Ark Valley News - From the library

From the library
By Janice Sharp, director
Last Updated: March 15, 2018

Buschow was library pioneer

Our article last week focused on the 95th birthday of our library this year. What a wonderful accomplishment for our community. I think of all the wonderful, individual people who have used the library over the years.

Our current building was completed in 1985 after lots of work by Edna Buschow and the Progressive Women's Club. From what I've been told, it was Edna who led the fight for our building. The city received a grant from the Library Services Construction System for $58,419 that was for a portion of the cost of the building, shelving and better carpet. The city provided $75,000 in bond money, and the South Central Kansas Library System provided grant money for some of the cost of the shelving and reference books.

Edna was the president of the library board when she passed away suddenly. Louise Kennedy took over the duties of overseeing the completion of the library. The library was named in memory of Edna Buschow for the work she had done to make the library a reality.

We have been given a brochure from the open house of this current library. There are so many names; many of the people I never had the opportunity the meet but other names are familiar. We have several drawers of a file cabinet that contain the minutes of the Progressive Women's Club from its beginning to when it disbanded due to a small number of members. We also have many gifts that were given to the Women's Club.

The beginning of the fundraising was actually from Edna Buschow and her husband. They directed money from their estates be given to the library.

Through the years, we've had many generous memorials, all given for the purpose of having a larger facility.

This brings us to the current day, as Terry wrote about last week. This will be a special year for the residents of Valley Center and the surrounding area. We do have patrons from communities all around Valley Center. The people who live outside of Valley Center also contribute to the funding for the library, but it comes back to us in the form of grants from our library system.

Another grant from the library system provided funding for a computer and scanner specifically for scanning documents for digitization so that the historical documents would be available on our website for anyone to access.

Such changes through the years. When I came to work at the library in 1990, there was one computer that was used to print cards for the card catalog and the beginnings of the interlibrary loan system.

We're anxious to be able to share all of this history. We'll prepare a new brochure for the open house with our current Friends.

Staff has started discussing the logistics of our move beginning mid-May. Once the schedule has been approved by the library board, we will begin posting details. We anticipate being closed for three weeks.

Students in USD 262 will be on spring break beginning March 19. The library will have story times at 10:30 a.m. daily, movies at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday (check our website for the titles) and board games for everyone from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We will have a pj's story time from 7 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Come dressed in your jammies! We'll serve popcorn each afternoon.

Do you have materials that are past due? Our next amnesty day will be March 17. Celebrate St. Patrick's Day by wearing something green and bring in your materials to have your fines waived.

Our annual Spring Family Party & Egg Hunt will be from 1 to 3 p.m. March 31. We'll have games and crafts beginning at 1 p.m. with the egg hunt at 2. The Easter bunny will be here to greet kids and have pictures taken with them, so bring your camera. Come by the library to enter your child's name in a drawing for an Easter basket. There will be separate drawings for children birth to kindergarten, grades 1 and 2, and grades 3 to 5. This year, the library will be the only place to sign up for the drawings.

Upcoming events

March 17 — St. Patrick's Day and Amnesty Day

March 19-23 — Spring Break

March 20 — City Council

March 22 — Pj Story Time

March 30 — National Pencil Day

March 31 — Spring Family Party & Egg Hunt