KANAS CITY, Mo — The Kansas City Public Library will be celebrating 150 years this winter, giving employees the opportunity to bring out items, books and pictures that highlight the library’s rich history and inspired storytellers and pioneers.
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According to a KCPL spokesperson, last year more than 600,000 people visited the library to browse the nearly 800,000 books and other items available within its physical collection.
"People thought that libraries wouldn't survive the internet age and there would be no need, saying they're just the buildings with books, but we proved that that's not the case," said Jeremy Drouin, manager at KCPL's Missouri Valley Special Collections.
The library was founded in 1873 as the public school library of Kansas City and originally had a just a bookcase filled with eight volumes of the New American Encyclopedia in its initial collection.
"It wasn't even a complete set because we couldn't afford a complete set of encyclopedias," Drouin said.
According to certificates dating from the late 1800's patrons had to pay a $2 annual fee or a $10 lifetime subscription to access the library's collection. Over the years that library book case grew and expanded to different branches.
The Missouri Valley Special Collections is helping preserve the library's rich history and is helping pay tribute to former employees that made the library what it is today, including Carrie Westlake Whitney who was the head librarian for KCPL in 1881 and grew the library's collection.
Other items include a 1909 copy of a book believed to have inspired an animation pioneer.
"Walt (Disney) has been known to talk about another book called in Animals in Motion. We have that book from 1909 and so it's very likely that he might have actually used our copy to learn how to draw animals," Drouin said.
To kick off its 150th anniversary, the library will be hosting a program next Tuesday at 6 p.m. inside the Truman Forum Auditorium. To register click on this link.
