Bell Library Anticipates Grant Approval
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
MENTONE - With the paperwork completed on the grant for the proposed Bell Memorial Public Library, officials are waiting to hear whether the project can move forward.
For more than a year, the library - with the help of the Mentone Town Council - has been trying to secure funding to purchase the old Frank Mfg. building owned by the Saemann Foundation. If the $500,000 grant from the Indiana Department of Commerce is awarded in May, the library will take over the facility, where senior citizen and day care centers also are planned.
One of the reasons the library is looking to relocate is because of overcrowded conditions that make it difficult to accommodate the technological upgrades, as well as regular programs that take place in the library.
According to library director Lorna Klein, BMPL is being highly utilized, with circulation up by 34 percent in 2000 from 1999.
The library will be celebrating its increased circulation during National Library Week April 1-7.
Bell's library services that back this figure, according to a press release drafted by Klein, comes from patrons being able to: come to the library to read six different newspapers, use three Internet-access computers for free e-mail, participate in children's programs from preschool through fourth grade, to be tutored in English or Spanish, to do research in genealogy and local history, to receive homebound deliveries, to access interlibrary loan and to fulfill the library's mission statement of providing materials and services to help meet the informational, educational, cultural and recreational needs of the community in a user-friendly atmosphere.
Klein said a larger facility will allow for adult book discussions, American Girls club meetings (where basic skills, such as sewing and cooking are practiced), more tutoring, the ability to display traveling history exhibitions, visits from Indiana authors and sharing meeting rooms with the community.
In addition to the library, the facility will blend the generations by bringing preschoolers and the elderly together in day care and senior center settings.
The senior center also will house exercise equipment, such as treadmills and therapeutic, rehabilitating equipment.
A grant also is being sought from Dekko Foundation for the Mentone Daycare Center during its interim before it opens.
Information from the library's web site at www.bell.lib.in.us includes some history of the library, which began in 1899 as the H. Parmalee Co. of Chicago.
The facility was housed in various locations before opening at its current site in 1959. That building was funded by a $20,000 grant from the estate of Lawrence D. Bell, who requested the money be used for a suitable memorial to his parents, Isaac and Harriett Sarber Bell. Mentone's Lawrence Bell was an aircraft pioneer and the town supports a museum named in his honor.
When the new site opened, Mentone Public Library became known as the Bell Memorial Public Library.
Taxes collected from residents of Mentone and Harrison Township fund the library. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday; and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. [[In-content Ad]]
MENTONE - With the paperwork completed on the grant for the proposed Bell Memorial Public Library, officials are waiting to hear whether the project can move forward.
For more than a year, the library - with the help of the Mentone Town Council - has been trying to secure funding to purchase the old Frank Mfg. building owned by the Saemann Foundation. If the $500,000 grant from the Indiana Department of Commerce is awarded in May, the library will take over the facility, where senior citizen and day care centers also are planned.
One of the reasons the library is looking to relocate is because of overcrowded conditions that make it difficult to accommodate the technological upgrades, as well as regular programs that take place in the library.
According to library director Lorna Klein, BMPL is being highly utilized, with circulation up by 34 percent in 2000 from 1999.
The library will be celebrating its increased circulation during National Library Week April 1-7.
Bell's library services that back this figure, according to a press release drafted by Klein, comes from patrons being able to: come to the library to read six different newspapers, use three Internet-access computers for free e-mail, participate in children's programs from preschool through fourth grade, to be tutored in English or Spanish, to do research in genealogy and local history, to receive homebound deliveries, to access interlibrary loan and to fulfill the library's mission statement of providing materials and services to help meet the informational, educational, cultural and recreational needs of the community in a user-friendly atmosphere.
Klein said a larger facility will allow for adult book discussions, American Girls club meetings (where basic skills, such as sewing and cooking are practiced), more tutoring, the ability to display traveling history exhibitions, visits from Indiana authors and sharing meeting rooms with the community.
In addition to the library, the facility will blend the generations by bringing preschoolers and the elderly together in day care and senior center settings.
The senior center also will house exercise equipment, such as treadmills and therapeutic, rehabilitating equipment.
A grant also is being sought from Dekko Foundation for the Mentone Daycare Center during its interim before it opens.
Information from the library's web site at www.bell.lib.in.us includes some history of the library, which began in 1899 as the H. Parmalee Co. of Chicago.
The facility was housed in various locations before opening at its current site in 1959. That building was funded by a $20,000 grant from the estate of Lawrence D. Bell, who requested the money be used for a suitable memorial to his parents, Isaac and Harriett Sarber Bell. Mentone's Lawrence Bell was an aircraft pioneer and the town supports a museum named in his honor.
When the new site opened, Mentone Public Library became known as the Bell Memorial Public Library.
Taxes collected from residents of Mentone and Harrison Township fund the library. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday; and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. [[In-content Ad]]