They’ve set their sights on a goal.
And they’re consistently working toward it.
Now, residents in North Bend are planning a capital campaign to raise funds for a new library. Plans are to launch the campaign in November, said Mariann von Rein, president of the North Bend Library Foundation.
During this campaign, community residents will be asked for pledges for the proposed $1.2 million building project. Pledges also will be sought from alumni of North Bend Central High School.
“This library is going to be totally funded by public and private donations. It will not be built on taxes,” von Rein said.
A committee also is looking into grants.
Thus far, area residents have raised more than $310,000 via donations, memorials and fundraisers.
Currently, the North Bend Friends of the Library group is working with the Bushels for Books program. Through this endeavor, farmers go to their local grain elevator and say how many bushels of grain they’d like to donate to the project.
The elevator then sells the grain when prices reach a good amount and writes a check to the North Bend Library Foundation.
Normally, farmers will donate bushels after their crop is in. Farmers are still getting in their crops, but last year $8,000 was raised through the program, von Rein said.
Plans to construct a new library have been in the works for a while. Three years ago, the Friends of the Library conducted a community survey. Architects from Carlson West Povondra of Omaha conducted a study to determine what North Bend would need in a new library.
The proposed building would include a multipurpose room for the summer reading program, genealogy room and computer lab.
“We’re looking at a little over 7,000 square feet,” von Rein said.
The current, split-level library at 140 E. Eighth St. was dedicated in 1913 and has a total of 2,775 square feet.
A main room upstairs is jam-packed with books. The basement’s main room, also used for the children’s summer reading program, is filled with adult non-fiction books. The basement has restrooms and storage rooms as well.
“It’s a neat old building,” von Rein said.
But the facility is inadequate for current needs.
“It’s not handicapped accessible so older citizens can’t use it at all,” she said. “It’s very small and has no room for technology.”
Head Librarian Evla Saalfeld expressed similar concerns.
“We don’t have room for the computers we need,” she said. “We don’t have room for books. ... We’ve had a lot of books donated -- which is wonderful -- but then what do we do with them? We can’t throw out all the old books to put in the new books, because people are still reading those. We’ve got all these books ready to go on the shelves, but they’re stacked up in our back workroom.”
Library workers have tried to cope with the space they have.
“We keep trying to move things around to make more space, but it doesn’t work very well,” Saalfeld said. “There’s no place to move anything.”
Open six days a week, the library serves 1,477 patrons. Of those, 792 are residents and 685 non-residents. People from Morse Bluff in Saunders County come here. So do folks from Scribner, Snyder, Ames and Prague.
The library offers 11,000 items, which include movies, audio books and even specialty cake pans.
One advantage the current library offers is a good location. It’s just one block off of the town’s main street and only about three blocks from the elementary school.
Residents have repeatedly said they like the library’s location. So the old library will be razed and replaced with a new one -- unless someone wants to buy the building and move it to an off-site location.
Area residents talked about remodeling the old building, which would need an elevator installed to make it handicap accessible, but that would have been cost prohibitive. The building, which also has old wiring, would have needed to be gutted to bring it up to code, von Rein said.
She also noted a library’s importance to the community.
“It’s an arm of our educational system. It’s a necessary for a strong community,” she said. “It gives people an opportunity to read. It’s a source for our history. To me, a library isn’t a luxury, it’s something we have to have in our community -- if we want people to move into our community.”
Thus, raising funds for a new library is vital.
“This (the campaign) is so important,” von Rein said. “This will really tell us where we stand on building this library.”
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