She was hired as an aide and specifically asked to catalog the books. Some had been cataloged, but were only the fiction & non-fiction. Wanting the students to know how to utilize a library ( when they left our school), she wanted to do the cataloging correctly. It was decided that the old Jackknife School behind Ola School would be our library building. She took cataloging classes and got help manually at that time.
Students at the Ola School were always in need of books for book reports and information for their annual science fair projects. There were also adults who desired a place where they could check out books without going all the way to Emmett. She decided that we needed a district library. She researched the law, worked with the State Library, State Board of Education, & the Boise Public Library CEO. Boundaries were worked out for the Ola Community Library District, and residents living within those boundaries voted on whether or not they wanted a library district. Elaine Waldner, Betty Schmelzer, and Blaine Carlock sat on the first board with Jean as secretary/ treasurer/ librarian.
Jean also wrote grants to purchase books for the library. Because we became a district library, we were eligible for interlibrary loans from any state in the United States. One of our first interlibrary books came from Alaska. What a thrill that was!
From this to a full service library now with over 10,000 bar-coded items to check out, a computer for public use, a fax machine, and library classes taught to the students....Thank you, Jean for being the first librarian.
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