Shortly after the Wilmot Library opened 40 years ago, Elaine Baarson became a regular visitor.
At the time, she was a University of Arizona student and a longtime public library devotee.
"I had just moved to the area and it was the only library on the East Side at that time," she said, adding she was thrilled at the library's size because the one she frequented in Montana was very small.
Today Baarson is Wilmot's managing librarian. She is hoping others who love libraries, and the Wilmot Library in particular, will share pictures and memories for a 40th anniversary celebration.
The event is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 11 at the library, 530 N. Wilmot Road. It will include library tours, speakers highlighting the Wilmot Library's past and future, and a family event at 12:30 p.m.
People are also reading…
Theresa Stanley, an associate librarian now working at another library, is putting together scrapbooks and plans to post articles, stories and pictures around the library for the event.
The articles and pictures will "lead people around the library for a little tour," she said.
Baarson said the library is hoping for more contributions.
"We're really trying to encourage people, but they're shy," she said. People who share a story don't need to submit their last name, she said.
One person who will speak of the library's past is East Side resident Betty Holpert, who was the library manager from 1968 to 1974. After that, she was transferred Downtown to run Tucson's Main Library.
Before beginning her career in public libraries here, Holpert had stayed home to raise two children.
"Then I had this epiphany. I had this wonderful graduate degree in library science and I thought I should use it," she said.
After her retirement in 1985, Holpert and two other women founded the Tucson-Pima Library Foundation with a goal of building an endowment.
"In my view, the public library is the people's university," she said. "It's free, there are no prerequisites and it's self-paced with professional help and no grades."
When it opened, the Wilmot Library was a special addition to the community, she said. "The East Side was growing more and more and there was no public library," Holpert said.
Newspaper articles from 40 years ago boast the new building as the "epitome of modern" and a much-needed addition to the growing East Side.
In one article published in October 1965, former Library Director John Anderson said that in one day within the first month it was open, 4,448 books were checked out of the Wilmot facility.
Today, Wilmot is the city's busiest branch, circulating more than 700,000 books and other items a year and hosting more than 1,000 meetings and other events attended by 21,000 people. At 19,000 square feet, however, it is one of the smaller branches.
As a result, the city of Tucson and Pima County are discussing plans to renovate the library. There are no set plans yet.
"The library is open and will continue to be open into the foreseeable future," said Elizabeth Burden, a public information officer for the library system. "There are no plans to close the library at this point."
The Wilmot Library: then and now
Share your memories
● Interested in sharing memories or photographs? Call the Wilmot Library at 791-4627 or stop in at the library, 530 N. Wilmot Road. You can also call the Tucson-Pima Public Library information line at 791-4010 or submit stories online at www.tppl.org
