News
Opinion
ENLARGE
The Incline Village Public Library celebrated its fifth anniversary in June. If you are not familiar with the history of Incline Village you might think our library is a very new feature in Incline. The current building where the library is located is five years old but the opportunity for children and residents to check out books dates back to the beginning of the village. As early as the 1960s reading was considered such an important part of being a community that it needed to be available for all residents. It was especially important to the many young families starting homes here.
It all started when a few books were made available to residents at a small room next door to the Crystal Bay Development Company. This is in the building where the original Incline Elementary School also started. Volunteers checked out books during the noon hour to children and adults and the Washoe County Library bookmobile provided bi-weekly visits whenever the school was closed for holidays or summer. Most of the volunteers were local mothers.
“It was just a little room,” said Genevieve Brockelsby, an Incline mother with five children. “We did not have much to do here at that time and a library was so important.”
Eventually the Incline Elementary School on Southwood Boulevard opened and the library expanded to two classrooms in that building. Even though the collection was small it also had an adult collection.
“We had two classrooms located in the elementary school. One was the school library and the other the public library but they both used the same check out desk,” said Pat Crow another local mother and also long time secretary at the school. “We had to be very careful to keep the adult collection separate from the children.”
Brockelsby remembered that one of the volunteers always working in the library whenever she visited was Barbara Norris. Crow said Norris was very active and assisted Audrey Anderson.
Anderson, a teacher and the public librarian was also active in the PTA and was the mother of four children.
Betty Zenzig was another library volunteer and worked very hard to get a library building for Incline Crow said.
In 1966 a group of dedicated library volunteers formed a group known as the Friends of Incline Libraries and made a proposal to the Washoe County Commission for a building for Incline's Public Library.
With the help of donations from Boise Cascade, funding from the Washoe County Library Fund, a grant from the Max C. Fleishmann Foundation and of course the needed approval of the Washoe County voters, a plan for a public library in Incline became a reality. The Incline Village Library also received an anonymous donation for the purpose of constructing the building. Finally in August of 1977 construction started on the first public library building for Incline Village.
The library building was completed in 1978 and opened July 24, 1978 with about 25,000 volumes. This building was the Incline Village Public Library until it was replaced by the current building in 2005. The new building includes such amenities as a coffee bar, comfortable reading areas next to a fireplace, an outdoor patio as well as a community room used for special presentations and other community events. It continues to be a resource for the entire community and of course the young families of Incline find it to be a special feature of Incline. It is what makes the community special.
“I cannot believe that some people have never been in our library,” Crow said.
It all started when a few books were made available to residents at a small room next door to the Crystal Bay Development Company. This is in the building where the original Incline Elementary School also started. Volunteers checked out books during the noon hour to children and adults and the Washoe County Library bookmobile provided bi-weekly visits whenever the school was closed for holidays or summer. Most of the volunteers were local mothers.
“It was just a little room,” said Genevieve Brockelsby, an Incline mother with five children. “We did not have much to do here at that time and a library was so important.”
Eventually the Incline Elementary School on Southwood Boulevard opened and the library expanded to two classrooms in that building. Even though the collection was small it also had an adult collection.
“We had two classrooms located in the elementary school. One was the school library and the other the public library but they both used the same check out desk,” said Pat Crow another local mother and also long time secretary at the school. “We had to be very careful to keep the adult collection separate from the children.”
Brockelsby remembered that one of the volunteers always working in the library whenever she visited was Barbara Norris. Crow said Norris was very active and assisted Audrey Anderson.
Anderson, a teacher and the public librarian was also active in the PTA and was the mother of four children.
Betty Zenzig was another library volunteer and worked very hard to get a library building for Incline Crow said.
In 1966 a group of dedicated library volunteers formed a group known as the Friends of Incline Libraries and made a proposal to the Washoe County Commission for a building for Incline's Public Library.
With the help of donations from Boise Cascade, funding from the Washoe County Library Fund, a grant from the Max C. Fleishmann Foundation and of course the needed approval of the Washoe County voters, a plan for a public library in Incline became a reality. The Incline Village Library also received an anonymous donation for the purpose of constructing the building. Finally in August of 1977 construction started on the first public library building for Incline Village.
The library building was completed in 1978 and opened July 24, 1978 with about 25,000 volumes. This building was the Incline Village Public Library until it was replaced by the current building in 2005. The new building includes such amenities as a coffee bar, comfortable reading areas next to a fireplace, an outdoor patio as well as a community room used for special presentations and other community events. It continues to be a resource for the entire community and of course the young families of Incline find it to be a special feature of Incline. It is what makes the community special.
“I cannot believe that some people have never been in our library,” Crow said.
