Library History

Ran­dolph Pub­lic Library

Chap­ter 1 In the Begin­ning 1916–1961

The Ran­dolph Pub­lic Library was started by the Ran­dolph Woman’s Club.  They, feel­ing the need for a pub­lic library, began col­lect­ing books.  Inter­est in the project grew and books were donated by inter­ested per­sons.  The books were assem­bled in a room down­town and made avail­able to the pub­lic.
            In March of 1916, the Com­mer­cial Club hav­ing looked into the mat­ter of a Carnegie Library, took action. They found the three main require­ments were: a site, at least one thou­sand books, and main­te­nance by the city.  A Com­mit­tee was appointed to inves­ti­gate the mat­ter of a site.  The Woman’s Club voted to turn over their col­lec­tion of more then one thou­sand books to the library.  In Sep­tem­ber of 1916, the City Coun­cil passed a res­o­lu­tion to levy a tax for the pur­pose of main­tain­ing a library.  
           Mayor O.O. Reed received word from the Carnegie Cor­po­ra­tion in Novem­ber of 1916 that Randolph’s appli­ca­tion for a library had met their approval and that six thou­sand dol­lars had been appro­pri­ated for that pur­pose. 
           In May of 1917, the first Library Board was appointed by the Mayor and approved by the Coun­cil.  In August of that same year, it was reported that $1,034.50 had been col­lected of which $450.00 had been paid to Z. Boughn for lots.
            In Novem­ber a notice to bid­ders was offered, but when they were received all exceeded the amount of money on hand, and were rejected.  Mat­ters then hung in the bal­ance until May of 1918, when the bid of J.B. Shearer for $6,600.00 was accepted in Sep­tem­ber of 1918.  Con­struc­tion was started imme­di­ately and fin­ished with open­ing day set for Novem­ber 23, 1918. Mrs. Alice Mon­fort served as librar­ian from 1919 to 1925 in the new build­ing.
            In the inter­ven­ing years, some of the improve­ments have been: the drink­ing foun­tain, indi­rect light­ing sys­tem, two new fur­naces– the oil fur­nace in 1939 and a gas fur­nace in 1955, the NuWood ceil­ing in the main room, attic insu­la­tion, mag­a­zine rack and extra shelv­ing, the door book depos­i­tory, and rail­ings on the steps and stair. Most of these improve­ments were made while Car­rie Miller Kerr (1925–1950) and Min­nie Pittman (1950–1961) served as librar­i­ans. The Library proved to be an impor­tant addi­tion to the com­mu­nity and saw 300–400 books cir­cu­lat­ing monthly.

Pre­sented by Min­nie Pit­man for the Dia­mond Days of 1886.

Chap­ter 2 1962–2002

 Eva Gart­ner, librar­ian from 1961–1979, watched as the col­lec­tion and cir­cu­la­tion num­bers grew.  There was a def­i­nite need to alle­vi­ate the over­crowded con­di­tions of the library and to estab­lish a bet­ter envi­ron­ment for chil­dren and give them a room of their own. It was this dis­cov­ery that led the Ran­dolph Woman’s Club to go ahead with the Children’s Library project in 1978 and 1979.  At this point a com­mit­tee of six: Mrs. Jim Kil­burn, Mrs. Jim Ras­mussen, Mrs. George Bradley, Mrs. Mar­vin Tay­lor, Mrs. Roger John­son and Mrs. Tom Mass were appointed to get the project under­way. 
          A total of $1600.00  was con­tributed by thirty-one orga­ni­za­tions and forty-one fam­i­lies.  Help was enlisted from Brown­ies to senior cit­i­zens, from com­mu­nity clubs to church orga­ni­za­tions.  In a mat­ter of months, with the out­stand­ing coop­er­a­tion of the Ran­dolph com­mu­nity, the base­ment stor­age room was turned into a children’s room with beau­ti­ful Dis­ney murals painted on the walls.  Story hour offi­cially opened the newly remod­eled Children’s Library in June of 1979.  It was at this time that Eileen Leicy took over the respon­si­bil­i­ties of the head librarian. 

