 1944 a group of ladies from the
Sunbury and Galena YWCAs got together for a tea and talked over the fact that it would be a good
idea to have a library. So a very short time later, um, such a library was started over on the
corner where the Sunbury News now stands. Actually the library was started in the basement of a
butcher shop that stood there at that time, but that building has been moved up to another location
But this is the location where it was. And then after several years the library moved up Vernon Street
to a house that is now burned and so we can't show you that. But in the early '50's then finally it
moved across the street to where it now is located in the Sunbury Town Hall.

Um, we'll start walking over toward the Town Hall while we talk about the Hall itself. It is on the
National Register of Historic Landmarks. It was built in 1868 by public subscription. Um, people
in town gave money to build this building and it was used as a school. It was the Sunbury Union
Institute. Over the years it's been used as a church, fire department, my mother worked there as a
volunteer in the rationing office. It's been a jail. At the time that the bank moved it was used
as a bank and there used to be a vault in it. At the time that it was built for $6500 the Masons
in town gave $1500 of that to build the third floor where they had their Masonic Temple for years.
And then later on after they moved out it became a youth center and there was a pool table up there
for awhile. Basically, the building shows us that this town has always been interested in working
for the things that feels it needs. Initiative has been a very strong tradition in the town and
it has been used basically for just anything that didn't have some place else to go. So that's what
happened when the library needed a place in the early '50's.

We'll go in and you can see the first floor. When I used to come here in the sixth grade, the first
floor was the entire library. Half of the first floor was the adult department and half was juvenile.
And then by the early'60's we had expanded into the second floor, and then after I came back as Director
in the '70's we went on to the third floor. So we'll go in now and see who's in there working. By the
way, Irene will not be at her desk because she's operating the camera, so don't trip Irene. OK, this is
the adult section and the main circulation desk of the library. Here is Charlene Tweedy and
she's gonna smile at you just like she does. She's one of our main circulation people. Always looks pretty
and smiles. Well it's true Charlene. Do you want to say anything about your job here at the library? What
people should know?

Charlene Tweedy
Maybe I should have prepared a speech

RC:
Should have prepared a speech, chuckles.

CT:
Well it's a great job. I enjoy working here, I enjoy the people. It's fun.

RC:
If we had a worst problem what would it be?

CT:
Well, we certainly are hurting for space. We'd love a new building some day (off camera voice, "I hate mosquitos.")

RC:
Prompting, chuckles. And over here, thank you Charlene.

CT:
You're welcome.

RC:
This is Joyce Seitz over here which is not her accustomed place, but this morning she's trying to...(Joyce is working with the card catalog) Joyce this is, who knows who may be watching this someday. And we'll see in a moment where Joyce normally works
upstairs. But, uh this morning we're going to look quickly at the adult section down here. And one thing I
guess I need to point out is that since this building was not built for a library, several years ago we
started seeing real structural damage and the village had to apply for funds to do a renovation, which was
fine except that at that time we had some major changes that made living in the building even harder for us.
For instance, we used to have a little bitty restroom, and now we have a great big one, but really, chuckles,
the capacity has not increased. This restroom is almost as big as our whole technical processing department
upstairs but it still has room for only one actual restroom stall. And, uh, in building it they set it in the
room in such a way that we have also, you maybe wanta come back in here Irene and shoot, a cul-de-sac and this
is where our generality starts. Non-fiction starts back in the corner if you get over here and peer that
way you can see some of the pictures from our art lending collection, everything here circulates. And then
from this corner the collection continues around the wall and into the second room here. (lots of background
talking by various people). This um, give Irene a chance to (unintelligible) (sound of baby fussing) the
section in the center here behind the card catalogs is our entire ready reference section that we can keep on
the main floor. We have many, many more reference books in boxes upstairs which you'll see in a couple of
minutes.

And, let's come back into the council room now. When the library moved in here, this was still being used for
council meetings and there was a huge table in the center, and we would work around it. We had special cases,
bookcases designed with rollers so that when events would take place in here we could push them back against
the wall and they could go ahead and have meetings or voting, uh, collected taxes here, done blood pressure
checks just basically anything that needed a place to go would come here and we would try to accomodate it by
pushing back the, the cases. After the renovation, however, they decided that, um, we couldn't have everything
packed into the room so we took out everything except the cases that we absolutely had to have for the adult
collection that's in view. Oh, we left out where we keep our westerns. Just keep rolling and we'll go back
in here. Now Irene, you will have to step in here and shoot this without me because this is where we keep the
westerns, the paperbacks, the paper supply, the staff refrigerator for downstairs, various things we can't fit
in anywhere else. Um, and people who want westerns do have to come back in here and kind of crawl around to find
them.

Okay now, if you come out again, the other thing I forgot to point out was where the booklift used to be.
Um, when the village moved us in here, in the 60's I guess, it was when we extended into the second floor,
they added a booklift which used to be right in here, and it served alright for many years and only broke and
collapsed, oh maybe five,six times. So now you see a table of books that we do hand-carry to the second floor where the
pages can put them away, they've got to get them up there. This is one of the really pressing problems that we have with
a multi-story building and no book lift.

Now go back through the council room and we're going to go into the back stairwell and up the back way to the second
floor. On the way I'll point out this is one of the things we feel bad about. These are donated books that are waiting for
the flea market and we don't really have any good place to store those at this point so when they come in, we put
them wherever we can and try to unload them the next flea market time.

