By Brenna R. Kelly
Enquirer staff writer
UNION - Thirty years ago, Geneva Gruelle walked down the street and signed her name on a white, plastic card that read: Boone County Public Library.
"I heard they were opening a library," Gruelle said as she pulled the worn card from her purse. "So I thought I'd go."
She was the first of 180 people to get a card in 1974, when the Boone County Library opened its doors.
Today, all four branches will celebrate the library's 30th anniversary with music, cake and balloons.
Today's four-branch system has come a long way since the first library opened in an old feed store in Florence. That library had 8,000 books and just 200 square feet. The library now has 275,000 items and 45,000 active borrowers in a county of nearly 100,000 people.
But through all the change, Jane Smith has been a constant. Smith was the first librarian and is now the director of technical services.
In the first library, she said, the shelves were mismatched and the decor screamed 1970s: green, gold and orange.
The library was born in 1973, when Ginny Kohl and other Florence residents lobbied for a tax to establish a library system. That year most politicians were pushing for a new county jail.
"The library passed and the jail didn't," said Ted Bushelman, who was the chairman of a committee that pushed for the library.
One of the biggest challenges has been keeping up with the growth of Boone County. The 6,000-square-foot Lents branch in Hebron opened in 1989. It's now too small. The library wants to replace it with a 25,000- to 30,000-square-foot library, said Lucinda Brown, the library's director.
In a county like Boone, where new people are moving in all time and most don't live in a city, people are looking for a home, Brown said.
"We can make the library that home," she said. "What we hope to do is create a public space in our community ... where all members can come together."
If you go
