The Lancaster Community Library has been serving the citizens of Lancaster County for fifty years. The highlights of the Library’s development as a center for learning and activity are listed below.
1961 Community Library opens October 22 in the “little white house” on School Street
1962 Story Hour at the Library, conducted by the Lancaster Junior Women’s Club, begins
1964 Summer Reading Program begins
1968 Books and Coffee Program begins
1972 First Library book sale
1975 New Library Building opens on School Street next to original library structure
Rappahannock Art League (RAL) begins exhibiting at Library
1979 Coast Guard Auxiliary begins meeting in Library
1981 Recorded books added to Library’s collection
1982 Children’s Room at the Library is enlarged
1985 Library qualifies for State support
1986 First certified librarian, Sally Rohlfing, is hired
1991 Library building is expanded
Storymobile begins service
1992 Susanna Collins becomes Library Director
1994 Library Lottery begins
1995 Library catalog and circulation are computerized
1996 Library adds full-time Children’s Librarian
1997 First public Internet computer made available at the Library
2000 Library goes on-line
2001 Library opens booth at Irvington Market
2006 Wireless Internet becomes available at the Library
Babygarten program initiated
2007 Lindsy Gardner becomes Library Director
Original Library "little white house" becomes Storymobile office
2008 Digital books on Playaways introduced at the Library
2010 Downloadable eBooks & audiobooks made available to patrons
Kilmarnock Entertainment Center Grand Opening (later to become the library)
Library obtains a part-time Technology Specialist staff position
2011 Library's 50th birthday / Storymobile's 20th birthday / Launch of new website
2014 Capital Campaign begins to raise funds to purchase/renovate the "bowling alley"
at 16 Town Centre Drive as the new location for the library
2016 Moved into new building at 16 Town Centre Drive, Kilmarnock
Advanced Audio/Video system installation begins
2017 Alice Cooper becomes Library Director
2018 Library migrates to new ILS "Apollo" to manage circulation
Want to see more history in a fun and interesting way? Visit the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to view past events at the library as recorded on our webpages. When the link is clicked the current display will be August, 2011, but using options at the top of the page will position the display to different dates. Currently, the archive holds images of our front page from 2001 to 2018.
