For many people in Paducah, the Bicentennial City-County Library was known for being in a small, dark section of the courthouse basement. It was located on the east side of the building, far from the eyes of anyone just passing through, and only provided the basic resource of checking out books, which is a fleeting necessity in the digital age.

After forty years, and then an additional four months of setbacks in 2021, the library moved into its new home on the south side of the main square in April. The library board, led by library director Adrian Mackey and library board president Lindy Osburn, have hit the ground running since then to get the building set up and find new resources to provide for community members so the library benefits everyone.

“We want it to be a public service library and not just a place to come and get a book,” Osburn said.

The library has already shown itself to be a service as several civic groups meet there for monthly meetings, a monthly seminar with a Medicare expert has been scheduled and the library hosted their 4-day summer reading program earlier this summer. This past week on August 4, the library also hosted Congressman Ronny Jackson and his staff’s mobile office so citizens could come in to ask him questions and learn more information about matters that are important to them. In the future, the library board is hoping to bring in guest speakers or educational presentations for different kinds of interests.

Along with being a public service, the library board is creating a space for Paducah residents to socialize and interact with each other.

“If they want books: yes, we have books, but we also have digital books. So they don’t even have to come in the library for books,” Mackey said. “But we want them to come in because this has become the hub of the community. This is where we come together, this is where we come to share ideas and to just be social with one another. That is the atmosphere that we are trying to cultivate here.”

The library has seen different types of gatherings come in; a weekly crafting group meets on Thursdays and a card playing group that will stay and play for hours at a time have made the library their meeting spot. Kids even have a way to be involved with story time every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Mackey is also hopeful that adults will start book clubs and could even do features on books in the library for them to use, such as their vast collection of Western books.

In order to make these changes happen, and to even get moved into a new building for that matter, Mackey worked hard during the months when the pandemic closed the library to find grant money for their vision. The city and county agreed to cover basic operating expenses but any additional service and resources the library board was planning would need to be financed by other means. Mackey didn’t waste a moment to start finding these outside funding sources.

“I absolutely have fallen in love with this library. It has become my baby and with any baby, it has to be financed,” she said.

The first grant the library received was nearly $3,000 from the Priddy Foundation for a mobile media cart so they could easily move equipment for meetings and presentations to the upstairs rooms of the courthouse when they were still housed in the basement. After moving locations and needing more than just shelves to pull the library together, they received a $50,000 grant from the Tocker Foundation furniture and shelving grant to furnish the new library. The Tocker Foundation specializes in rural libraries and Mackey says they are very strategic and intentional in how they support them. The Tocker Foundation sent an architect to help the library board design their new space and they have introduced the board to many new connections to help them with financing the library.

“It continues to blow my mind that with everything we’ve needed all along the way, the answers have been yes,” Mackey said when thinking about the grants they’ve received.

Another next step for the library is getting internet and the wiring set up in the building. The board is hoping that their internet connection will cover the entire downtown square so families can use it for free if they need to without feeling ashamed about it. Osburn said that the Texas Workforce Commission wants to be an active part of the community and will donate new computers and workstations once wiring is set up.

“So many organizations are investing in us and I think that shows to our community. When you’re from a small town, it’s easy to get trapped in this mindset of that we’re just out here on our own and no one is really thinking about us or caring about us. We are living proof that there are so many organizations that are waiting to invest in people just like us. It’s ok that we’re a small town; it’s ok that our situations are what they are. There’s still people willing to come in and help,” Mackey said.

Another goal for the library is to set up a gaming and ESports area. Osburn and Mackey found out that colleges are giving away scholarships for ESports and both decided that this needed to be a resource in the library if it meant providing more ways to offer local students the opportunity to go to college. The state of Texas also has an ESports curriculum and Mackey found another grant that would allow the library to house all the equipment and a teacher for a class like that if the grant is approved. Osburn stated that the Esports could also be a hub for local tournaments and could get other communities involved.

The library is finding other ways to get students involved and in leadership posiitons with the library. They created a TikTok account called PaducahReads made up of young library ambassadors and are hoping to create a  junior library board that will give high school students the opportunity to learn life and decision making skills.

“When we look at what we’ve been able to accomplish, it just seems nearly impossible for us to be where we are.” Mackey said.

Mackey goes on to say that having the opportunity to make the library what it is and provide these services gets her out of bed in the morning. She wants to leave the library better than she got it so that in a couple of years, people of Paducah will start to feel like they’ve always had these resources.

“A lot of our conversations in the community are about when that store used to be this or that building was this. And they’ll talk about movie theaters we used to have and other stores. It’s nice to have something new and different…” Osburn said.

She also said that if it hadn’t of been for the city and the county going off on a limb for them, they wouldn’t have been able to do this. She is appreciative of all their support and for letting their visions come to life.

Though they are in operation now,  the Bicentennial City-County Library is hoping to have a more official grand opening sometime this fall once they have their internet and furniture set up.