After 150 years, Easton is finally getting a library, thanks to a collaboration with the town’s school department and a resident who thinks everyone deserves a local library.
When Easton students return to class after the harvest break, the elementary and high schools will start sharing their libraries with the general public for one day a week each, as the Easton community library.
“I think it’s going to give the town a little more of a focus,” said Steve DeMaio, a retired patient advocate in Easton who spearheaded the effort over the last three years. DeMaio, who grew up in New York City as a self-described “library rat,” said he thinks it’s important for people to have a library, even if it’s shared with a school, so they don’t have to leave town to borrow a book, read a magazine and use the Internet.
As part of gaining support from the town’s select and school boards, DeMaio conducted a survey of 200 residents, including K-12 students, asking whether they used other libraries in the region and would be interested in having one in Easton.
More than two-thirds said they would support the town allocating $3,000 to $5,000 annually to fund a library as part of the approximately $1 million budget, and most students expressed interest in using one.
“The survey told us there was really incredibly high demand among the kids,” DeMaio said. Twelve percent of those surveyed also said they currently pay a membership to other libraries in the area.
Other towns with similar populations have long had their own libraries, such as Ashland and Washburn. But Easton residents may traditionally have relied on the public libraries in Fort Fairfield, Mars Hill or Presque Isle, which have been open for 80-100 years.
Those and many other libraries large and small are indeed active community places today, for people to find interesting books, magazines and movies, and of course use free Internet and computers. Starting in October, the Ashland Community Library will have Internet available for the public for the first time.
“The thing that initially sparked my interest in this is the fact that there’s no public access Internet in Easton,” DeMaio said. “There are people who don’t have Internet at home and there’s a lot of stuff you can’t do anymore without the Internet.”
DeMaio said he envisions some of Easton’s more tech-savvy citizens helping others navigating the world wide web, opening email accounts or searching for jobs.
Easton’s library will be open Wednesdays in the Easton elementary library from 3-5:30 p.m. and Saturday mornings in the high school library from 9:30 a.m. to noon. People will be able to check out books from the school libraries or through inter-library loans, as well as use the Internet on their own devices or one of several computers. Saturday will also have regular story time readings for kids, DeMaio said.
“We’re open to people coming in with ideas and depending on use, we’ll see how we need to modify it. Certainly we’d be open to having it more hours, if the demand is there,” he added.
The County and its libraries
Aroostook County is home to 15 public libraries today, according to Maine State Library’s directory. They’re located in Allagash, Ashland, Caribou, Fort Fairfield, Fort Kent, Houlton, Island Falls, Limestone, Madawaska, Mars Hill, Presque Isle, Sherman, St. Agatha, Washburn and Van Buren.
A number of communities had book lending groups in the 1800s, and Caribou, Fort Fairfield, Houlton and Presque Isle were among the 15 Maine libraries built in the early 1900s with funding from the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. Other towns like Mars Hill saw their current libraries evolve out of private efforts as their communities steadily grew.
In 1938, a group of residents in Mars Hill started a 1,000-book library in an upstairs room in a downtown building, with books sourced from area residents and 400 books as a gift from New Jersey’s Newark Public Library. In 1948, the late Mars Hill business owner Walter Hansen left funds to build what is now the Walter T. A. Hansen Memorial Library, completed in 1952.
The Madawaska Public Library evolved out of a reading club formed at the St. Thomas School in 1939 and soon moved to space at the Fort Kent Trust Company, counting some 4,000 books in circulation by 1944. The library moved to its current Main Street location in 1955 and expanded in 1987, with grants and local funding.
The Ashland Community Library dates back to 1904, when it was formed and held in local business buildings. The current library on Exchange Street was built in 1962 and expanded in 1989 amid continued growth in participation and use from the public.
In addition to now having Internet access, the Ashland Community Library also recently changed and extended its hours. The library will now be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
