— Matt Cook
BERNE—The Berne Library is out of room. On busy days, pa-trons have to squeeze by each other in the tight spaces between the shelves, "doing the dance," said Jeannette Miller, president of the Friends of the Town of Berne Free Library.

The crunch has gotten so bad that, as the library gets new books, magazines, CD’s, DVD’s, or videos, old ones, still in circula-tion, have to be taken off the shelf and stored or thrown out.

Four weeks ago, for example, the library workers found a boxed-up set of books on the li-brary’s doorstep. It was a leather-bound collection of 50 novels, in mint condition, by Louis L’Amour, the popular and pro-lific author of American Westerns. Most libraries would show off such a gift, worth hun-dreds of dollars, but in Berne, the books are still in the box, sitting underneath the librarian’s desk.
"We don’t even have room to display them," said Mary Alice Molgard, president of the library board.

The library board, which gov-erns the library, and the Friends of the Library, which helps sup-port it, both hope to get support from the community and the town government to solve the crunch.

Unlike public libraries, which follow school district lines and have taxing powers, free li-braries, like Berne’s, must ask municipalities and private-sector sources for funds.

On Tuesday morning, Molgard, Miller, and Gayle Burgess, another member of the Friends of the Library, met with The Enterprise at one of the li-brary’s two small reading tables, which almost completely cuts off the main aisle between the shelves. They spoke about the need for more space, not just for the collection, but for research and Internet access.
"This is one of the only places that people can go and get access to the Internet if they can’t afford it in their homes," Molgard said.

Right now, the library only has two public-access computers, also in the middle of the aisle. Patrons who want to use the computers to connect to databases, the on-line card cata-log, and the Internet, have to wait their turn on busy nights.

Students doing research after school have to go to larger sub-urban public libraries in Guilderland or Bethlehem, not for lack of resources, but for lack of space and easy access to a computer, the trio said.

Older people, meanwhile, re-searching genealogy, have the same problem.
"If you do research, you have to have all the things spread out so you can write," Burgess said.

Burgess does her genealogical research by computer, but the li-brary does have genealogical records for the town of Berne, jammed with dozens of other books into what used to be a closet, now called a reference room, with room for no more than one person.

In addition to all this, the li-brary has to find space for its children’s programs, reading groups, and movie nights, which can bring in as many as 30 peo-ple. Recently, the Friends of the Library held a computer course for seniors at the Berne-Knox-Westerlo school because there is not enough room at the library for a group to gather around the computers.
"That’s a staple at most li-braries, doing that sort of thing," Molgard said. "We just don’t have the space to do that."

History
The Berne Library began in 1962, Miller said. People brought all types of books to the Grange Hall, and staffed the library themselves.
"Twenty-four different people volunteered to be part-time li-brarians," Miller said.

The library moved into its own building a few years later. It was a tiny building that used to be a general store, perched precari-ously at the edge of the Fox Creek.
"The building didn’t actually fall into the creek, but they were afraid it would," Miller said.

In 1969, the library moved into its current location, in the hamlet of Berne, sharing a building with the town hall, town court, and Berne History Museum.

Currently, the library has one main room, which has sections for children’s and adults’ books, videos and DVD’s, audio record-ings, and magazines. Two small tables and one comfortable chair are in the back for reading.

The library shares a meeting room with the town hall and town court.

The library has 11,505 books and 891 non-print items.

To pay for all this, the library relies heavily on the town of Berne. Since it is a free library, and not part of a state-set library district, the Berne Library has no power to levy taxes. Instead, the town funds it directly, paying for the building and its maintenance; the salaries of the six part-time li-brary employees; and for mate-rials, equipment, and program-ming, $65,000 this year.

In addition, the town of Knox gives $550 annually, and the Upper Hudson Library System gives out an annual grant that averages about $4,000, Molgard said.

The board has considered, and rejected, creating a taxable li-brary district, Molgard said.
"We have explored that, but it’s not exactly a comfortable fit for us," Molgard said. "It would take some doing and we would have to convince the taxpayers in a very tight year that it’s a neces-sity."
After a moment, she said, "We are going to have to have the taxpayers’ support anyway."

Solutions
Off and on at meetings, the Berne Town Board has discussed building a new town hall some-time in the future. If that were done, the town could give the en-tire ground floor of the current building to the library.

For the library board and the Friends of the Library, though, that would not necessarily be the best solution to the space prob-lem. The old building would probably have to be rewired to be able to power the library’s com-puters and the support beams may not be strong enough to hold the library’s considerable weight.
"Books are extremely heavy, and these shelves aren’t the light-est things," Molgard said.

Another possibility is to move into a vacant building some-where in the town. Unfortunately, there are not many such buildings around.
"When you have a public building that you’re looking at, it’s usually occupied by someone already," Burgess said.

The best option, Molgard said, would be to build a new building. The problem with that, besides the cost, would be finding a good site. It would have to have room for both the building and a de-cent parking lot, Molgard said.

It would not, however, have to be in the hamlet of Berne. Somewhere between East Berne and Berne would work just as well, Molgard said, since people from both hamlets, and the entire town of Berne, use the library.

Then, there is the cost.
"It’s going to be a substantial amount of money," Molgard said. "Right now, the library itself doesn’t have those resources."

The library has some seed money saved up, but not nearly enough to fund a move. The town would have to pay most of the bill.
"They’re very supportive, but the problem is, without a demon-stration of community support, they can’t move," Miller said of the town board.

The library groups urge resi-dents who want a bigger library to tell town officials.

The groups plan to canvas res-idents on what they want in a li-brary, either by sending out sur-veys or going door-to-door. At the same time, they hope to con-vince people of the importance of a library in the community.
"What we would be asking people, is to see it as a media cen-ter, a community center, rather than just a place where books are," Miller said.