The Revelstoke library celebrated a 100 years on April 15.
“It’s a milestone worth celebrating, even without cake,” said Cathy English, curator at Revelstoke Museum and Archives. She gave a virtual brown bag history talk last week on the library’s history.
The Women’s Canadian Club launched a petition in the spring of 1920 for creating a library. Even though there was interest earlier, the club could not meet due to a ban on gathering from flu and measles outbreaks.
READ MORE: How Revelstoke handled the Spanish flu
The original library was housed in the old city hall. When it opened it had roughly 600 books.
“It had up-to-date fiction with a fine sprinkling of nature books,” said English.
On opening day, English said 24 books were checked out. The first librarian was Minnie Archibald, a war widow with three young daughters. She was paid $15 per month.
In the early days, patrons were allowed to take out one fiction and one non-fiction. If they wanted more books, they had to buy another membership said English.
Today, the limit is 100 items, including print books, magazines, eBooks and eAudios.
| Revelstoke Fire Hall with fire truck giraffe, circa 1960's with a sign for the library out front. (Revelstoke Museum and Archives #1405) |
By 1930, membership had grown to 289 patrons. In 1936, city hall was condemned after the building partly collapsed. It later moved to where Mica Heliskiing is currently located.
At the time, the newspaper would advertise new books acquired, such as a 1934 romance titled Women are difficult by Maysie Greig.
However, due to financial difficulties during the Great Depression the library closed in 1938.
“The library wasn’t seen as a priority,” English said.
For the next several years, small private libraries in Revelstoke opened and closed, until the community library reopened in 1946. It was housed in the new city hall.
READ MORE: eBooks rentals up 87% at Revelstoke library
When the city hall was built in 1939, a room was set aside for the library, however when the Second World War started, the room was taken over by Red Cross.
In 1962, the library moved into the basement of the Civic Centre, which was located where the city parking lot now sits on First Street. The library continued to move around until it found its current home in the Community Centre in 1979.
The Revelstoke library became a branch of the Okanagan Regional Library in 1958, which serves almost 400,000 people across an area covering 59,600 square kilometres through 31 branches.
The Revelstoke library celebrated it’s 100th birthday by a virtual birthday story time, online tour of the planned library lab and renovation and a virtual tour of the David Rooney legacy art collection exhibit that was recently installed.
While the library’s premises is closed, patrons can still borrow eBooks.
The Revelstoke library has not been open to the public since March 14 due to COVID-19.
The New Westminster Public Library is B.C.’s oldest library, established in 1865, two years before Canada became a country.
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