This back hallway here is what really I guess the main entrance of the building used to be. But now, for us in this
section that used to be the vault for the bank and various things is our custodial area and it looks pretty good
right now because it's just been cleaned out so it's not too bad. It is, however, a really, really damp room so anything
that you put in there you might as well count on not using if it's paper. We try not to leave anything in here
too long. And, uh, actually we have ended up with less space, less usable space than we had before and the other
half of this stairwell you see more donated books, this is just a drop in the bucket. They also laminated some of
our under stair space that we use to put donated books in and closed that up. And then back in the back is the fuse
box and such.

Now we're going to go up the steps and on the way up the steps you will see books and various things stacked on
the steps which we know is not a good idea, but at this point we have no place else to put the things that we
are saving. These are to be added to the collection, they've come in as donations. And up here we have some things
that are waiting to go to the third floor. Since everything is hand-carried we take them up as we go. Out here is
one of our audio visual cabinets. It has film strips and various things in it. Our record catalog which really
we've never used that much so we basically use it like a shelf list. And then down here some of the AV equipment and
such. Reserve books for the classes, uh, staff coat area.

And now we're going to go in to the second floor. And the stacks are set in keeping with the loading plan that we
were given when we came back in after the renovation. We do have load limits on all the floors, and in spite of that
we are beginning to notice that the floors are, uh, rolling again. We've got some problems with the underflooring so
it could be that we aren't(baby giggle),(adult chuckle) we may not be out of the woods yet on the building. And
mainly juvenile, this is juvenile non-fiction, fiction, easy books. Here's our children's librarian Polly Brehm.
Polly would you like to say anything about your job, good bad?

PB:
Nothing right now. But I'm trying to build a sticker for the Summer Reading Program.

RC:
A, designing a sticker for the Summer Reading Program. Poly works in approximately 30 square feet of space here, this
is the entire children's department. This is where it happens. And on the other end over here we must point out where
our clerk-treasurer works, again in approximately, actually 30 square feet is more than what she has. But this used
to be just a cul-de-sac I guess, a stairwell thing, and we made it into an office because there was no place else to
put her. If you want to Irene, why don't you stand up there and get a picture so that we can see how much is really
crammed in here. (Background voices and noises) And actually this is an improvement over the situation that used to
exist with the clerk-treasurer because it used to be that she worked back in the technical processing area (background
voice "Polly, phone", "Thank you") and had absolutely no privacy and no place to put the papers when she was working
with. This, and over here is where the books come up, where the book lift used to be, again, this is where it would
emerge but now the books are here waiting to be (unintelligible).

And we'll come back into the technical processing area, and here's Helga. This is another thing that we have on the
second floor is our video...this is it, Helga

Helga:
That's it

RC:
You're on camera

Helga:
Oh boy

RC:
The covers we keep over there and then come back in here you can see that, give the cover over to Helga and she'll
come back and get it on again. It's an unwieldy situation but it's the only place we have to put those things. Now
this, as I said, is the entire office area, we call it the technical processing but it's a lot of other things too.
This desk where no one is sitting except the black bag, that's the camera bag, and Irene is running the camera so
obviously you won't see her right now. Here's Paula. Let's get a picture of Paula, whose area we just showed.

PP:
Do we have to? (background voice"yes")

RC:
This is our clerk treasurer Paula Phillips and she's the one who makes it up and down that little set of steps into
the 30 square feet.

And back in here then, the typewriter with the empty chair over there is where Joyce would normally be and she's
downstairs right now, as you just saw. And then back in the corner is the desk where Erin Davis, who's our audio/
visual person and graphics person, and she comes in here around 3 each day or a little after.

This entire area is around 200 square feet and in it at any one time anywhere from three to maybe five or six people
could be working on a, on a busy day. If someone is sitting at the typewriter typing, and someone's at each desk. And
someone's also doing video. And then this is my desk which, uh, doesn't always look this bad, but sometimes does. This is basically the place where I do the administrative work, cataloging and everything else right now. Papers. And all kinds of statistics and everything.

So this area right in here is one of the most active areas of the entire library. During the Summer reading program
time especially on Thursday afternoons when we have the reading club deal. During the time that that's going on and their parents are here to get video and the kids are here to get to get their books and (unintelligilble) this place is just like a zoo; literally,it's extremely active.

OK, let's come over and look at the periodical section that's up here. Hello, ladies. Be sure to
get pictures of people actually checking out things (background conversations, "Like a bad penny, we keep turning up.")
These boxes of books that you will see sitting around are boxes that have come in from the big book order that
we were able to place at the very end of last year because we didn't know whether or not we would have funds to buy
books. So we had accumulated our orders and they came in and now we have a work load problem when so many come in at
one time.

OK, back in here, this is the juvenile card catalog, but then this is again where we keep the video, also it's where
we keep the current issues of the periodicals, our pattern collection, which is quite actively used. People...
This is the only place in the village of Sunbury and around that you can get patterns. We take the current Simplicity
catalog so people can come here and browse. And um the reason that you don't see more magazines is that the back
issues from the years before are up on the third floor along with the books that we can't get on to the regular
shelves. So let's go up to the third floor now and look at one of our two closed stack areas.

