Lacey library to celebrate 25th anniversary on Saturday

The Lacey Timberland Regional Library is having a party Saturday, celebrating its 25th anniversary at its current College Street location.

Library manager Holly Paxson said the community is invited to the celebration since the existence of the library is due to community support.

The Lacey Library began in a bookmobile in 1966, moved into rented space in Market Square that December and expanded to a 4,800-square-foot space in the Lacey Village Shopping Center in 1976, according to its website.

The current 20,000-square-foot library adjacent to Lacey City Hall opened in March 1991, funded in large part by private donations.

“It’s a beautiful, airy, light facility,” Paxson said, “one of the nicest in the Timberland system.”

Guests at Saturday’s party will be able to make entries on archival paper to be enclosed in a time capsule. They will be asked to write about the library and imagine what it will be like in another 25 years, when the capsule will be opened.

Friends of the Lacey Library member Carol Eagles has a hard time imagining the library in another quarter century. “I’m 76, so I’m a little aghast at where it is right now,” she said. “I have no idea what is going to happen.”

But she is sure that the library’s mission to make information available to the community, both in leisure reading and computer access, will continue to be invaluable.

Paxson agrees. “The tools may change,” she said, adding the library will continue to provide a place to access information, maybe spreading farther into the community, or providing even more technology access.

In keeping with the community theme of the anniversary party, the Olympia Aloha Ukulele Pu’ukani band will play.

“They are incredible,” Paxson said, noting that the band has a local following.

The party is funded by Friends of the Lacey Library, a nonprofit group that raises money to support library programs. The group also supports Lacey Loves to Read and Books for Babies. Much of its money comes from bi-monthly book sales. Community members are encouraged to donate books, Eagles said.

This story was originally published March 24, 2016 at 2:24 PM with the headline "Lacey library to celebrate 25th anniversary on Saturday."