Taneyhills Community Library
Nestled among the trees on the corner of Fourth and Pacific Streets in Branson is the Taneyhills Community Library. Its red and brown brick edifice is unlikely to stand out to a motorist traveling down the street: the building seems plain and simple, merely functional but nothing special, to someone not acquainted with the history of the library. But we have learned better than to judge a book by its cover--or a building by its facade.
The Taneyhills Community Library is remarkable for several reasons. The most obvious is that since its founding in 1933, the library has been funded solely through volunteer contributions; it has never received any federal, state, or local tax money to help maintain its collection.
Another important feature of the library is that over the last 66 years it has served as a unifying project for some of the areas brightest and most accomplished thinkers and artists. The saga of the founding and development of the library is in many ways the documented evolution of a community, and no where is that saga better told than in Kathleen Van Buskirk and Lorraine Humphrey's Bringing Books to the Ozarks.
With a few donated books and a commitment to community betterment, a group of women from the Presbyterian Church, known as the Maids and Matrons Study Club, drew up articles of organization and formed a new group which would be responsible for the development of the library: the Taneyhills Study Club (Van Buskirk 25). Donations grew as the group gained exposure, and they were allowed to house this first library in a room of the Branson Hotel.
Soon outgrowing its space in the hotel, the Club began looking for a larger building. In 1935, the Civic League allotted library space on the first floor of its building on Pacific Street. When the WPA constructed Community Community Building was completed in 1937, the library again moved, gaining momentum and enlarging its collection slowly but surely.
Over the years, such talented residents as Lyta Davis Good and R.M. Good, Mary Elizabeth Mahnkey, John Neihardt, Mae Stafford Hilburn, Rose O'Neill, Etta Mann, and Vitae Kite gravitated toward the library project as a uniting intellectual and artistic goal. Equally bright and committed to the vision of community betterment, were hundreds of lesser known residents--most of them women--who worked diligiently on maintaining and building the library's collection. They supplied nearly everything the library needed--from manual labor to book donations to cash gifts.
In 1975, the Taneyhills Library Club obtained a not-for-profit corporate status and purchased the land on which the present building stands. The building was begun in 1976, and the new Taneyhills Community Library opened its doors in 1977. The library continues to receive its financial support from the Taneyhills Library Club, Inc., which has undertaken numerous fund-raising projects--book publications, thrift shop operations, donation drives, Friends of the Library membership drives, and so forth. Since the club's founding, over a thousand members have taken part in activities to support the library (320).
The area's recent development explosion has also meant radical growth in the library's holdings and circulations. Today the library houses over 40,000 volumes, including many periodicals, newspapers, video and audio tapes. One paid librarian directs the library's activities; otherwise, it is staffed entirely by volunteers. Though Branson's official population is under 4,000, according to the 1990 census, the library serves nearly 20,000 people a year (317).
Collections housed in the library are standard for community libraries: The adult fiction and non-fiction sections contains recent-best sellers, classics, popular publications, romances, large print books, paperbacks, westerns, mysteries, do-it-yourself manuals, and audio books. The young people's section contains fiction, non-fiction, easy reader, picture books, encyclopedias, and young adult.
The library 's genealogy section is another popular collection which is continually expanded to help those who are seeking family histories. Local records include the Taney County Daughters of the American Revolution Collection, Census Records, County Histories, and Cemetery Records.
The Reference Library houses Ozarkiana and Missouri collections, encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, current biographies and magazines. These materials do not circulate, but the library's volunteer staff assists readers in their search for concise or specialized information.
The Taneyhills Library Club continues to meet ten times a year, seeking out ways to foster learning and discovery. The spirit of volunteerism inspires residents and nonresidents alike. The group represents the best of what a community can offer--a respect for the past and a vision for the future.
Taneyhills Community Library 200 South Fourth StreetBranson, Missouri 65616-2712Telephone: (417) 334-1418Hours: Monday through Friday l0:00 a.m.to 5:00 p.m.Wednesday 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Works Cited
Van Buskirk, Kathleen and Lorraine Humphrey. Bringing Books to the Ozarks: A Branson Adventure. Branson, MO: Taneyhills Community Library, 1998.
Images of children and books and computer reading a book from http://www.arttoday.com, member page, July 1999.
