Reardan Memorial Library--March 4, 1966

March 4, 1966 Spokesman Review

Five Years in Making

Reardan Library Community Effort

REARDAN, Wash. What Reardan, Wash., with its 425 citizens, might lack In population it makes up in community pride.

Evidence of community cooperative effort will be demonstrated in April when the town’s new library formally opens in the attractive stucco structure that formerly housed the community clinic.

The new library represents five years of work and sacrifice on the part of many Reardan citizens, including more recent volunteer service to remodel the clinic building for its new usage.

For several years, Reardan was without a library. In 1960 it was agreed to use profits from the annual Community Day celebration to re-establish the reading center and $650 went into a library fund. The same year the Reardan City Council passed a resolution incorporating library service into government operations and appointed a five-member library board of trustees.

The abandoned library had been housed in an old frame store building on a side street, which, with a little effort on the part of a few citizens, eventually was deeded to the city. A clean-up fix-up campaign immediately was launched. A couple of lean-to additions were torn down, and Lions Club members lowered ceilings, installed wall board, built a closet and charging desks. Garden Club members painted and varnished the interior while other volunteers scraped and repainted the exterior in red with white trim. Five 4-H clubs purchased and installed floor coverings. Drapes and curtains were donated and an old oil stove was replaced with a new heater.

Mrs. Virgil Rux, chairman of the library board and one of its original members, said going over the lending stock was a real chore. Each book was gone over carefully and repaired, cleaned or discarded while other volunteers engaged in cataloging and labeling the volumes. Dorothy Doyle of the state library staff, made frequent visits from Olympia to assist In the organization so that the library would be established According to state law.

The library opened with 1,500 books and there now are more than 3,300 on the shelves. The clinic, soon to house the library, also was a community project of recent years and is dedicated as a memorial to the war dead. Several physicians occupied the community clinic from time to time, but the town just isn’t large enough to support a physician and the structure has not been used for several years. It had been under the jurisdiction ot a Clinic Board that finally ran out of funds and gave the structure to city for a library and City Council chamber.

Again Community Day funds and volunteer labor has been pressed into service to remodel and redesign the interior. The work includes converting seven rooms into a single room for the library, new shelving, ceilings, flooring, electrical and plumbing fixtures.

In connection with moving the library to the new, larger quarters, it is planned to organize a Library Guild of volunteers who will serve as library, assistants so that the facility can be open to the public more than two days a week, which Is the present schedule.

Although the library has been opened Only five and one-half hours a week, last year there were 6,000 books in circulation.

In addition, during the summer months the library sponsors a reading club and gives awards to young people for their reading proficiency. For the past two summers, the library also conducted classes in Spanish and German with teachers from Spokane in charge.

Mrs. Rux said the new facilities will afford opportunity to expand the library services as well as increase the shelf stocks. Community Day receipts again will be used this year to buy more books and supplies and may make possible the start of a special reference facility in the new building.

Others on the library board are Mrs. Verne Carstens, secretary; Mrs. Charles Fiess, Berne Bernard and Peter Mahrt.