In her annual report to Bridgeport City Council Monday evening, Bridgeport Public Library Director Sharon Saye took a different approach – delivering a light-hearted, yet fact-packed 45-year history of the facility.

 

“I started working at the Benedum Civic Center Library on March 26, 1972 when – as they say, the dinosaurs roamed the earth,” said Saye. “Passing that personal milestone last month made me look around and realize I’m the only one left in city employment from the 1970s.”

 

The library was then housed in the Benedum Civic Center, a concrete and steel replica of the childhood home of Michael Late Benedum gifted to the city by Benedum in 1956.

 

“I was hired by the city recreation commission, which ran the Civic Center,” Saye said. “The library finances were handled by the city but the Civic Center and the library were funded by the (Claude Worthington) Benedum Foundation.”

 

Saye was 25 years old when she was hired as library director. There was one other full-time employee and two part-time staffers at the library, located on the top floor of the Civic Center on Bridgeport’s Main Street.

 

Shortly after Saye’s hire, the recreation commission phased out and the City of Bridgeport took over operations, she said. The budget that year was $25,000, she said.

 

“We had a circulation of 20,000 – mostly books,” she said. “The only audio material we had were records.”

 

The library, like the rest of the Civic Center, was open 1-5 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. Monday through Friday.

 

Saye had been director of the library for a decade when she remembers getting an emergency call at 6:30 a.m.

 

“I rushed to the Civic Center and stood in horror as water poured out the front door and was rushing like waterfall down the steps,” she said. “The pipes in the library had burst and 20,000 gallons of water ran through the library and the Civic Center.”

 

Had the building not been built of concrete and steel, Saye was told that the building would have collapsed from the weight of the water. The structure and the library were still intact, but there was a realm of damage. In addition to books – which were wrapped in newspaper and placed in the freezer at United Hospital Center to prevent further damage – carpet padding was molded, condensation gathered on windows and various other issues.

 

“The Woman’s Club spent a summer there drying out box after box of books and we had months of other problems,” Saye said.

 

Having survived the flood, the next major library issue was running out of space in the 1990s.

 

“We had 60,000 books and they were stacked on window sills, three-high in the attic and loaned to schools and other libraries,” Saye said.

 

Mayor Joe Timms made the suggestion that the library move into the former All State Insurance building. In 1994, that became a reality.

“One cold snowy winter, we raised $1.3 million through hundreds of pledges. People really stepped up to the plate,” Saye said.

 

The building was purchased and renovated to suit the needs of the library.

 

“Come August of that year, we checked out as many books as we could, asking people to keep them until we moved into the new building.”

 

Saye remembers Joanne Kovalan taking the entire video collection home and storing it in her basement. When it came time to relocate, some 40,000 books were moved by community volunteers.

“They would drive up to the Civic Center and take boxes of packed books over to the new building,” Saye said. “We never took down a license plate of any of those people. Somebody could have driven off with every box of books we had – but every single book got there.”

 

The other 20,000 books which has been previously checked out were also all returned, she said.

 

Even the Army National Guard assisted in the moving project, coming in to move shelving and furniture, Saye said.

 

The new location provided additional needed space and was in a good location.

 

“It never hurts to be close to the interstate and the mall,” Saye said. “We began stocking music CDs, audio books, DVDs, eAudiobooks and eBooks, online magazines and data bases.”

 

Bridgeport came to house the largest number of online services in the State of West Virginia.

 

The library went even more high-tech when in 2008 with the establishment of WVDeli, an online database for downloadable books, audiobooks, videos and more.

 

Presently, Bridgeport Public Library, still located on Johnson Avenue, is a department of the City of Bridgeport and is administered by a five-member library board appointed by Bridgeport City Council. The library receives the bulk of its financing from the city with additional funding provided by the State of West Virginia, the Harrison County Commission and the Harrison County School Board.

 

March 2017 was the best month in the history of WVDeli with service of more than 37,000 items. Bridgeport Public Library is ranked fourth in the state regarding circulation, ahead of several much larger cities and libraries. The facility incorporated a new self-checkout system which has been very popular. Books have been tagged with codes and library staff is still working on music and audio collections. The system enables library staff to utilize a wand, thereby checking to see if books are on shelves in order, what is missing,

etc.

 

Though circulation is growing, physical circulation is slowly declining, with about 40 percent of the library’s circulation online, Saye said.

 

“Before WVDeli, we checked out about 4,000 books a week. We still check out 4,000 books a week, but half are electronic,” she said.

 

Over the last four and a half decades, Saye has written 2,200 columns and blogs for the Exponent Telegram/Bridgeport News and Connect-Bridgeport.

“There have been a lot of changes over the past 45 years and I’m missing people – staff members and patrons, some who have moved to Florida; some who have died and moved on,” Saye said. “There are always new challenges and I like new challenges. People are always appreciative of what we do at the library and enthusiastic about those things. That’s what keeps me going.”

 

City Recorder Hank Murray thanked Saye for her presentation and her service.

 

“The library would not be the library with Sharon,” he said. “I firmly believe we have the best facility in West Virginia. Walk in and see it. We are very fortunate.”

 

Read more coverage of Monday night's Bridgeport City Council meeting:

 

Council Takes First Step in Obtaining Route 131 Property; Several Awarded for Volunteer Service

 

Board of Education Provides New Johnson Elementary Project Overview to City Council