‘Friend’ climbs the stack of library memories

Creston Mayor Gabe Carroll signed a proclamation Monday designating Oct. 18 — 23 Friends of the Library week at Gibson Memorial Library.

Friends of the Library is a volunteer organization dedicated to support Gibson Memorial library by fundraising for programs to attract people to the library. Carroll was joined by Friends of the Library board members and Library director Aric Bishop.

Friends of the Library board president Julie Chieffer said her earliest memories of Gibson Memorial Library were dark and daunting.

“When I was a kid I was here, riding my bike a lot and we’d come here and find a table and study, it was pretty cool,” she said. “It was pretty dark and intimidating, when I was, what, 10? So everything was dark and intimidating.”

Chieffer graduated from Creston in 1969 and then went to nursing school at Nebraska Methodist College and eventually getting married and living in Houston, Iowa City, Reno and San Diego before returning to Creston in 1987. She remembers being struck by the renovations to Gibson Memorial that occurred in the late 1980′s.

“In ‘87-ish it’s like, ‘This isn’t my library because its all different, but it’s ok,’” she said.

Chieffer was able to pass the sentimental value of Gibson Memorial onto her children.

“My kids have been here, they’re in their 40s now...and we came to the library when they were kids and it’s like a second home,” she said

She used to read entire books on her trips to Air Force football games. Now, she reads an average of three or four books a week, and although she has a Kindle, she prefers to read paper copies.

“I don’t buy books anymore...but I only come to the library and I get my book because I like to hold a book to read,” Chieffer said.

Chieffer prefers paper books because she likes the feel of turning a page and knows a book never needs charging.

“It’s always been that way I guess, I mean I hate that response, but it’s just the feel of a good book and you get so involved in it that it’s so much easier to do that with a book, then you can close it and walk off, I don’t have to make sure it’s charged,” she said.

Gibson Memorial Library will be holding a crochet group at 1 p.m., Magic the Gathering at 5 p.m. and continuing its Understanding Dementia series at 5:45 p.m. Oct. 20.