How Northern Chicago Suburbs Without
Library Service Created Their Own

"When one thinks of how much money is spent per day on pop, candy, 'munchies,' and liquor, we wonder why we can't spend a few dollars on something worthwhile." — Lake Zurich Library Department, 1972.

There were still — even as late as the early 1970s — noticeable pockets of the northern Chicago suburbs without library service. Taken on their own, the communities in these pockets were often too small to support a library of their own. For example: only 5,461 people lived in the town of Lake Zurich in 1972, only 643 in the community of Kildeer, 939 in Hawthorne Woods, and 3,562 people lived in unincorporated rural areas. Together, however, this area represented more than 10 thousand people and 30 square miles without any tax-based library service — a noticeable bald spot in suburban library service.

When Kemper Insurance moved from Chicago to Lake Zurich in the early 1970s, the lack of library service was glaring to the employees it brought with it from the big city. Some of these new residents, who were used to library service on a grand scale in Chicago, were shocked to find the only area library was the privately-funded Lake Zurich Women's Club Library. Housed rent-free in the Lions Club Building, staffed by volunteers in their spare time and open only two days a week, the library had about 5,000 books to serve a population of at least that many just in the township of Lake Zurich. The collection was made up of donations and supplemented here and there with splashes of Women's Club money. "Newcomers to our library want to know why we don't have more reference and non-fiction books," the Library Department chairmen complained. "We simply don't have room or money."

At the same time, to the north and east of Lake Zurich, the Gurnee Women's Club and its president, Betty Russell, were making the same noises. For some 20 years before Warren-Newport Public Library District was actually established, the citizens of Gurnee, Warren and Newport had raised and bequeathed money, trying to bring library service to the area with little success.

The North Suburban Library System's leadership was acutely aware of these voids. Robert McClarren, the system director, and Robert Bullen, the administrative service librarian, had worked together before in West Virginia and at the State Library in Indiana to bring library service to unserved populations. Illinois as a state with their program. Project PLUS (Promoting Larger Units of Service), Mr. McClarren says, was "head and shoulders above" the other states when it came to providing new library service. A state like Hawaii would boast that it provided statewide library service, but its library service came from the state like education and was not locally determined. Project PLUS was wholly based on popular approval.

Project PLUS took place over three years. During the first year, the federal money would be given to volunteers who would use it to open a small demonstration library in the community. After that, the proposed district would hole a referendum, asking its residents if they wanted to continue receiving library service and if they wanted it badly enough to support it with their tax dollars. Project PLUS monies would continue to support the library during the following year while the library waited for the tax revenue to be collected. If for some reason the referendum failed, Project PLUS money would help bail the library out.

Though Project PLUS was a state project and the money was distributed by the Illinois State Library, it was actually federally funded. Library systems were the natural medium by which the State Library could connect with local grassroots movements. The federal funding came from the Library Services Act of 1956 in its then incarnation as the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA). One important difference between the LSA and the LSCA was the removal (in the latter) of an earlier requirement that benefiting communities be of less than 10,000 people. This adroit change meant, first of all, the addition of political clout from bigger population centers such as Chicago and New York, but more importantly it meant monies

*Ian Baaske, Administrative Staff, North Suburban Library System, Wheeling.

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initially meant for rural areas could now be used in suburban areas.

Mr. McClarren identified good libraries for Project PLUS grants a number of ways. Sometimes, the State Library referred them to the system. Other times, system librarians living in library-less communities reported dissatisfied rumblings. At any rate, it was vital that the people of the community came to the system, and the system did not go to the people. "It had to be their library," said Joy Kennedy, who became the librarian at the Ela Area demonstration library. It would not work if the residents felt outsiders were pushing a library upon them.

In fact, the catalyst that forced Lake Zurich to seek a Project PLUS grant was when Barrington, a larger community bordering Lake Zurich to the south, tried to annex them in 1971. But Barrington never filed the Project PLUS proposal it had prepared. The mayor of Lake Zurich established the Ela Area Library Committee in November. Lake Zurich and Hawthorne Woods wanted their own library. On Oct. 1,1972, the Library Committee filed a Project PLUS Proposal.

