If you checked a book out of Salt Lake City Library's Main Branch at 209 E. 500 South the day it opened and haven't returned the thing, it's now exactly 25 years overdue.
At 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 28, the library plans a 25th birthday party. The Salt Lake Children's Choir will perform, and Salt Lake Mayor Palmer DePaulis and Cynthia Ong, president of the library's board of directors, will speak.
There will be a public reception in the Atrium Gallery afterward.
Twenty-five years isn't an extremely long time, of course, but so much has happened to libraries in that time it feels more like a century. Computers have revolutionized the system, and local libraries offer more services than ever before.
"I think people think of libraries as solemn places," says Colleen McLaughlin, the library's community relations director. "But we're really a place where people can relax, be themselves and enjoy things.
"People associate libraries with books, but we have so much more. Not everyone knows we have framed art that they can take home for weeks at a time, for instance."
But people have been learning.
"We have seen a tremendous increase in the use of the library," she says. "I think people in the Salt Lake City area are really discovering us."
Salt Lake's Main Branch may be 25 years old, but the system itself is fast approaching 90. The original library was in the current Hansen Planetarium. In 1914 the Salt Lake City Telegram wrote an editorial calling the facility inadequate, but it wasn't until 1950 that things really changed. With 10 percent of the library's holdings being socked away in cold storage, Jacob A. Kahn and Gail Plummer decided it was time to act. The Friends of the Salt Lake City Public Library was born, and a $2.5 million bond was passed.
Ground was broken on Dec. 28, 1962.
When the library was dedicated on Oct. 30, 1964, economist John Kenneth Galbraith gave the keynote address. Since then, hundreds of major American figures have passed through its doors.
Today, besides the downtown site, there are also five branch libraries holding over a half-million volumes. Some 1.6 million items are checked out of local libraries each year.
A historical display of the library will be on the main floor, and original art by children's illustrator David Macaulay ("Underground," "Pyramid") will be displayed.
For more information, call 363-5733. *****
(additional information) A short course in Shakespeare
Did Caesar call for
"fat, sleek-headed men" or
"sleek, fat-headed men?"
Did the weird sisters stir in
"eye of newt" or "Isaac Newton?"
Did Hamlet say he
"Knew York well?"
Being bright ain't always
being illuminated.
Visit your library.
----J.E.J.