Antioch News July 21, 1966
The Antioch Township Library Board has hired an architect to draw up plans for a purposed new library. After interviewing 14 or 15 architects, the board settled on Robert J. Freund of Crystal Lake. Freund is associated with Vern L. Solberg, and is at present the architect for the new Crystal Lake Library. Mr. Freund, with the help of Betty Lu Williams, is at present making a study of the projected needs of the community. Betty Lu made such a study in 1962, when the need for a new building was being discussed. Present tentative plans call for seating capacity for 70 patrons. The present library will seat 39, when six available folding chairs are pressed into use. The board hopes to procure a federal grant to help pay for the building. If the construction is to start next year, plans for the Library must be submitted to the government by October. The need for more room is obvious to even the casual observer. The “office” of the Library is a corner of the children’s room, partially blocked off by file cabinets. Some books are kept in the basement. Shelves have been built in every available spot. And the weight of shelves of books, in one place, had pulled the wall away from the bottom trim. The library would probably be used a great deal more, Betty Lu William surmises, if there were room to sit, and room to have more books, on hand. She would like to see the Library widen its services, a move that can’t be made until a larger building is available. A supply of records and films to loan out is now a service in many public libraries, Betty Lu says, even loan out pictures. The first business of a library, though, is books, and the Antioch library is sadly short of space for a good variety of books on a variety of subjects. Another feature Librarian Betty Lu Williams longs to see incorporated into the plans for the new library is a Historical Room- a room for all historical data pertaining to Antioch Township. It would provide a place where all pictures, documents, books, etc. on the early history of the area could be displayed. At least two families have expressed an interest in donating fairly sizeable sums to the new library, and Betty Lu hopes that a gist committee will soon be appointed by the board to handle such matters. The memorials of new books is becoming increasingly popular. The Antioch Public Library served over 4,000 people in 1965. About 48,000 books were circulated, many of them from the state lending Library. At the present time, the Library Board has a request pending before the village board to trade parcels of property so as a square off the Library property, now an odd-shaped piece. The library would give the village in return, the land it is now using for little league.