We did move our records up here and we have the micro film, one of two that we own. Microfilm/fish reader/printer and then this is the microfilm cabinet. We also have our office, the in-house copier that we use for (unintelligible) in here with the video audio, and periodicals, so when we're trying to produce something to get out right away, it's mayhem with everybody going in different directions.

OK now we're going to go up to the third floor, and we're going to see one of the real headaches for this library. Um,
since we cannot load the floors heavily enough to put everything out, since there simply is not space to put everything
out that we own in the adult collection, several years ago we started taking the slower moving books and putting them
into boxes, coding them, so that we could retrieve them but then moving them to a closed stack area where we just
basically store them without having to use shelves.

And then after the renovation of the library and our load limits on all three floors were reduced so, ah, the door almost stuck, that would have been a good demonstration. After the renovation we had to cut back even more, we had to establish two closed stack areas. This looks absolutely terrible
and there's a reason for it. First of all, the books that are on the floor in the boxes are ones that, still are being
used but not so actively as to justify space on a shelf. You can tell by the numerous boxes with the open tops,
books are being put in and taken out of the boxes. At one point I started putting books back on the regular shelf
after they came out and discovered once again, of course, that we were overflowing so we have to now return them
to these boxes, once they're checked out. Also around the edge are the hard copy of the magazines that we're taking,
and these also are used. This mess that you see right here is a piece of shelving that collapsed recently. We think
maybe the earthquake had something to do with it but we're not certain. It's going to have to be re-built and we're
working toward that. Our maintenance person has only a certain number of hours per week and right now it's catch as
catch can but we're trying to put that back together.

Over here against the wall are some of the bound copies that the library had started of National Geographic, hobbies,
things that are of particular value to them. And then the office supplies, saw horses that we used for moving. The empty
piece of shelving that had to be taken, actually these need to go back up to, the furnace burned out and had to be
replaced. Basically this is our catch-all spot and right now it looks bad, mainly because of the collapse of this piece
of shelving. But the entire collection of the library numbers around, it's nearing 60,000 volumes and was really
pretty thoroughly weeded several years ago. And right now our standard turnover rate is one of the higher in the state.
So we don't feel that there's a lot of dead wood here. The original inclination is to walk on the floor and say well why
don't you get rid of these things? Well, because they're still being used. And if our turnover rate were lower we might
worry about it, but right now we feel very certain that if we throw away some of this stuff we're going to regret it.
So we don't want to do that too soon.

Now we're going to go down the steps and out and we're going to go across to the other closed stack area, the one that we
established at the time that the library was out of the town hall while we had to move out while it was being renovated.
And then where we ended up having to leave some of the books in a warehouse area because they couldn't be brought back in
because of the reduced load limit. That means that when someone wants to borrow a book and it's not in the collection
here in the building, the page has to take the cert card and make the trip that we're about to make across to the ware-
house, get it, and then bring it back. So you're ready to hike up...

The place that we're headed is straight across the street here down the walk, as I said is the place that the library
moved to when it had to move out of the town hall. Um, again we had to decide on which books to leave in the public area
because that was very limited on the first floor here which is now an antique mall and then we stored everything else
that we could in the basement underneath it. And the leftover, the books that we still had that we had no place for we
put in a storage room down the street, that is now the Long Branch Pizza.

So in 1983 your Community Library was located in three different spots, all at one time. Now page coming across to
retrieve a book, if it's during the hours that the Sunbury Antique Mall is open, that simplifies it a bit because we'll
walk in and go down the steps. If it's before or after that, then the page would have to come across and go around this
whole set of buildings, down the alley (background conversations and traffic noise.)

OK, originally this was a drug store years ago, it's now... there's Phyllis. Hi Phyllis we're making a little, we're
making a little film this morning

Phyllis:
but not..

RC:
to show how the library works and we're on our way to our closed stacks so

Phyllis:
Your closed stacks

RC:
our closed stacks in the basement. We try not to bring money when we come here because it's too tempting, other...
Be careful now (unintelligible comments) think about how tricky this would be

Phyllis:
Careful you don't trip on those display cases. And if they're in your way let me know.

RC:
Oh ok. Here's a chair for... Now the light down here may be difficult. Oh, gotta find the key too. We have our own separate
entrances and exits each one of us. We tend to use each others 'cause were friends.

Ok we're going to go downstairs. Now I don't know Irene this may be too dark. We'll give her a try, you just keep
shooting, we'll see later what we get.

Irene:
hard to see what ...

RC:
OK because this is shared space and because we can't afford it to begin with, our books are in these boxes and again you
see the tops are open, we are getting in and out of them. But then at any one time when we come over here we may discover
that the antique people have put some of their extra antiques around for storage which is what Phyllis was referring to.

In this corner these particular boxes are not circulating books. These are the ones that we brought over waiting for the
next flea market. All these are donated books, and we do have the flea market in town three times a year and the library
participates in at least one of those and sometimes all three. Usually they do two of them. At the time that we were in
here this whole, this floor was used for closed stacks and then all of our technical processing was done down here
the clerk-treasurer was here. Um, just basically all of the clerical things were done in this area. We did have a, a flood
one time when the, when it rained so hard that the water came in on the floor above us and ran down the pipes and everything.
And since we're located under a dentist's office you can always tell when he's working because you could hear the constant
flow of water, so that was something that we put up with for about a year.

