Another Of Public Library's Important Dates Falls June 11

(FIFTH OF A SERIES) _. Dates of significance, those marKed by births, marriages or deaths, chalk off a lifetime. June 11 could be an important date in the life of the Ann Arbor Public Library. I On election day voters of Ann Arbor District will decide whether or not to separate the library budget f rom the school district budget. The Board of Education is asking voters to approved a 1-mill authorization for support of the public library. It has been supported as kart of the school district budget. No matter what voters decide June 11, Ithe library will continue as a Board of Education responsibilii It hasn't always been so. In 1916 the Ladies' Library Association and Board of Education officially joined forces to provide a community library. But the Ladies' Library Association dates to 1866 when some 35 women organized a small library in the upstairs rooms on Main Street, according to the association's historical records. Following a pattern common to the United States after Benjamin Franklin founded the first subscription library in 1731, the women organized a subscription library, charging dues of $3 a year. The women supplemented their funds with Christmas and Easter fairs, tures, cantatas, strawberry festivals and " gifts oí books and money. Ann Arbor's library was the seventh in the state to be organized by a Ladies' Library Association. Unlike social librarles founded by men, the Ladies Library Association allowed persons of the opposite sex to use its library. Members, who were active in the women's rights movement, also looked forward to a time when the library might gain municipal support and become a free public library, according to association history. ' By 1867 the collection numbered 1,636. The idea of a free library appeared first in the secretary's report of 1868. Two years later the association petitioned City Council to take over the subscription library and make it a public one, but the council declined. In 1879 the Board of Education offered to combine the school district library with that of the association, but the association declined. One year later the women purchased a lot at 343 E. Huron St. on which they erected a building in 1885 at the cost of $4,268. The cornerstone from the building is 'embedded in brick on the wall of the stairway from the first to the second floor of the present Main Library. ■ - An action that changed the course of the library movement occurred in 1902 when the president of the association suggested that the association consider union with the school district library and request financial aid from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie offered to give $20,000 for a new building if $2,000 support would be provided annually through a municipal agency, according to library records. When it carne time to draw up an agreement between the association and t h e school board, the two p a r t i e s couldn't agree on a site. School trustees insisted the public library should be on the high school site, The association voted to withdraw its offer. Plans were made independently by the school board for a new high school 1 ing after the original building burned down in 1904. The library known as the public library was erected on the high I school square as a wing of the new school building. The library entrance was on Huron Street east of State Street. The library was paid for from Carnegie grants totaling $30,000. In 1916 the association accepted the board's offer to join forces and seyeral thousands of volumes of the Ládies' Library were transferred -to the public library and the Huron Street property was deeded to the An n Arbor public schools, according to the ladies library association historie al records. __