VOORHEESVILLE — The Voorheesville Public Library is preparing to celebrate its 100^th anniversary, and the Friends of the Library are seeking input as they plan their special year.

“We’re at the stage where lots of ideas are being thrown out” for consideration, said Sherry Burgoon, president of the Friends group. Organizers are meeting tonight, Thursday, at the library to further refine the year-long celebration planned to run from March to March.

“Anybody is welcome at the meeting,” Burgoon said.

Plans include hosting a library float in the village’s Memorial Day parade; holding contests to build towers of books, or to see who can stack 100 books the fastest; and a reading challenge for kids to read as many books as they can, Burgoon said.

The Friends may hold activities during its annual fall book sale, too, she said.

In the library, and jointly at the New Scotland Historical Association, organizers hope to construct library timelines to be displayed in both buildings. Library users may be asked to contribute suggestions for 100 reasons that they love the library, Burgoon said.

A formal fall event may highlight the year, and local dignitaries may be invited, she said.

Library Director Gail Alter Sacco, however, said that the centennial celebration should continue well through March 2016.

Programs

The library is already a busy place for its users, which include those in the school district, and some farther-flung residents in Bethlehem, the Hilltowns, and Guilderland, Sacco said.

Former volunteer and retired staff member Marion Parmenter listed many of the programs the library has hosted over the years.

“When I was in high school, in 1956 to ’60, I went down to the library and helped out,” she said. “There was a library club at the high school, back when the library was in the old Presbyterian church.” Parmenter also worked nights at the library after college.

She remembered, also, when her parents helped move the library collection to that location in the 1940s. A group of local volunteers built and painted shelves, she said.

“I was a child, but I remember that time,” she said. She said that her mother, Betsy Badgley, talked incessantly about the work the group did.

One group that Parmenter joined recently is “Nimblefingers,” whose members quilt and do other handwork at the library.

“This is absolutely super,” she said. While attending Nimblefingers recently, school students were in the library at the same time, sewing cheerful fleecy pets, and one of the parents of the students sat down with Parmenter’s group and asked about what type of sewing machine to buy.

“It just goes in all directions,” she said about the effect the library programs have on the community.

The library has offered historical programs throughout the decades, Parmenter said. Talks featuring Cornell Cooperative Extension agents and garden clubs are local favorites, and book clubs are popular, too, she said.

The library also sponsors trips twice a year, and offers income tax progams, she said. One of the trips to a far-off garden, was “phenomenal,” Parmenter said.

“The library newsletter has a tremendous schedule,” she said.

History

The way people use the library has changed over the last century, and the buildings housing the library collection have changed with those uses.

Sacco said that the library is now open 63 hours, over seven days, per week. Users logged 53,904 visits, and attended 446 programs last year, she said.

The library offers an online, downloadable collection of 23,000 books, and also offers downloadable magazines, she said.

“We answered 20,000 questions,” Sacco said about 2014 library use. Voorheesville borrowed 16,365 items from other libraries for local users, she said. The library’s own circulation is 107,913 books, she said.

In contrast, a report from 1966 showed a circulation of 20,111 books.

“The library was much narrower, in terms of things offered,” Sacco said. The library was open only 27 hours per week in 1966, she said.

The longest-employed current staff member, Mary Jane Marterrer, declined to be interviewed. Her mother, Jane Salvatore, served as the librarian for both the school district and the public library, prior to Sacco, Burgoon told The Enterprise.

Sacco became the first full-time librarian for the public library in 1988.

“We have the equivalent of 14 full-time staff members,” Sacco said. Including part-time staff, the library employs 20 people, she said.

Graphic artist Lesa Clark altered the library’s logo for the centennial. She created a banner that will be displayed outside, she said.

“I’m employed as a graphic designer,” she said. “They have various art needs, like program advertisements, fliers, and newsletters.”

The library collection in its first century has moved among five buildings, and been stymied in a sixth move.

Library archivist James Corsaro said that the library began in the back of a building owned by Albert Borst. It was soon moved to what is now Village Hall, where it stayed until 1928.

For its next 22 years, the library rented space at 32 Main Street. During that period, in 1943, the library became a central school district public library, and eligible to receive tax revenue, Corsaro said.

The library purchased the First Presbyterian Church, which is currently the Old Songs building, in 1950 and stayed there until the existing library building was built in 1988, he said.