Ok this is um, this is called the basement closed stacks and that's how the cards are coded for the books that are down
here.

Where Irene is shooting from is where I used to do my work, in fact my old desk is underneath here. We had no provision for
moving out, we were told that we had to be out within a month of the time that... and so we took what we got and this was
left by the old NAPA Auto Parts place and I discovered that I could bring my desk chair over and this was an ideal, this
was the only room that we had anyway, so I wouldn't have had room for a big desk so I worked in here, our former well, reference
person, the one whose place you took, Irene, used to work in that section and she was surrounded by shelves on each side.
Joyce did the technical processing right where that one bunch of books is and then the clerk-treasurer did her thing just
a bit farther back. And it was really crowded and that was the time we started video so originally we had our video cassettes
down here and when someone wanted to check one out, one of us would have to run upstairs with the actual cassette to insert
into the case. So I suppose what we have now is an improvement over that.

Irene:
I'm assuming the light was much better then, when you worked here?

RC:
Well we turned on these, but the light was never really good, ever.

Irene:
So it was pretty much like this?

RC:
Yeah, it was a little bit lighter but not much. It was really, bad working conditions, so that as I say now when we go back
into a building that's as clean and pretty as the one we're in, we think, "Oh, gee, it isn't as bad as it used to be" there
temporarily for awhile when we were out. But, um, none of these situations are good.

What now? Oh, our slide here. We left because this is how we got the boxes in, and since we're not sure whether we will
have to move again soon or not, we figured we might as well leave it.

Ok, now we'll go back up and we'll take a break until the classes show up. And when the school classes are bussed in, we'll
be sure to get a picture of that, and then explain how that whole system works with the schools.

On our way out we are going to go up and around through the alley the way a page would do if they couldn't just come through
the Sunbury.

OK. Now if you'll keep rolling Irene, I don't know how we're going to negotiate this but I'll try.

OK, I'll come out first (chuckles).

It's really funny because I've lived in Sunbury all of my life and some of the other ladies who work with us have too. But until
we moved into this storeroom many of us had never seen this back alley in town before. We didn't know everything that was
back here. We got a Chinese restaurant down the way. And, and the time we were out of the building and had our books stored, we
had to put a security system in because the room that we were using the kids would climb up the roof of the Chinese restaurant
and break in (chuckles). So we didn't want that to happen.

There's another antique truck. Sunbury is an antiquer's mecca now.

And we will walk down the street. Should we mention that this was the shop that Cliff Barns from Dallas went through? (chuckles)
Cliff was all over town.

And then as we get to this corner, uh, the viewer will be re-oriented because you'll be able to see the town hall again. In
fact, maybe this would be a good place, yeah, I guess we could see it from here. You can get a good perspective. There's where
the Town Hall is that we came from. This is the street that we have just come across and circled around. And then if you'll
make a complete turn Irene, we'll make a complete history of the library. Over there where those two trucks are parked is
where the little white building stood which was the library when I was a little kid in school. We used to walk down from
the elementary and up and into that building, but it burned. And it was at that point, well it burned after we had moved out.
But when we moved in to the town hall, Polly Brehm, our children's librarian that you just met, was, I'm not sure what grade
she was in, but she was young and used her wagon to transport books across the street from that little white building to the
town hall. So she's a, really, she has a lot of seniority if it all counted.

Ok, now we'll cross the street and, as I said, we'll check out until the classes come.

This might be a good place to end this segment. Then we can walk in.

Our first, no our second set of classes for the day, we're not sure exactly how many we have coming today because the
teachers may have brought more than we had expected on the schedule. But, um, before they start up the walk here I wanted to
explain briefly how this started. We are the school district library for the Big Walnut School District, and years back what
they used to do was to put together boxes of books and send them to the schools and then the classes in each school, would
rotate those boxes and share them and if teachers got the chance to, they would walk their classes down to the library but
then the schools that were located too far to walk got kind of cheated out. So when I came back as director, and we looked
into various ways that we could improve the programming of the library and, and make the whole operations stronger, we decided
at that point to get in touch with the schools and arrange something which has turned out to be a wonderful arra.., uh, plan for
the, at least the last ten years. Every class from kindergarten through sixth grade in the Big Walnut Schools comes to this
library once a month. Um, in addition we have classes occasionally come from the junior high and the high school, but, but it's
certain that we have it scheduled for the classes from kindergarten through sixth. We thinks this helps builds our future
constituency. Very often when kids move in to town, they come with their classes and find out where the library is and then
they bring back their parents and it becomes a family thing. They become used to coming to a central point, to a real library
for their library service, and to using the card catalog which was something else that we couldn't do by going out to the schools.
They didn't get the experience of actually searching.

So now what we do is, you're about to see one of the classes come up the walk here. They will come in to the library, and
they'll be looking for books, we'll be assisting them. In fact you'll notice that some of us are wearing our clickers, we
have a, these little tally counters for the market we have converted to reference questions counters, and the gold one is
reference, informational questions. The buff colored one is directional questions. We found out this is what we had to do
because when the class gets here and we're runnning up and down the aisles answering all the time, you come off the floor and
don't know how many questions you answered. So we've never turned in really accurate reference figures before this year.

