Library History
The
first Valley Center library was formed by members of the
Progressive Women’s Club in 1923 and was housed in the homes
of members. The Library then moved to several shelves in
the Drug Store – using books rented from the State Library
at the rate of $2.50 per trunk.
With
continued growth and much work by the Women’s Club to
provide financial support, the Library moved to a house at
our present site. The members of the Women’s Club held
Stunt Night annually at the school auditorium – charging
everyone who came a quarter and for food provided. They
provided meals for the Commercial Club (which became the
Chamber of Commerce) in the basement, held frequent bake
sales and book sales – adding the income to provide
utilities for the house they had purchased.
Eventually, Edna Buschow led the push for the construction
of our present building with the successful community vote
approving the issuance of bonds for about half of
construction costs. The balance of the construction costs
was financed by a grant from the Library Services
Construction Act. At this time, the City began to levy
taxes for the support of the library easing the financial
load from the Women’s Club.
Our
present building was dedicated in March 1985 and our
collection was made up of about 8,500 materials. Today, our
collection has about 55,000 materials made up of books,
magazines, audio books, fishing poles and videos. We also
have copies of the Valley Center papers on microfilm
beginning with the earliest issues and continuing to recent
years. We provide book discussions in the spring and fall
sponsored by the Kansas Humanities Council, a summer reading
program during June and July for children of all ages –
preschool thru middle school, story times from September
through May for children two years of age (on Tuesdays) and
ages three thru five on Wednesdays and Thursdays, free
interlibrary loan service through Kansas libraries and
computers for word processing and Internet use.
We have
certainly come a long way.... help us continue to serve [MAKE
A DONATION]!
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