What would become Warren-Newport Library District filed its Project PLUS proposal on the same day. The Gurnee Women's Club had raised $1,250 amidst the red and green tinsel and the sticky mint candy canes of their Christmas bazaar. With this money, the club members hoped to possibly buy a bookmobile or maybe situate another district's branch library within Gurnee's borders. But Mrs. Russell ("a mover and a shaker," Barbara Imbody calls her) heard both from NSLS and the Illinois State Library of the possibility of Gurnee having its own library. Apparently, she and the Women's Club liked the idea. But, it was further suggested, Gurnee itself with only 3,000 people was too small to form a library district and that a better plan would incorporate not only Gurnee, but also the surrounding smaller areas.

On April 10,1972, the Women's Club met with community leaders. Together they voted unanimously to ask the system for a Project PLUS grant. The Gurnee Women's Club reformed as the Warren-Newport Library Committee and held its first meeting on July 25. Betty Russell became president and Sherry Keefe was elected secretary. The rest of the committee was made up of representatives from various soon-to-be-district towns. When the Project PLUS proposal was filed it included significant populations of unincorporated Warren, Gages Lake and Wildwood as well as the smaller areas of Wadsworth, Newport, Park City, unincorporated Waukegan Township and Old Mill Creek.

On Sept. 29, a deal was inked between Seymour Nordenberg, the NSLS board president, and John Cody, the Archbishop of Chicago, which allowed for Lake Zurich to use the musty 3,000-square foot basement of one of the St. Francis de Sales school buildings as its demonstration library. The library paid $2,400 for a year's rent; compare this to Ela's sister Project PLUS, Warren-Newport, which paid $4,200 a year for 1,180 square feet. Apparently, it was Father McEnroe who really made it possible, making the connection between what the church had and what the community needed. Ten years later, it would be Father McEnroe who sold the library the land on which the library currently sits. While NSLS expressed some concern in its annual report about the close connection between the Catholic Church and a public library, it was made clear to the author that the library has never felt any organized pressure from the church about censorship of any kind.

The Warrne-Newport demonstration library was set in an unused room in the Gurnee National Bank at the corner of routes 132 and 21. And even though it was only 1,310 square feet, it was by far the nicest of the demonstration libraries — lots of glasses, lots of greenery. NSLS liked its identification with the new bank, its connotation with Gurnee growth, its "bright new finish." Mr. McClarren called the location "felicitous." By late October, both projects had begun.

Bookmobile service for both Ela Area and Warren-Newport began in late November 1972 when the system bought an old bookmobile and renovated it. The bookmobile made five stops per week. Library cards were handed out before the demonstration library even opened. In Lake Zurich, they handed them out in sidewalk stands. These library cards, as part of the North Suburban Library System's controversial Reciprocal Borrowing Program, enabled their holders to borrow books from any library in the system. NSLS insisted that demonstration libraries be considered full system members so that the patrons could get a gander at all the system had to offer.

The North Suburban Library System board had made a resolution to this effect on May 1972. At that same meeting, the board also resolved to use system monies to cover the library referendum expenses that the Federal Project PLUS money did not cover. They also intended to lend the system's legal and Public Relations Counsel to the library-to-be. As important as this was financially, it was also important symbolically in showcasing the North Suburban Library System's commitment to establishing new libraries.

A field librarian, Barbara Gerard, was hired, whom Mr. McClarren had known while at the Indiana State Library. It was her job to travel between the two Project PLUS libraries and do much of the actual hands-on library work. William Larsen was the Project PLUS coordinator, who worked as a consultant of policy and administration. At Ela, NSLS paid the salary of Joy

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Kennedy who was their full-time librarian. At Warren-Newport, it was Joan Wilts. The three of them were dynamic, energetic people with both eyes firmly focused on the upcoming referendum. They gave spiels to every sewing club, bridge club, seniors' club, women's club in the proposed districts, complete with slides and other materials. Mrs. Kennedy says it was vital to identify the important people in a district, the usual "naysayers," and win them over. That was the key.