Um. We can kind of hear them coming now. The ones that are in kindergarten don't usually require so much help, but as they
get older, and get up in the grades and start doing reports it really does become a hairy time when the classes get here.

Once they have arrived on the cor...oh they're coming up this way, Irene.

(kids talking)

RC:
They're carrying in boxes which they had the last time. (unintelligible narration)
And Irene's going to just shoot like crazy

OK, here come the classes

Comments by unknown persons:

It's so beautiful

something like that

Staff Member:

thank you

thank you

Teacher:

Now, I have to finish this book, I have three pages to read to them. We're going to review it. I'm reading as fast as I can.

(conversations)

Did she give you this?

Alright

Student:
Excuse me, but why are you filming us...?

RC:
We're just showing...


RC:
Now if we can get down where it's safe, Irene

kids chattering

Student:
Put cookie on book. Put cookie on book.

laughter

Student:
New York Times

RC:
Let's see what the other class is doing

RC:
Other component of the library operation, in fact the only building that the library owns, and that is the Hopkins House over
on the south corner of the square. That's where we do our programming, it's basically the only place that we have at this point
that we can meet any groups. It was given to the library in 1970.... The Hopkins House was given to the library in 1977 I think
by the McMillans, Harold... Um, to be used for library purposes. Now, it is also on the National Register of Historic Places.
In fact, it and the town hall are the two buildings in town that are on the Register. It cannot be used for a library as you will
see when we get over there. It's simply not big enough, it's not suited for that sort of thing. It was originally a stage coach
inn and it was the home of one of the two founders of Sunbury. And it would be ideal for a museum some day, but what we are using
it for right now is basically as the programming, the teen media center is there. Let's see, um, The Friends have a
base of operations there. They're trying to raise money to renovate the building. And if we did not have it at this point we would
have to really curtail some of the things that we're able to do with the school groups.

Now when the bus pulls up, half the group gets off and goes to the library as you just saw, and the other half goes across and then
to the Hopkins House. We always have to stop traffic at this corner. This is also used as headquarters for our international
fair in the spring and um, ABE classes, Adult Basic Education Classes. Just basic library programming. Wherever, whatever...this is
the place we put it. But again it's certainly not an ideal building.

Don't trip Irene.
A
We're going to go in here and we'll see June Carter and the other class that she's working with. We'll try not to distract them too
much. And then we'll go throughout the rest of the building and see what else goes on.

Bell ringing

Film Strip narration:
"That's what your dog is for (beep) after all no one looks at things quite like you except maybe your pet (beep) your pet's
someone very special you can share your time with (beep) whether you're alone (beep) or with a whole bunch of people (beep) no one does things quite like you with your dog (beep) sometimes he may be a bit frisky (beep) maybe because he needs exercise regardless of the weather outside (beep) and then, everything is just right (beep) your dog is a good way to make new friends (beep) perhaps a right way for you to start a conversation with someone you just met or someone you want to meet (beep) almost everybody likes dogs (beep) and cats (beep) and everybody likes to touch and feel warm and loved (beep) and that's what pets are for, to make us feel warm and loved

(narration continues in the background)

RC:
We're coming up here to see what else happens in the Hopkins House. June, who you will see in a few minutes down there after this
class changes, we'll stick around and see the next class come in, is very active in the Humane Society and so at least once a
year during the program classes she gets a chance to do something about animals which she really enjoys doing that. Last year she
had a live dog and I had to ... But she'll talk to them then about pets.

Upstairs here now, again this is kind of a "dump space" and this area mainly just the library stuff goes into this part so we don't
take too many pains with it. But we are going to come in and see the computer room.

(narration still in the background)

We are making an attempt to automate by degrees our library processes and so we have a magnawriter and printer here. We've been
doing payroll on the computer now for practically a whole year and we're trying to get some of our other files on there.
We have things in here from last year's float, from the International Fair that we do, the materials for the teen center we keep
over here and then take them over when the center's open. We have, oh like, drywall figures that we've made and hate to throw away
because they're just so good, and we do re-use them at fairs and such places. Having done this for several years we've learned how
to re-use some of our valuable things.

This is Miss Piggy, no film of the library would be complete without Miss Piggy. And we did her a couple of years ago when she was
part of the logo, I guess, for National Library Week and she's been so popular that we always end up taking her to the fair and
various places. And she's almost gotten shot a couple of times by the police when they've come in to see about the security system
going off.

Back in here is our paper room, where we store the Gestetner which we no longer use that much. But paper, a lot of the
materials for children's story hour and the summer reading program. If you do a lot of programming you end up having a lot of things
that you use only occasionally, and yet you hate to throw them away because so much effort has gone into them and they can be re-used. So this is a lot of what we use the upstairs here at the Hopkins House for is storing these materials.

Let's take a trip into the front room here. Again this room is storage, and I don't know where the light switch is because we never use
it. We have a little portable puppet stage here, a dragon's head that we use in the, or should be using in the procession for the
International Fair. Twenty-four easels that were made for us. One year we were able to offer an art course through the High School
here at the Library, er at the Hopkins House through the library, and a couple of the men in our Friends of The Library group made
these easels for the people to use, cheaper than we could buy them anywhere and probably much better. So we've used them a lot since then, uh, even after the art class was over we have used them for displays and different things. We're going to be having an art
show here this weekend. And some of these will be put up to put pieces of art around.

