Community library serves different niche
Recreational reading and local history keep Hillsdale Community Library turning; barren shelves give library room to expand
Tony Gonzalez
Issue date: 11/8/07 Section: Features
The yellow sticker repeats on binding after binding for five shelves.
On the sticker: silhouetted brown boots with spurs.
They mark the Western novels collection at the Hillsdale Community Library, dwarfing sci-fi but slim compared to romances. Perhaps a "generational thing," Library Director Mark Maier said.
"Once upon a time we had a regular who was always asking us to buy them," he said.
Although the Westerns dig a generational gap between college students and the community library, 11 E. Bacon, parties on both sides are planning to unite library resources.
The library wants to join MeLCat for interlibrary loan and, as always, students with only a temporary local address can nonetheless obtain a library card.
"We definitely fulfill a different need than the college library," Maier said.
Understandably so, he said considering the difference in budget. But relations are good - Mossey Library Director Dan Knoch also sits on the board of directors for the community library. Maier is a 1998 Hillsdale graduate.
He said the library is outfitted for recreational reading, not research.
Part-time librarian Emily Sanford, 21, said mysteries, Westerns and Nora Roberts novels are most popular.
On the shelves: a copy of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" from 1949, pages stained and taped and red binding corners tattered; miniature versions of classical sculptures; a Ralph Waldo Emerson bust; a light-up globe that will not light.
The fiction V section bumps Voltaire against Vonnegut. About half the shelves are empty.
The new library opened in 2003 after nearly 100 years in the previous building, which remains a local history and genealogy research center. It was "built with expansion in mind," Maier said.
"The rule of thumb in that [old] building…for any book you bought you had to get rid of three," he said.
The new facility can hold 70,000 books. The current collection is about 40,000.
Besides temporary art exhibits, odds and ends make up for the spacey feeling.
An encased display of the Guild of American Papercutters offers dozens of stylized trees. A cartoon map of Hillsdale, drawn like a calmer MAD Magazine cover, shows where Waterbed Paradise formerly stood and depicts a sweater-adorned and smiling Hillsdale College student.
Next door at the research center, Janis Reister and Betty Beaubien offer more than two decades of experience in preserving local history and family genealogy.
"There's always work to be done," Reister said. "Betty always says if we live 40 more years we might get caught up."
The second-floor room houses city records, maps and microfilm newspapers like the Reading Hustler and Litchfield Gazette.
For $10 per hour, the volunteer researchers seek information on city development and family histories. Nearly 700 visitors have visited the center this year, many from beyond Michigan borders.
Recently, Reister stumbled upon a report of Manning Street becoming one-way, just in time for a city council vote.
"I believe in synchronicity," Beaubien said. "When we're supposed to find them, they show up."
Beaubien once spent five months researching a Civil War era canon which spent years outside City Hall before being melted for WWII supplies.
Although closed on Fridays throughout winter, and lacking a potent heating system, Reister said the center provides a good source for volunteer hours.
Hillsdale Community Library Hours:
Monday - Wednesday: 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Thursday - Saturday: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Mitchell Research Center:
22 N. Manning
Open Monday through Friday
10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
(517) 437-6488
The Mitchell Research Center specializes in local history record keeping. Birth and death records, cemetery listings, maps and newspapers are available for researchers.
"They keep stuff that most people throw away," Library Director Mark Maier said.
The center offers volunteer opportunities to college students and accepts used book donations for quarterly sales.
Hillsdale College Collegian, 2007
On the sticker: silhouetted brown boots with spurs.
They mark the Western novels collection at the Hillsdale Community Library, dwarfing sci-fi but slim compared to romances. Perhaps a "generational thing," Library Director Mark Maier said.
"Once upon a time we had a regular who was always asking us to buy them," he said.
Although the Westerns dig a generational gap between college students and the community library, 11 E. Bacon, parties on both sides are planning to unite library resources.
The library wants to join MeLCat for interlibrary loan and, as always, students with only a temporary local address can nonetheless obtain a library card.
"We definitely fulfill a different need than the college library," Maier said.
Understandably so, he said considering the difference in budget. But relations are good - Mossey Library Director Dan Knoch also sits on the board of directors for the community library. Maier is a 1998 Hillsdale graduate.
He said the library is outfitted for recreational reading, not research.
Part-time librarian Emily Sanford, 21, said mysteries, Westerns and Nora Roberts novels are most popular.
On the shelves: a copy of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" from 1949, pages stained and taped and red binding corners tattered; miniature versions of classical sculptures; a Ralph Waldo Emerson bust; a light-up globe that will not light.
The fiction V section bumps Voltaire against Vonnegut. About half the shelves are empty.
The new library opened in 2003 after nearly 100 years in the previous building, which remains a local history and genealogy research center. It was "built with expansion in mind," Maier said.
"The rule of thumb in that [old] building…for any book you bought you had to get rid of three," he said.
The new facility can hold 70,000 books. The current collection is about 40,000.
Besides temporary art exhibits, odds and ends make up for the spacey feeling.
An encased display of the Guild of American Papercutters offers dozens of stylized trees. A cartoon map of Hillsdale, drawn like a calmer MAD Magazine cover, shows where Waterbed Paradise formerly stood and depicts a sweater-adorned and smiling Hillsdale College student.
Next door at the research center, Janis Reister and Betty Beaubien offer more than two decades of experience in preserving local history and family genealogy.
"There's always work to be done," Reister said. "Betty always says if we live 40 more years we might get caught up."
The second-floor room houses city records, maps and microfilm newspapers like the Reading Hustler and Litchfield Gazette.
For $10 per hour, the volunteer researchers seek information on city development and family histories. Nearly 700 visitors have visited the center this year, many from beyond Michigan borders.
Recently, Reister stumbled upon a report of Manning Street becoming one-way, just in time for a city council vote.
"I believe in synchronicity," Beaubien said. "When we're supposed to find them, they show up."
Beaubien once spent five months researching a Civil War era canon which spent years outside City Hall before being melted for WWII supplies.
Although closed on Fridays throughout winter, and lacking a potent heating system, Reister said the center provides a good source for volunteer hours.
Hillsdale Community Library Hours:
Monday - Wednesday: 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Thursday - Saturday: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Mitchell Research Center:
22 N. Manning
Open Monday through Friday
10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
(517) 437-6488
The Mitchell Research Center specializes in local history record keeping. Birth and death records, cemetery listings, maps and newspapers are available for researchers.
"They keep stuff that most people throw away," Library Director Mark Maier said.
The center offers volunteer opportunities to college students and accepts used book donations for quarterly sales.
Hillsdale College Collegian, 2007
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