MARYVILLE, Tenn. — One hundred years ago the seeds of the Blount County Public Library were planted during a discussion in a local ladies room. A book club met there and discussed the possibility of making books available to the public. One hundred years later, a lot has changed.
What a difference a century makes.
Once upon a time, story hour didn't exist. Whispering was required. And who could have imagined borrowing an e-book to read on your phone?
"I have been through a veritable revolution in the way we receive and hand out information. I did it all by hand and then we became automated and automation products began to take over another part of the library which was the DVDs and the audiobooks," Retired Deputy Director, Laura Hutchens, said. "Once technology gets started it rolls faster and faster."
Laura Hutchens worked at the Blount County Public Library for 35 years and retired as Deputy Director.
"I loved ordering books. That was my primary goal. And to find things that would not only educate people but entertain them because we are an entertainment business as well as an educational business," she said.
"Books are a very small part of what libraries do," BCPL Director, K.C. Williams, said. "Libraries have always been about people and generating new knowledge but how we do it has changed at the speed of light. It's just been enormously quick."
From card catalogs to a cafe, from book mobiles to books on tape, from Polaroids to digital.
The Capira mobile app is coming out later this month.
"It will actually be a full-service branch. You can do everything on the phone, on the app, that you can do when you come here except be here in the building physically," Williams said.
The physical building was dedicated in 2002. It is much bigger and better than the original.
"The early library was in a rented room at one of the buildings on Broadway Avenue," Hutchens said.
It grew and moved several times, from one room to 65,000 square feet, from 3,000 books to 419,000.
Hutchens said, "We just didn't grow by ourselves. We grew from children's interests, young people's interests, adult interests, we combine all of those to follow a path to excellence."
Williams said, "We have all these resources and we can connect them to our community and to community organizations to expand their programs and services and make them more accessible because we're about access."
Whatever the next chapter brings, the Blount County Public Library will embrace it.
The official library 100th birthday is October 24th. They will celebrate with a gala that night and then two days later have a community birthday party with cake and ice cream.