We're going to come out on the porch just because it's neat to get this view of the town and this has little to do with the
Library operations, but what we're looking at is the Walhonding Indian Trail. There goes a good representative school bus. And right
along this street, which is the old 3 C's there used to be six different stage coach inns. Here we go, there's the class leaving now
and they're going to be going across to the library to get books and class on the other side will come over here to see June.

(students chattering, teacher talking).

Getting toward the end of the school year they're really pretty calm considering (chuckles).

Teacher:
Hold it, hold it, hurry girls

RC:
Alright, maybe we can sneek downstairs now and get a word with June before the other class gets here. I'm not
sure she's planning on saying anything but we'll just have her make something up.

Yeah we're doing it

JC: (June Carter)
Hey the screen looks great

RC:
Yeah

JC:
The wall looks nice too

RC:
This is June Carter, you know as we say she's active with the Humane Society. So this is at least the, we have at least
one animal program per year.

JC:
yeah

RC:
with the kids

JC:
really because,uh, as I point out to the kids the kindergarten and first graders check out nearly, what,
80-90% animal stories. And when it gets

RC:
uh hum

JC:
Oh yeah, and when it gets to about third or fourth there's still half the books are animal stories.

RC:
I didn't realize that

JC:
And you know I've just taken an impromptu survey by the time they get to fifth or sixth you still
have about 20% of the kids, you know, they have a library book that's an animal book so one program a
year is

RC:
There's scientific reason behind this then

JC:
Yeah

RC:
Yeah, alright I didn't realize that was the case. Maybe we can get a better look at the room now that
the lights are on, let's go in there real fast before the other class gets over here.

Irene, you're doing a great job, you haven't fallen down once yet with this (chuckles)

This is the um, one of the older rooms. It's got the fireplace and it had a little portion of the painting
that the itinerate painters did over the mantels and everything. This is a picture of the McMillins who gave
the house, actually it was Mr. McMillin who gave it in memory of Mabel Bell. They had talked about doing it and
then within about a year or so she died so he went ahead and gave this property to the library in her memory.
And, uh, this is really a very old room. We are hoping someday that it could be, if not a Williamsburg restoration,
then at least some kind of renovation that would make it look decent again like it did. But we simply do not have
the money at this point, the Friends, and, let's go ahead and, oh that class isn't here yet. We'll, they're not
on their way either.

We'll travel back quickly and see what The Friends are doing. The Friends of the Library are very concerned
about this building, as well as the library, and this is the room that Adult Basic Education uses. You can
see their files and everything in the back there. But The Friends decided that they wanted to try opening a Thrift
Shop that would be a long-term, stable way of making money that could be accumulated to renovate the building.
And so we're going to come in now to the Thrift Shop. And this is what the back rooms are used for. Now next
week when we have the art show, if we have enough art that needs to come into these rooms too, everything that you
see in here will be pushed together and shoved back into the back room. So this will all be bare and there will
be art hanging here.

In fact, everything that comes into this building is supposed to be made portable so that if we have a program
that needs the space it can be pushed back and the space can be used for library functions. It is an awful lot of
work but we have no choice, we have no place else to go. This back room is where they do the actual selling and they
have a little bit of everything. This is always a revelation for people to come in here. Some of us on the library
staff have built our whole wardrobes. This, this pair of pants I'm wearing may even be

Irene:
This very pair, yes

RC:
from this thrift shop and you really find some wonderful things here, you know, that people give away. But we can walk through
here then, and we'll come through the kitchen area, and into the other half which is also thrift shop. The Friends have amassed
several thousand dollars, at this point, which is more or less earmarked for the roof. The really bad problem with this building
right now, there are two, one is the south sill, and the other is the roof. And that's what's giving all of us concerns so this is
the summer that that needs to be done. And this is the other half. The restroom that we have is, sigh, just the bare minimum
that one would need I guess. When this building was given to the library, there were four different families renting the place,
this was in four different apartments and so we had to ask them to leave of course. And some, some of the things that they had
to put up with were really terrible and we aren't doing much better. The only restroom that is really functioning was, was this
one we are using now. This back room is what we call our heritage room. And again we do not have the space, and things keep
getting pushed in here because we have no place else to put them. To make it look the way it should look, and yet in here is a
tremendous wealth of material. About the area itself, local history, um, families, some family trees filed back in here. Polly,
our children's librarian is also the one who has the most knowledge at this point of what is in this room. We have a couple of
fire-proof files, the old micro-film reader, which we don't have much occasion to use, but we put it over here for the day when
this will be open to the public. And that's really the reason this looks the way it does right now. And the public does not come
in here because the things that we have, we basically take over to the library and allow them to use them there, when, when it's
necessary. Then in this same room is the trap door that goes into the basement.

Now I hear the cow bell in front so it sounds like the other class is coming.

