Whitneyville Library marks start of summer

WHITNEYVILLE – The Whitneyville Library has long served as a central gathering place in this town of 240 people, especially in summer.

That was clear on Saturday morning when the library opened for a sale of hundreds of used books. Dozens of those looking for bargains – every book cost a quarter – came upstairs to see what they could find.

“I’ve got almost as many books as this in my house,” browser Anne White of Jonesboro said. “But I always come back to these sales. Last year I picked up some old Pearl Buck books.”

The sale is one of three set for this summer. The proceeds boost the library’s operating budget at a time when the library gets by on the modest interest, now just 1 percent, it earns on its accounts.

But the book sales’ boost to the community is incalculable, as it continues to identify the Whitneyville Library as a thriving drawing point for readers old and young.

Frances Grover, one of the trustees for the Whitneyville Library and Whatnot Association, is one of the older readers. She remembers when the 1868 building served as the Whitneyville School, where she started as a 4-year-old. Later she taught for more than 20 years in the very upstairs room where the book sales now take place.

“I love to read, but I can’t catch up with everything I already have,” Grover said at the book sale. “I just like coming here. This building is special to me.”

The building was used as a grammar school until 1966.

It’s become a special place for Whitneyville’s newest generation and for other children from area towns, too.

They feel comfortable there because Patricia Brightly, the new librarian after working as John Bodger’s assistant for 18 years, runs a summer reading program for 20 to 30 kids a year.

The program, which finishes with a pizza party, has been in place for about 30 years. It was started by Bodger, who served as the head librarian from 1966 until last year.

Year-round, Brightly gets to know the young readers by delivering books to several local elementary schools – Rose Gaffney and Machias Valley Christian School in Machias, plus those in Jonesboro and Wesley.

The pupils enjoy choosing from the nearly 5,000 children’s books in the Whitneyville collection. Adults can choose from 9,000 other titles, all organized compactly on the building’s first floor.

Open five afternoons and two evenings a week, the library maintains an old-fashioned sense of place. That no fee is charged for overdue books is another nod to its roots in the past.