Corning (Free) Public Library

"See Jane. See Dick. See Spot. See Spot run." Those were the first words I learned to read. It seemed such an accomplishment to read the Dick and Jane books in first grade. Each day I learned more new words by sight. Then studying phonics taught me how to sound out the words I didn't know. I had loved being read to by my Mom. But once I learned to read on my own books became my best friends.
The one room country schools had limited libraries. Ours had a set of encyclopedias, a dictionary and a handful of donated reading books. In order to have a bookcase full of books to read for pleasure, the teacher would have to go to the County Superintendent's office at the Court House in Corning. There she would fill a box suitable for all grades. Some teachers would just grab anything to fill up the box. Mrs. Kimball always tried to choose books with her students' interests in mind. After a month or six weeks that box of books would go back and a new box would take its place. That was always an exciting day for the ones who loved to read - to see what was available and who would get to read it first.
There was a chart on the wall with each student's name. Once we read a book, we wrote the name of it on a little colored rectangle and stuck it on the line next to our name. The stickers were different colors, I think for the degree of difficulty. If you read an easy book, you got a pink sticker; blue, green and yellow for progressively harder to read books. If you read enough books by the end of the school year, you received a reading achievement award.
Summer vacation was a dearth for country school kids; at least the poor ones. Corning had a nice big public library open and free to all town residents. Unless you lived in the city limits the only way you could have a library card was to pay for it. I'm sure the cost was nominal by today's standards, but by rural 1950's standards few could afford a library card. We could go in and read a book in the library, we just couldn't take one home.
We could, however, walk up three creaky flights of stairs to the County Superintendent's office and check out books there as long as a parent was with us. That was always kinda scary if Miss Friman was there, but if it was her assistant, Miss Edna Miller, we could take all the time we wanted and check out several books at a time.
It must have been sometime in the mid 50's when the Corning Public Library became free to all Adams County residents. I know I was still going down to the basement to pick out books and that is where the children's books were. I was so very proud of having my own library card.
When the new addition was built and the library was computerized, we no longer had library cards. Each patron's name was in the system. The librarian pulled up your name and scanned the books to check you out.
Having an actual library card again is something I enjoy about the Gibson Memorial Library. There is a sense of pride and responsibility each time I hand over my library card and check out an armload of books.