Background conversations and cow bell ringing

Teacher:
Well Hi, chuckles

RC:
just a minute to hear the beginning of June's program

(students talking)

JC:
When you came in you didn't know which way to face, it's this way. I always like to be different. OK, we're going to do
two different things today and I wanted to tell you that, that um, I found out that so many children in kindergarten right
through the seventh grade check out animal stories that we thought we'd like to do at least one animal story every nine months.
And this one Mrs. Green gave to me, it's a new to the library but I'm sure the author's not new to you, Bill Peak. How many
of you have read Bill Peak stories? OK. If you look where my finger is you can see the list of the author's books, one of thems
right here "Chester the Worldly Pig", how many of you ever read about Chester? chuckles, Ok it's a good one.

OK, this one's good too. One of the reasons I like Bill Peak books, he does his own illustrations and they're just great, they're
just, even if you don't know the story, you cannot read a word, you can go through and enjoy his illustrations. So this one's called
"The Gnats of Knotty Pine", and kids it is about a bull moose but it's also about gnats. Pardon?

Student:
What are gnats?

JC:
Gnats, can somebody tell

off camera students:
Oh yeah,

They're like these little tiny bugs

JC:
Teeny tiny

off camera student:
and they, little, you know like, dogs and stuff

JC:
They're teeny tiny insects as I'd used to say when I'd see this word "the guh-nats", right?
OK, then when we get through with this we'll turn the other way and watch, watch the slides.

The giant bull moose shivered...

RC:
Reading the story about the gnats. And we're going to walk around here to the side to see where our
dream is. When McMillin gave this land, or gave this house to the library, maybe this is the easiest way
to go, we also got the side yard here. And Irene is about to walk through wet grass, laughs, in her
high heels. Good luck.

Um, we, we got this amount of land and then some of it behind. But, um, over a period of then the next
couple of years after we had received the property, we had an architect from Columbus come up and do
a feasibility study for us and look into what it would take to use the Hopkins House in conjunction
with the Town Hall for the library operation, and basically, you know, how it would be best to go
about finding a facility that has the amount of space that we need. Right now we, we need a minimum
of 800 square ..., I'm sorry, 8,000 square feet in which to operate. Chuckles, We have like 800 -no
it feels like 800, we have actually about half that much when you count just the useable space in each
of the two buildings for library purposes. It's probably less than half that for actual public area, so we're
in real bad straits as you have seen.

So we were looking into how we could do it using the building that we lease from the Village along with the Hopkins House
that we then owned. And after awhile it became obvious that, because these places are historic landmarks for one thing,
there are things that we wouldn't want to do to them. And besides that, you simply can't expand the town hall at this point
unless you would excavate under it, or, someone even suggested at one time putting a bubble over the top of it and developing around.

We'd looked at all the various ways of doing it and decided that it just wasn't feasible after all. And so
about that time, we can start moving back here now, we had some land given to us, and it was one of the few
vacant lots left on the square. This was another subject for discussion that we have found that the library,
um, is ideally located in the center of town. We looked at different places that we could have moved to but
people want it there, and we have found that it's very actively used since it's there. So we wanted to stay
as close to the town square as possible, and there just plain isn't too much land around to move into. But
this particular lot is one of the vacant ones, and it was given to the library then in, oh dear, 19 maybe
78-79 in there. Half of it by Howard Cring in memory of his wife Florinel and the other half by the
Ruthig family and the Williamson family. Mrs. Ruthig had been on our board and knew of our need and
thought this would be an appropriate gift in memory of some of the members of her family who had also run
businesses on the Sunbury Square.

Now, we did some negotiating and got our, traded a little land here and there so that now the lot on which
the Hopkins House sits, does have a direct hook-up to this vacant lot that was given to us. And we hope that eventually,
if the plumbing company moves, in this brown building that you see, if it should ever move out, we would hope to be able
to acquire that land. And we did try to acquire the land that the Lawsons Store now stands on, but we weren't too successful
in that. The stones that you see here on the stone fence, I see some of the kids broke pop bottles last night, but
the stones here in the stone wall were from the building that had stood there that was demolished in order
to build Lawsons. And that had been the Burrer Tavern. It was a beautiful building with walls that were
a foot wide and it had been built by the Burrers, who were the stone masons that came from Germany. And in fact,
the librarian right before me was Dillie Burrer, married one of the Burrer brothers. And so this meant alot to us,
and we kept the stones hoping that if we do get to build the library eventually, we can somehow incorporate them
into an entranceway, or into a little patio, or something so that we won't lose entirely the feeling of
this end of town. This part of town was supposed to be the historic house district for Sunbury because so
many of the houses along here do have real historic background. The Founders had built two houses along here and
there was a harness shop and then of course the Burrer tavern.

But what we hope now to do, as we move down on to this end, this would be the vacant lot where we would like to
build a new library. I don't know how it will show up on the film, but it's almost three building lots. And we
have a plan, Schooley Caldwell in Columbus is our architect at this point and they have given us a plan that shows
that we could build a building on here that would meet our needs, and it would have a direct link-up then to the
Hopkins House, and we could continue to use it for whatever we needed at that point. Since we will probably not
be able to build everything that we need to begin with it may be a phased plan, and so we may have to continue to
use the Hopkins House for programming, but then eventually it could be used for administrative offices or whatever
at that point we needed. But definitely this is the big dream now.

