VA County of 5,091 gets fed money to start library

Roanoke Times reports great news for the only county in Virginia without a library. Craig County will add $125,000 federal dollars to support a project started by a 17 year old Girl Scout who “decided setting up a library would be a good project to earn her Gold Award from Girl Scouts”. Caitlin Day and the Craig County Friends of the Library started last year with $35.72. “The Days and the library group they formed pulled off what no one else could in the 52 years the county has been trying to open a library.”

January 24, 2004 by Uncategorized 2

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2 Responses

  1. AshtabulaGuy says:
    January 24, 2004 at 10:40 pm

    Good news in Virginia it appears
    I like the fact that library service can be more evenly distributed throughout Virginia.

    A key thing that disturbed me was the ease by which the requirement of employing an MLS holder was waived for the county.

    In Dr. Charles C. Williamson’s text Training for Library Service, he militated against such waivers. He advocated professional librarians being employed and would accept almost no excuse for not doing such.

    Could there have been a joint district created that Craig County could have joined? Maybe. Dr. Williamson’s 1923 text advocated the use of larger and larger districts as needed to avoid complications and prevent the excuses that tended towards non-professionals being employed by sharing the burden more.

    Hopefully with the seed money from the Congress the new library to be built in Craig County can have a professional librarian placed in charge and the waiver that was given not be needed at all.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous Patron says:
    February 3, 2004 at 9:45 pm

    Re:Good news in Virginia it appears
    The waiver received was certainly not gained with
    ease – be assured it was with met with great reluctancy and took a great deal of effort.
    In circumstances where the county is very small,
    extremely limited in funding, and no library exists – it would seem that in order to provide for the citizens of a rural area – concessions would have to be made. Yes, we would hope that these concessions are made for the short-term. A professional librarian would be the best situation but unfortunately the all or nothing approach is not always the best for the community.
    In this situation and others that may exist like it across the country – it is my strong belief that a library lending books, providing storytime,
    providing free internet access – being assisted by a part-time person, retired librarian and school teacher volunteers, is certainly better than no library. Then you build – you build the library to be one of the best – with all the resources and personnel of a terrific upscale library – with professionals.

    Reply

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