Gordon Woods/Journal Vespasian Warner Public Library co-directors Joan Rhoades and Tom Rudasill at the front desk of the library, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

One hundred years is an

important milestone for any institution, and the directors of the Vespasian Warner Library know how important their institution is to the community.

What began as a 200-volume public enterprise that was later located over a meat market, became the envy of many small towns. Co-directors of Warner Library Tom Rudasill and Joan Rhoades take their obligation seriously, and under their direction, the library continues to flourish.

“We’re open more hours per week than a lot of libraries,” Rudasill said. In fact, the library is open 61-hours-a-week.

Rudasill started as a volunteer at the library in 1996 and did some consulting for the library in 1998. When library director Malinda Evans, under whose direction the board built the new library, retired in October 2000, Rudasill and Rhoades became co-directors of the facility.

Rhoades is also celebrating a milestone of her own. This year marks her 20th anniversary with Warner Library.

When Rhoades started, the new library wasn’t yet built. She began in what generations of local residents knew as Warner Library, the building facing Johnson St., built in 1908. The structure was integrated into the design for the new library and is a permanent Clinton landmark. The 1908 building now serves as a genealogy center and archives for various materials.

“It was an exciting time getting ready for the new library,” Rhoades said.

Rhoades and Rudasill agreed that technology has had the biggest effect on the library. And it isn’t just young people who are computer savvy. “Some seniors come in with their laptops to use the wireless,” Rhoades said.

Rhoades said that the library has cut its reference space in half because so many people now look things up on the Internet.

Still, technology has its limitations. People still enjoy borrowing books from the library. “Technology can’t improve on the tactile feel of a book,” Rhoades said.

Services are always expanding at Warner Library. The library’s DVD movie collection has grown significantly in the past 12 months, Rhoades said. More audio books are becoming available on CD versus cassette.

For a number of years, Artist Alley used the library’s museum room, located on the second floor of the 1908 library, for exhibits and shows. The room was recently renovated in preparation for a traveling exhibit of the Smithsonian Institution. The exhibit, which will come to the library in the winter 2009, traces the influence, purposes and styles of fences in rural America.

The Friends of the Library has also been a strong force for supporting the facility. The volunteer organization holds two book sales a year at the library.

Library circulation is up, Rhoades said. “The economy and book selection has a lot to do with that,” she said. And the genres people are reading nowadays have changed, too. “Paranormal romance with a good dose of vampires thrown in,” Rudasill said.

Rudasill said there has been a sharp increase in interest in vampire literature. “But I’m not smart enough to know why,” he said.

He also said that the works of contemporary authors such as Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts continues to be strong.

Rudasill said that large type novels and a switch to more hardbound novels have proved popular.

Warner Library is busy year-round offering programs and services to fit patrons of all ages. Children’s librarian Paula Lopatic conducts the annual summer reading program for kids, which includes guests of all kinds, including animal experts from Silly Safaris, Dave the Math Dog and others.

Senior citizens in particular is a segment of the population not to be underestimated in its wide-ranging interets.

“We try not to pigeonhole senior citizens’ reading tastes,” Rudasill said.



A history

of Warner Library

courtesy of Tom Rudasill and Vespasian Warner Library



Although 2008 marks the 100th anniversary of the Vespasian Warner Public Library building, the City of Clinton actually had library services for almost 35 years prior to the opening of the current facility on October 18, 1908.

According to the Clinton Public, in August of 1873 a small circulating library of approximately 200 volumes was soon to open, operated by Mr. J. D. Rogers. Cost was $3.50 per year. The location and duration of the library is unknown.

In all probability it was no longer in existence by 1895. On December 5 of that year, Chapter B of the P.E.O. sisterhood was organized and almost immediately began discussions concerning the subject of a circulating library for the city.

On February 22, 1901, the Clinton Library Association opened a small library containing about 700 volumes on the 2nd floor above Rundle’s Meat Market. Members staffed the library on afternoons and evenings.

In August of 1901, the library was turned over to the City of Clinton and in May of 1902 it was moved to the 2nd floor of John Fuller’s law office at the northeast corner of the Square. The library remained in this location until it moved to the current location in October 1908.

Such was the situation when then Federal Commissioner of Pensions and Clinton native Vespasian Warner wrote a letter to the city council dated February 12, 1906 offering real estate and $10,000 to erect and complete a library building, provided the City would maintain the same and provide continuous library services. The city promptly accepted by ordinance on March 5, 1906. Construction began later that year and was completed in the fall of 1908.

Certainly Warner had philanthropic motives; however he was also in possession of an 8,000-volume library of his deceased father-in-law, C. H. Moore, which Moore had bequeathed to the City if it would build an appropriate building to house the same. Otherwise, the library was to be transported to the Painesville, Ohio Historical Society. Warner made is choice ...the city responded, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Clinton P.E.O. will host a library anniversary open house on Sunday, October 19 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.. Refreshements will be served.