6 Photos
The library in 1907.
Christine Halsey Warden, one of the first librarians.
The Westhampton Free Library is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year.
Mary Jessup Anderson, one of the first librarians
The old library building.
The property transfer that set up the library building.
On March 1, 1897, the Westhampton Free Library opened its doors for the first time.
Back then, it was located on Main Street, and originated with a charter granted by the University of the State of New York and signed by Melvil Dewey, of the Dewey Decimal System.
Over the next 12 decades, the library has relocated twice and expanded both in terms of physical space and the services it provides to its patrons. On March 1, 125 years after the library first opened, the library celebrated its anniversary, and although much has changed over time, its mandate is still to serve the community.
To mark the celebration, librarians distributed free tote bags to patrons and unveiled a new banner, which hangs across the front of the building. The library is also working on a flashback video about the history of the library.
“I think it’s still a service point of view, having that central location of people to go to increases knowledge and that’s still valid now,” Library Director Danielle Waskiewicz said of the library’s purpose over time. “And how it’s changed is the fact that we have become a sort of recreational YMCA center, a central location for everybody in the community. It’s still a central location for people to go to socialize for knowledge, to increase learning. But it’s different now, where people are getting their socialization at the library.”
Waskiewicz noted that the pandemic has been challenging — not the library’s first outbreak, as it was in existence for the 1918 flu pandemic — but that the library has been working hard to keep its patrons together as they were apart.
“My staff and I worked very hard to make sure we’re still connected to the community,” she said. “That’s one of our major goals and our visions, is to be connected to the community. Even during the pandemic, we made phone calls, we made sure that people knew we were still here. We were providing them information every day. We were doing uplifting emails. We were doing remote programs, virtual programs, just to keep the community connected.”
Pre-COVID, around 700 people used the library every day, but that number has fallen to about a third of that, but services, programs, and people are returning. One population who felt the brunt of COVID’s isolation is coming back, too.
“The most important thing that’s happening right now is the fact that the seniors are back in the library for the senior lunches,” Waskiewicz said. “Again, that’s socialization and making sure people are coming back from the pandemic who felt isolated, especially our senior population who had felt that isolation. The town of Southampton does senior meals in our library and that just started [up again] two weeks ago.”
Looking forward, Waskiewicz emphasized the importance of growing to meet the needs of the public.
“We still want to expand on services,” Waskiewicz said. “I always try to find out what our non-users are doing and how we can get them to the library. We want to have the library have an importance in everybody’s daily life. That’s the goal, is to make sure that we are fulfilling any voids in people’s lives that we can.”
Across 125 years and into the future, the Westhampton Free Library has always been about more than books.
The Westhampton Free Library is located at 7 Library Avenue in Westhampton Beach. The library’s website is westhamptonlibrary.net and it can be reached by phone at (631) 288-3335.
