Book fair offers fact and fiction


AMENIA — The Amenia Library held its annual Book Fair last Saturday, Sept. 18, and crate-diggers were abundant throughout the day, scouring through boxes of everything from cookbooks to historical texts to classic literature to paperback romance novels.

"All the books are donated," explained Board of Trustees member Mary Ann Wilkens. "People bring them by the box load. We also need to weed out the library books at times. Our building just isn’t big enough to store all the books we accumulate, and besides being one of the main ways that the library raises money, the book fairs give us a chance to make room for new books coming in."

Wilkens reported that last year’s book fair raised around $2,000, and that they hoped for a comparable number this year as well.

Charlotte Murphy said things were "a little slow today, but it helps us get rid of the books. We had bought a shed to store everything but that filled up so quickly. We used to keep books in the cellar, but water became a big problem."

State Sen. Vincent Leibell stopped by and was eyeing some of the goods for sale.

"I’ve never missed the book fair," he said. "If anything, I’m looking to defy the critics who say people in government can’t read."

Librarian Miriam Devine talked about her hope of the library expanding.

"We’ve got four computers here now, and as you can see," she said, pointing out the more cramped areas of the building, "every inch is being accounted for."

The library purchased the adjacent parking lot last December. Alan Gamble, who is the president of the library’s board of trustees, said that the long-term plan is a big renovation.

"The library is 880 square feet now. We’re hoping for 3,500 square feet by the time we’re done," he said. "I’d like to think of it more like a Borders, when we would have a whole children’s section, comfy chairs for people to sit down in and read, a community meeting room and secure storage for some of the town’s more valuable documents."

Gamble, who is an engineer by trade, reported that about $100,000 has already been raised by the library to go toward projects like the renovation.

"The generosity of a few people has gone a long way," he said. "Darlene Reimer put together a conceptual plan. The problem is that it would be near impossible for us to renovate by building a two-story building. You would have to have an elevator to make all of the library’s resources handicap-accessible, and that alone would cost us an enormous amount of money."

Gamble said he is a few years away from retirement, and once he does retire, he will be able to concentrate more on the project and the fundraising that comes with it.

While it might be easier to build a new library on a larger plot of land somewhere outside of town, Gamble said "we need to keep it in the core [of the town] so that everyone has access to it. There’s something warm about this library and I know this is going to be such a benefit to Amenia, as well as the surrounding communities."

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