Chap­ter 3 2002–2010

Library col­lec­tions and ser­vices became more diverse with each pass­ing year. Tech­no­log­i­cal improve­ments had a great impact on library ser­vices and required addi­tional space. It was at this point in 2002 that the Ran­dolph Library Build­ing Com­mit­tee was formed. Peggy Leit­ing, George Bradley, Jeff and Suz Gubbels, Dorothy Jensen, Pat VanSlyke, and Dorothy Walz served as chair peo­ple on the com­mit­tee with sev­eral oth­ers help­ing with fundrais­ing.  The com­mit­tee worked with Joan Stef­fen, who served as librar­ian from 2001–2006 and the library board, mem­bers includ­ing Debra Wiese, Beu­lah Rokahr, RoseEdna Rohde, Sharon Borst and Helen Tunink, to make plans for a new build­ing.  This group worked inces­santly to meet the goal of a new 5200 square foot library build­ing.  Four years were filled with fundrais­ers from danc­ing fire­man and local celebri­ties par­tic­i­pat­ing in a night of game shows to a New Year’s Eve din­ner and wine tast­ing.  Not to be for­got­ten are all the ham­burg­ers that were flipped and the clothes and more clothes that were sorted for the bian­nual rum­mage sales.  Although it took much orga­niz­ing and lots of man power, there was a great deal of fun to be had. All of the hard work paid off and over $300,000.00 was raised locally for the new library.  This strong local com­mit­ment allowed for the oppor­tu­nity to apply for and receive two large grants.  The Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment Block Grant and the Lied Foun­da­tion Trust each made $250,000.00 com­mit­ments to the new Lied Ran­dolph Pub­lic Library. On March 12, 2006, Gov­er­nor Dave Heine­man attended the ground­break­ing cer­e­mony, which inci­den­tally was held indoors as an ice storm was approach­ing.  Dirt and shov­els were brought into the city audi­to­rium and after the speeches were given and the first shov­els of dirt were dug, every­one was invited to take a turn. Even the chil­dren brought their plas­tic shov­els and par­tic­i­pated. Peggy Leit­ing began her respon­si­bil­i­ties as librar­ian in the fall of 2006.
            The Friends of the Library orga­ni­za­tion, stemmed from the Ran­dolph Build­ing Com­mit­tee, began at this time and was formed under the Ran­dolph Area Foun­da­tion. Their pur­pose is to pro­vide finan­cial and vol­un­teer sup­port for pro­gram­ming and events such as the annual Lunch for the Library and bian­nual rum­mage sales.
            The build­ing was com­pleted in 2007 and was for­mally ded­i­cated on April 7 as the Lied Ran­dolph Pub­lic Library after Ernst M. and Ida K. Lied, par­ents of Ernst F. Lied.  Prior to the ded­i­ca­tion stu­dents from the Ran­dolph Pub­lic Schools helped move approx­i­mately 15,000 books by form­ing a human chain.
            The addi­tions of a meet­ing room, geneal­ogy room and com­puter room have made a tremen­dous dif­fer­ence in the activ­i­ties and pro­grams that can be held.  The library offers more than books with high speed inter­net and WI-FI now avail­able.  Geneal­ogy researchers may use the micro­film machine to view the Ran­dolph Times dat­ing back to 1895.  There are also online data­bases, e-books, DVD’s, and audio books.  In 2009, a Smart­Board was pur­chased and is used for inter­ac­tive learn­ing and games dur­ing the after school and sum­mer pro­grams.  Once again, monthly cir­cu­la­tion num­bers of books, movies and mag­a­zines increased to approx­i­mately 1,250. Com­puter usage soared with an aver­age of 325 patrons per month surf­ing the web.