Community's hard work pays off with new library
digg it!
Facebook
del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit
By JOE DUGGAN / Lincoln Journal Star
FALLS CITY — What happened here?
They used red brick and huge windows, trimmed in limestone, nonetheless. They made an open interior flooded with natural light. For Pete’s sake, they curved a wall and covered it in blue tiles that mimic the semiprecious lapis lazuli.
Comfy reading chairs here, new computers there, stained glass and acoustic ceiling tiles made of cherrywood.
Towns of 4,700 people don’t have libraries this nice. They don’t build a nearly $3 million library — because they can’t.
Except in Falls City.
Benefactors who made six-figure donations and shoppers who paid a half-percent more in sales tax built a showcase space for books and information.
But the Falls City Library and Arts Center, which opened Jan. 20, represents more than a showcase.
For some, it means achieving a goal set eight years ago, a goal that at times seemed unachievable.
For others, the library shows that Falls City can make good news instead of just notoriety. They live in a community, not Southeast Nebraska’s capital for shocking and salacious crime.
Many see the library as a critical investment in their children, a way to pass on the power of knowledge to future generations.
In a corner of the building, those with a passion for paintings made a gallery — and a statement that small-town people appreciate art, too.
But, perhaps more than anything, the new library taught 4,700 people that it’s OK to reach, even to overreach.
“This is beyond anything we even dreamed of here,” Carla Haworth said recently after seeing the library for the first time with her children, Jesselyn, 10, and Nathaniel, 7.
“It amazes me what can happen when good people work so hard, which is what has happened here.”
An early Falls City philanthropist by the name of Lydia Bruun Woods bequeathed $8,000 in 1902 to build Falls City a library and fill it with books. The three-story, 6,000-square-foot building still bears her name.
For decades, the building fulfilled its role admirably. But it grew crowded and was inaccessible to people with disabilities. Built at the end of the Gilded Age, the building struggled to meet the needs of the Internet Age.
In 1998, the city’s library board considered remodeling but concluded it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for no additional space. So in 2000, board members launched a campaign to raise $3 million privately for a new library, said Hope Schawang, library director.
Major donors got behind the project from the start, and by 2001 they had raised $1.2 million. Donations ranged from $5 to $250,000.
But when jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, financial markets crashed with them and the library campaign stalled.
Schawang recalled a few bleak meetings between 2002 and 2003.
“I think, at different times, we all were discouraged but, fortunately, not all at the same time,” she said.
The board created the nonprofit Library and Community Foundation to hold donated funds. No one asked for a refund.
City leaders proposed a half-cent addition to the local sales tax. If voters approved the tax, it would not only fund a new library, but also build a modern water park. The measure passed in 2004 with 66 percent of the vote.
In the meantime, the library won a $200,000 matching grant from the Peter Kiewit Foundation and a $52,100 federal technology grant from the Nebraska Library Commission.
They broke ground in December 2005 and completed work a year later. Clark Enersen Partners designed the building and AHRS Construction of Bern, Kan., built it.
Volunteers formed a brigade the weekend of Jan. 13 to move books from the old library to the new one. A public grand opening of the Falls City Library and Arts Center followed Jan. 20.
People strolled past the new periodical section. They saw the meeting rooms, the 20-station computer room and the teen section, with its funky furniture and racks of books and graphic novels. Nearly everyone was impressed, especially with the open, well-lit design and increase in space.
The grand opening also gave citizens their first glimpse of the genealogy room, which, in addition to serving family researchers, also provides a repository for the city’s historical documents and records.
And they saw the little book shop, which will sell volumes and artwork signed by visiting authors and artists.
To the sound of live string music, visitors strolled into the art gallery, currently showing paintings by Alice Cleaver, John Falter and Allan Tubach, all with Falls City connections.
The library plans to host regular gallery talks, where residents can meet artists and scholars. And it has an extensive permanent collection of art, which it intends to display between visiting shows.
“It’s fantastic,” said Dorothy Kintopp of Falls City, as she visited the gallery for the first time. “It’s well worth every penny we’ve put into it.”
On Jan. 21, the library hosted a second
grand opening, this one for children. The kids got to check out their new space, which includes a story time room, with a stage and an area for making crafts and art. Each child who attended went home with a book.
Sandra Hartman, a library board trustee whose family made one of the significant donations to the project, said she was emotional when she saw the excitement on the kids’ faces.
“It’s really a good feeling,” she said, sitting on the window bench in the children’s section. “It makes me proud what this community has accomplished.”
Not far away, 8-year-old Lexi Barnes looked at books in a return box fashioned to resemble a whale. She likes all the color in the new library, she said.
Her grandmother, Cindy Santo, leaned over a bookcase in the children’s section and marveled at the space. With a new water park and now a new library, she said it’s like the town is adding a new chapter to its history.
“You can’t really believe you’re in Falls City,” she said. “We’re very fortunate and lucky for all the hard work that everybody did to make this wonderful library for us.”
Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.
Post Your Comment
Standards and RulesYour posted comment will appear after it has been approved.
Frequently asked questions about story commenting.