The Veterans’ Memorial Library became an entity in Patten in 1928 when a former Baptist Church built in the 1840s transferred the building to the town.
In the fall of 2020, the then town manager, seeking to reduce building insurance costs to the town, asked the Maine Municipal Association for an insurance quote. The engineers who evaluated the building found foundation issues that were labeled structural concerns, ADA non-compliance with the bathroom and entry ramp, non-ADA compliance with multiple floor levels in the building, along with potential other issues.
The selectmen closed the building October 8, 2020. In the winter of 2021, the same firm set a price of $200,000 to renovate the building. As the town and the library Board of Trustees explored possible options, we learned that the lot was too small to accommodate any possible expansion while also recognizing that our library was running much as it had numerous decades ago: primarily as a lender of books.
The trustees began meeting monthly, had a Zoom meeting with Mr. Matt DeLaney of Millinocket Memorial Library, that had been on the brink of closure, numerous phone calls with Mr. DeLaney, and a visit to the library where $1.5 million of renovation to a 1962 building had recently taken place. We quickly learned that as a town along a scenic by-way and a gateway community to both Baxter State Park and a federal monument, we needed to re-think almost all of what a library does in a community.
We also have to fully recognize that we are a region that has lost two lumber mills, a bio-fuel plant, and a starch factory which have been devastating to our region as has the loss of the mills in East Millinocket and Millinocket where many of our taxpayers once worked. Patten is a low to moderate income region with few jobs available.
The trustees cleaned and boxed thousands of books in the library over the summer. We created The Friends and became a nonprofit to raise funds to build the new building we came to know was vital to our town. We were fortunate to have the directors of the Lumbermen’s Museum agree to find a library space in their building, and the library opened there in September 2021 in their kitchen. Our librarian retired, and the town hired its first librarian with a degree in library science who also had volunteered for 3.5 years at the Millinocket Memorial Library.
In a 317 square foot space, we now offer National Digital Equity courses, have trained volunteers through Educate Maine and Maine Math Science Alliance to offer coding as an after-school and/or summer program, established an electronic library card so we can track patron use, and written grants so we can digitize our scrapbooks kept by former librarians along with the town reports we have on file. We want to offer more computer workshops for all age groups in a new space as well as be a welcoming area to visitors as we seek to expand our hours and employ staff to assist the librarian. We long to be a space where we can offer small nutrition/cooking classes to youth so we can have a more healthy youth and adult population.
One building can become an endless possibility of growth and advancement to our community; a place of vitality that will hopefully embolden our citizens to see the possibilities they and our entire region can offer not only to its residents but also to others.