If we had a building that was large enough to accomodate our whole collection so that it wouldn't have to be
fragmented into boxes and closed stack areas in different places. If we had an area that was all on one floor,
you know, it breaks our heart to see kids come in to the library and not be able to get upstairs unless they are carried.
The only place that someone in a wheelchair can really get to in that library where we are now is the restroom.
They can't really even get between the shelves very easily to get their book. And so there are some really pressing
reasons that we, we have needed a new library for at least the last 15 years I can say without question, because when
I came to Community Library as director, assistant in '73 and then became director in '75, at that time the Board was
really seriously looking into (chuckles) various options for lots and where to build and everything because it was a
serious problem and had been by then.

So maybe what we could do is, Irene, let's walk out here and, if we come right out here to the
center of the lot, this is Evening Street that we're facing. And that green land beyond there is the Miller property,
facing 3 C's. Some day when we finally get our library built on this lot we hope it will have a lovely window that
looks out through there. And if this were toward evening, there would be a setting sun out there. So since it's a
traditional way to end films, let's pretend that this is the setting sun in the west and with that

CT:
...at the Community Library. I'm here at the Hopkins House showing the annual arts show that goes on through the
library and the Big Walnut High School and the Intermediate School. What it is it's the students in the art classes
do their work and we bring it in and we have a two day show and it's also open to the public. Anyone who wants to
bring in their paintings are allowed. And they're set up for the two days. And people seem to really enjoy them. And
this is one of the many uses of the Hopkins House that we have here. I don't know, would we like to look around at
some of the artwork that is done? The kids are really talented in this area. Most of these are from the high school
kids in this room. There's a a scary one, chuckles.... we are shooting now are the ones from the seventh
and eighth grader, the intermediate students of Big Walnut. Paintings and rough work that's in this room are all
contributions from the members of the community. Quite a few nice pieces of work. (background conversations).

HERE COME
THE
CLASSES...

(student conversations)*


Student:
... Dr. J ...

Librarian:
Did you like it? Good.

How about "Comes the Night", did you like that one too?

Student:
I did not have it.

Librarian:
You didn't have it, you just gave it to me, was it somebody else's?

OK, thank you.

Oh, you had Harold, I was looking for Harold. Go on through.

Student:
They're hard to get out.

Librarian:
They sure are. OK, thank you.

Librarian:
Here, fellow with the bookbag come here. This fell out of your bookbag, do you want that back? Looks
like a shark jaw.

Student:
Thank you.

Librarian:
Wait a minute, just slow down. Why don't you step over here and empty your bag?

OK you got 'em alright, alright. Wait a minute, is there still a book in your bag sir? You still got a book
in your bookbag?

Student:
No, that's mine.

Librarian:
Oh, that's yours, OK.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Librarian:
Whoops!

Thank you.

Thank you. Why don't you stand right here and open your bag and get them out so that kids can...

Student:
Here.

Librarian:
Oh, well you got them all ready, well thank you. Very fast you are.

Student:
Afternoon classroom.

Librarian:
No, those are the morning ones from before. We'll have to send them to the bus. The last group left about
three jackets and a book bag.

Teacher:
OK, We'll take them back.

Librarian:
OK, thank you.

Librarian:
Whoops! (chuckles).

Teacher:
I've got a couple of video tapes in there...

Librarian:
Thank you... you take care.

Thank you.

(conversations)

Librarian:
Go on through that way.

Student:
I'm beat.

Librarian:
You're beat?

(conversations)

Student:
It's hot.

Student:
Look, we're on TV!

(conversations in background)

Student:
Are we on TV?

Librarian:
No, it's not a TV, it's for the library.

Student:
I don't have any books out.

Librarian:
You haven't, then what's that?

Librarian:
Yes, that's the one I want. Personally I've been trying to find it for over a month.

Students:
Hi Mom!

Student:
I want this book.

Student:
I'm getting this book. I want this one.

(background conversation "you may take out library books with your ...)


Student:
Hi.

Student:
Hello.

Librarian:
Hello.

Come back this morning.

Student:
How many books do we get?

Librarian:
That's up to your teacher.

Teacher:
Because you have to bring them back tomorrow.

Librarian:
May I have your book please? Thank you.

Student:
Hey, we're on TV!

Librarian:
We're not on TV.

Thank you.

Librarian:
May I have the book? No I have to check it in, do you want it back?

Student:
No.

Librarian:
Hum?

Student:
No.

Librarian:
Do you... Oh, OK.

Thank you.

Student:
What are you doing?

(background conversations)

(students laughing and waving at the camera and saying "Hi")

(student conversations)

Student:
Turn your back....

Librarian:
Wave! You're on TV.

Student:
Hi!

Libraian:
We were about to give you up!

Teacher:
These first five are books that we found around the building after they collected.

Librarian:
Great. Super.

Student:
Excuse me, pardon me.

Student:
Hi.

Student:
Wait on me.

(background conversations)

Student:
We're not getting videoed.

(background conversation)

Student:
And if we are...

Student:
Are we getting videoed?

Librarian:
Yes.

Student:
Hi!

(background conversations)

Student:
Can we take anything out?

Librarian:
You may take the books out, we'll pick them up at school on Wednesday if you want to leave them there. Or
if you want to bring them back yourself.

Student:
Oh, this is madness! We're on TV!

Students:

Hi Mom, am I on TV?

Hi Mom!

Student:
I want to check that out.

(background conversations)

Librarian:
Keep moving

Students:
Hello!

Librarian:
Keep going. Come on, keep going.


END