Vermont resident hopes to start private library
That left Dolly F.H. Stevens, who said she was the head of the library, in an interesting dilemma. The long-time Athens resident had asked friends and acquaintances to donate their unwanted books in an effort to help the 117-year-old library thrive. Following the town’s vote on March 6, Stevens attempted to give the volumes back to their original owners but it didn’t work.
“They just donated them back,” she said in a telephone interview, adding that she had initially received 4,000 books, which have been stored in the closed Athens Elementary School building. She said after Town Meeting that she was ending her fight to save the public library.
Athens Lib.
In the 1950’s the town of Athens voted to stop funding the library that the town had started in 1895. There was no librarian, no physical building to call a library and the number of books had decrease through loss.
But there were better roads which meant people could now go to Townshend, Grafton (both with small public libraries) or to Bellows Falls which has a large library. There was also the Bookmobile during the warmer months.
This sufficed for over 50 years.
A library needs to be more than donated, second hand books. There should be new books, magazines, internet availability, newspapers, and much more. We are a small town, a very small town (less than 450 residents). The finances are not there to properly support a library. And unless a library meets certain criteria there are no grants nor any funding.
We have survived for many years without a physical library in town. We have people who volunteer and donate at local libraries that are literally minutes away from our homes.
As for some of the other information from Ms. Stevens. Maybe not all of it is quite as clear as it could be. But if she wishes to go ahead and have a ‘private’ library then she should at least try.