On top of all the campaigning, the librarians still had to do all the "regular" library work. Collections had to be built from scratch. The demonstration collection was purchased with federal money and supplemented with donations and purchases through NSLS's Library Enrichment Program from the State Library, not to mention a significant amount of gifts from other system libraries. Ela had an outdated circulation system involving packs of colored paper with numbers that correspond to a number on a big sheet of paper.

Life in a demonstration library was not always easy. Above the Ela demonstration library was the kids' lunchroom. During lunchtime the patrons and staff could hear the lunchroom being set up, the tables pulled down from the walls and landing with a crash that rattled the whole library. Once, a patron who had recently returned from Vietnam dove for cover upon hearing the sudden crashing. Then the students would come running up the stairway to their waiting lunches. The stairway arched over the circulation desk and things would be knocked off the walls and ceilings during the stampede. Salamanders oftentimes would be lurking in the shadows. Once, there was even a mouse and the reference librarian leapt onto the desk. When I had the occasion to visit the site, I asked if the musty, moldy smell was there when it was a library. His tour guides looked at each other, smiled and responded, "Oh...sometimes." The library would flood sometimes and the librarians would be awakened at two in the morning with the news. Bookcases spaced off the children's section so the youngsters would not be distracted from their activities. Ela even set aside some of their limited space for processing for Warren-Newport. The inconveniences of the facility didn't stop Ela from having everything from preschool story hours to senior citizen book talks to programs in creative dramatics.

Because of the district's size, the bookmobile was an important part of Warren-Newport's success. Like Ela, Warren-Newport had issued library cards to its patrons before there was even a library to patronize. The bookmobile stopped every week in the strip mall across the street from where the demonstration library would eventually be housed.

Warren-Newport also organized a local advisory committee that worked closely with NSLS's Public Relations Counsel. This committee tried always to place its thumb on the collective pulse of the district; together they also plotted a low-profile referendum strategy. Library supporters in that area were nervous over certain sections of the proposed district, notably wealthy Upper Newport and the Wildwood/Gages Lake area that had "a history of negativism in school and special elections." It was decided in the end to allow Wildwood/ Gages Lake to stay, and that loyalty was rewarded by a 73 percent "yes" vote from that area. Before the referendum was even held, Upper Newport's civic association voted against inclusion, and, as per their wishes, the area's residents were left out.

Ordinarily a nervous time for libraries, the referendums passed with devastating landslides. Ela's vote was 956 to 90, a 91 percent majority, which authorized the district to levy a tax on its citizens of 15 cents per $100 assessed valuation. Ela's official library board was nominated, and every nomination went to a member of the local advisory committee. Similarly, Joy Kennedy, the system-paid Project PLUS librarian stationed at Ela, became head librarian. This way, Ela was able to make as seamless a transition as possible between a demonstration library and a permanent, functioning one.

In Warren-Newport, the referendum carried 822 to 175, an 82.5 percent "yes" vote. Betty Russell became president of the new library's board; Mrs. Wilts became the permanent head librarian. Very quickly the library turned its attention toward expanding its building and purchasing its own bookmobile — in short, toward making the transition between demonstration library and legitimate independent library.

Until that money could be organized and collected, the library would still need to be funded by other monies; this was the third phase of the Project PLUS, In Warren-Newport's case, this meant $82,605 of federal money and $8,260 from NSLS. In Els's case, the total was $53,025 of federal money and $5,303 from the system. Of this money, $18,224 went toward expenses shared by the Project PLUS libraries, namely Barbara Gerard's salary and sponsor the bookmobile, which traveled between Ela, Warren-Newport and the new Project PLUS, Vernon.

