( oley strives for a library )

oley strives for a library

by jennifer hetrick

      

a stretch of communities tucked side by side but without their own local library seems like it couldn’t be reality in today’s world, but this is the oley valley’s situation, and some residents are pushing forward in changing this fact into a better one.

     

helen clogston of oley township, along with two co-chairs and a handful of active volunteers, are a part of the oley valley library committee. ideas for the group forming sparked two years ago when it became known that oley’s post office would be closed down after the mail-sorting operation moved to a new building.

    

the co-chair visionaries thought the old building would be a great location for a library, especially since the county’s bookmobile system stopped serving the area by 2009.

    

oley has the only school district in berks county without the support of a local library, and the surrounding townships of pike, alsace, and ruscombmanor are a part of this void.

     

the nearest neighboring libraries are in boyertown, 10 miles, exeter, also 10 miles, muhlenberg, 8 miles, and fleetwood, 6 miles away from oley’s main street.

     

“a library brings a lot to the community—it builds community itself,” clogston said, noting that it’s a place for residents to share space, material, information, and the valuable attribute of access to it.

     

the committee met with the county library system in the beginning to find out what it takes to create a library, which clogston said involved a lot of information gathering on her part, as none of those striving to establish a library in oley have experience working in this arena of life.

     

“the county system is ecstatic because they did not agree with cancellation of the bookmobile, and they really felt that left a hole in their service—that we’re being underserved here,” clogston said.

     

with regularly encouraging support of the committee and time spent answering its  members’ questions, the county library system has also donated at least $2,000 in startup materials, including software to catalog the collected books and movies thus far, and what’s needed to make them library-ready.

     

committee members have also met with the four surrounding townships’ officials, as a community library to eventually be a part of the berks county system must have financial backing from its municipalities in order to open and operate.

     

“each and every person we’ve spoken to supports a library, in principle,” clogston said.

     

“the reality though is that they’re feeling financial pressures from all fronts, and they are all challenged by the idea of where they’re possibly going to come up with money to support this,” clogston elaborated.  “how they’re going to find this money is a really big question for them, but i’m optimistic and hopeful that they will do it because we can’t start a library without them.”

(edit: pike township agreed tonight to donate $500 to the oley valley library committee, the first pledge of support from the four surrounding townships !)

     

with an overwhelming response of enthusiasm from the community since creating the committee, clogston stressed that those in support of a library should tell their township officials how they feel about the importance of making this project a reality.

     

the committee’s website states that “a funding commitment of about $5 per capita at the local level is all it will take for our library to become eligible for the additional county and state funding that would make up the larger share of the budget. this is less than the price of one book or one dvd, but will provide our residents access to thousands of books and movies, for free.”

     

the oley valley school district’s administration has in the meantime been incredibly supportive in that they’ve opened a temporary space for the committee’s supply of materials in a room in their building on jefferson street.

     

clogston intends to open a first official temporary library this summer, and the school district is considering letting it be run regularly out of its administration building, with extra space available.

“they’ve been really kind, have accommodated us, and allowed us to have a book sale on the premises in their off-season, bending their own rules when we have a requests,” clogston said about the oley valley  school district’s administration.

     

the district lets the committee use its several rooms at no cost for rent, electric, or heat.

     

the one room they donated to the committee has led to four used rooms now, with more than 20,000 items for the future library to circulate.

     

clogston noted that the county requires at least 4,000 items be a part of new libraries, which means oley is well supplied in their stacks of donated books and films so far.

     

( all photographs courtesy of helen clogston )

students from oley valley high school regularly perform volunteer  hours to the committee on fridays, and a student liaison who has been involved since the beginning is an integral element in this process.

     

a book sale in august and an open house tour in december have proved themselves as fundraisers showing the community’s belief in creating a library, with success brimming from each event.

“people don’t say—if there’s a library, they say when there’s a library, now,” clogston said about how seriously locals are taking this effort.

     

and from this, she said she’s determined to make a library something real in the community.

     

if clogston’s hopes of opening a temporary library in oley fall in line with truth by the warmer months later in the year, she said it would likely be available for patron use 20 hours per week.

     

funds raised are halfway toward the committee’s current goal of $20,000 to go toward salary for staff.

     

looking back on the possibility of using the old post office building as a library, clogston pointed out that it is in severe disrepair and would cost minimally $200,000 to renovate for public use, along with the need for installing an elevator. but aside from those weighted factors, she admitted that it has a perfect location.

     

more than 100 people have contributed to the eventual library in some way or another by now, clogston said, but what she recently realized is that some people don’t know that volunteering is an option.

     

“we have people who love to alphabetize, but that’s not for everybody,” clogston said about how there are all sorts of volunteering opportunities in the committee’s endeavors.

     

the next used book sale to help fundraise for the committee is scheduled for saturday, april 9 at 7.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m. at the oley fairgrounds.

     

to find out more about how to bring a library into the oley valley, visit the committee’s website at www.oleylibrary.org and search for them on facebook under oley community library.