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It
was in the year 1933 that the Woman's Club of Ayden
decided that the Town of Ayden needed a public
library. Before this time the people could only
borrow books by going to the school library two days
a week after school was closed for the day. A
literary department was formed by the Woman's Club
and members canvassed the town for books. After two
hundred books had been collected, a building had to
be obtained. In an old unused filling station on
South Lee Street, the first Ayden Public Library
held "Open House" on March 17, 1933. A formal
opening speech was made by Mr. Roy Flannagan, then
Mayor of Greenville. Mrs. W. D. Johnson, Sr. and
Mrs. Helen Turnage were appointed librarians. Their
services were voluntary and their only reward was
bringing pleasure to others through books.
It
wasn't long before the two hundred books that the
library had started with were not enough to meet the
demand. The Greenville Library loaned books to the
Ayden Public Library. Mrs. Helen Turnage carried the
books back and forth between the two libraries. Many
of the town's civic organizations gave money to help
take care of the expenses, while many of the
citizens donated books of their own to the library.
Soon the library outgrew the small place where it
was located. When the Community Building was
completed in 1935, the front room of the building
was used for the library. In 1943 the town took over
part of the responsibility of the library. The town
appropriated $360.00 for the library and increased
the amount each year.
In
September 1976, the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Library
in South Ayden closed its doors and moved their
books and equipment to the Community Building with
the Ayden Public Library. It was felt that the
public could best be served by combining these
libraries and operating together as one library.
In
1970, Mr. & Mrs. E. W. Olschner gave a house in
memory of Mrs. Olschner's parents, Mary E. and
Walter B. Quinerly to be used for the town library.
Renovation work to make the house suitable for a
library started in June of 1970.
The
library at the old location in the Community
Building was closed to the public at the end of
July, 1970. Old books that were not in usable
condition were cleared out and all remaining books
were moved to the new library on Second Street.
The
new library was named the Quinerly-Olschner Library
and was opened to the public on November 16, 1970,
with three rooms being used. The library remains in
the same location today with ten rooms and many
improvements over the last thirty-three years,
including the addition of thousands of books and a
public access computer that will feature high speed
DSL internet to be available in the fall of 2003.
Mrs. Patricia Nichols serves as the librarian and
Mrs. Alice Cannon-Parker is her assistant. The public can
contact either Mrs. Nichols or Mrs. Parker at (252)
746-7026.
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