Vernon Area's Project PLUS began a year after Ela and Warren-Newport. While driving to Deerfield or Highland Park was becoming tiresome for area residents, it was the failed annexation attempt by Indian Trails Library District to the south that truly jump started Vernon's desire for its own library. When citizens rallied to the polls to defeat this referendum, in the same breath (and the same organization), they began plans for a library of their own. Clarence Pontius, Vernon Township supervisor, asked the mayors of the various communities to appoint representatives to form a Steering

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Committee. Justin Fishbein, who had been one of the leading voices fighting the Indian Trails annexation, became chairman. Mr. Fishbein was formerly from the University of Chicago radio program, The Whiz Kids. Alice Moody was named vice chairman. The fight to keep free of Indian Trails seamlessly became the fight to establish a new local library. Mr. McClarren, who had been contacted by Justin Fishbein, and Mrs. Wilts from Warren-Newport each spoke at a committee meeting in favor of Project PLUS, and their endorsement strongly influenced the Vernon Steering Committee.

Vernon Area's demonstration library was first set in room 230, in Adiai E. Stevenson High School, where the only amenity was a sink in the corner. Patrons would have to brave the high school bathrooms. Lynne Butler was the librarian NSLS hired along with two other full-time staff members. Barbara Gerard worked there, too. When the staff first walked in, the walls were colored an awful turquoise, and right away they painted them yellow. They lined up school desks to make a counter for a check-out desk. They set up a Children's Department no bigger than a closet. The library started out with 2,000 out-dated and duplicate books donated by Highland Park Public Library and had $10,000 to purchase more. The library opened its doors that winter with a reception complete with punch and cookies and miniature rooms on display. The high school teachers would sometimes pop their heads in to see how things were going. Library staff would sometimes brave the high school cafeteria.

Barbara Gerard worked just as hard for Vernon as she had for the previous two Project PLUS projects. Vernon was a particularly difficult referendum to win because they were competing against an established library to the south, Indian Trails, that still wanted to annex them. But Vernon won its June 1974 referendum 552 to 18 — a 97 percent majority.

By 1975, the library moved to a one-room mobile home-type trailer plunked down in the Stevenson High School parking lot. "We call it The Little White House on the Prairie,'" Mrs. Moody says. There, when they dimmed the lights for children's movies, the other patrons stumbled and clattered around in the dark searching for their books. Low on monies, they made their sorting table from an old door with folding table legs stuck on.

In 1997, Ela, Warren-Newport and Vernon together serve 95,508 library card holders and together circulated over two million items between 1996 and 1997, and the area is still growing. Old Mill Creek, now in the Warren-Newport Library District, which had only 14 voters in the library referendum in 1973, is projected to have as many as 21,583 people by the year 2000.

In all these cases, libraries were the result of community cohesiveness and action, not the cause. The community desperately wanted a library, and through grassroots and community action, they got one. As Mr. McClarren wrote in 1973, "A strong, interested local committee is a sine qua non of a successful program." It also is an example of how legislation from the 1950s, such as the LSA, that was intended to strengthen rural areas, inadvertently helped to create a solid suburban block.

But the real impact also includes the changes in individual lives. For example, when one Lake Zurich resident who worked as some sort of "number cruncher," wandered into the Ela demonstration library with his children, Joy Kennedy jokingly told him he could not leave without a book. When he hesitated, she insisted that there must be something he was interested in. He confessed that he did enjoy drawing pictures of planets and spaceships and stars. Mrs. Kennedy showed him brochures of science fiction conferences where they displayed these types of pictures. He had never heard of that sort of thing. Before long, he had submitted pictures to these types of conferences. A long time down the road, he quit his job and painted pictures full time.

Appendix A — Interviews

Joy Kennedy (Chicago; April, 21, 1998)
Robert Whitefield Bullen (Wheeling; March 24, 1998)
Robert McClarren (by phone; April 30, 1998)
Marion Milling (Lake Zurich; March 26, 1998)
Barbara Gerard (Imbody) (Wheeling; April 16, 1998)
Tom Seivers (briefly — Vernon Area Library; March 27,1998)

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