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Show Dignitaries Attend Dedication Of New Panguitch Library PANGUITCH More than 200 signed the guest book during the afternoon open house and more than 100 of those stayed for the early evening dedication of Pangui-tch's Pangui-tch's new library Feb. 1. The ceremony cere-mony marked the culmination of several years of dedicated effort and commitment to the project by library professionals, city officials and many volunteers throughout the community. Library Board President Marilyn Brinkerhoff who cmcccd the ceremony cere-mony asked Panguitch City Manager Man-ager Allen Hcnric to offer an opening open-ing prayer. The Panguitch High School choir performed two numbers num-bers and Panguitch Mayor Maloy Dodds spoke and applauded the work of Elaine Baldwin who had spearheaded the entire library project pro-ject from its inception. Slate Director of Libraries Amy Owen spoke to the group and Baldwin honored several with plaques for their outstanding contributions con-tributions to the overall project: Winona Sevy, who had served as librarian for several years; current librarians Kent Osborn, Donna Os-born Os-born and Gwcn Frandscn for their help in the transition to the new library; li-brary; Marjoric Davics, Caryl En-glestead En-glestead and Barbara Talbot for their special efforts in fund raising; Ray Barnes for extensive volunteer hours and fund raising efforts. City employees Dave Owens and Clint Pollock were recognized for their hard work as well as board president Brinkerhoff. A prayer of dedication wasa offered by Panguitch Pangui-tch LDS Slake President John Yard-ley. Yard-ley. A large plaque with names of those who made donations of SI 00 or more hangs on the wall. More than 58,000 was raised by volunteers, an amount which will be matched by the state. The entire project came in at 522,000 under budget, Baldwin said. The project began with a survey of Panguitch residents conducted by the city, that showed 56.4 percent in favor of pursuing the project. In January 1993, the Panguitch CityGarfield County Library Board met to launch the project to match a S 135,000 grant from the state, but were unable to find appropriate property on which to build. In danger dan-ger of losing their grant, they sought alternate and creative answers an-swers to their problem. They approached ap-proached the Garfield County School District about purchasing the Panguitch Middle School for the library. The district, in need of a larger and different type facility agreed. The open style of the middle mid-dle school building would convert readily to library use, even meeting federal handicap access standards. After approval by the Utah State Library System auditor and other personnel, a scries of fund raisers was launched to provide monies for renovation. A total of S20.000 was raised by donation, the old library was sold for SI 5,000, and the city sold its share of the county building to the county, moving its offices into a portion of the new library building and contributing the funds from the sale. The Utah Slate Library system funded the computer and other materials ma-terials to completely automate the library system in Garfield County. After a month of hard work by the library staff and volunteers, 20,000 books were assigned bar codes and entered into the computer at the library. li-brary. The library and bookmobile are both in full service and offering bcttcr-than ever service to patrons. Another computer was donated by Word Perfect employee Rebecca Dodds who was reared in Panguitch. Pangui-tch. It will be used for checking out books. As the book collection was automated, outdated and less-used items were weeded out. They were hand carried and delivered by two Panguitch youth to Japan on indefinite loan for use in teaching English to Japanese students. Members of the Garfield County Teen Council placed identification labels in each book requesting comments from readers. There arc also more than 100 easy-reading books from the Ulah Library Commission which will be sent to Russia for teaching English. |