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West Buxton Public Library Established 1925

The West Buxton Public Library traces its beginnings back to 1925 when it was organized in the West Buxton Baptist Church on the hill on River Road by the dam. The Masonic Building, also on River Road in West Buxton, was its second home until 1953, when service to the community went dormant. The library emerged from its five-year dormancy in 1958 under the leadership of Edward M. Elwell. Its third and current home is the former District #12 Schoolhouse (circa 1853) keeping its location in the West Buxton Village area and still on the Saco River at #34. The resurrection of the library resulted from the perception that such a facility was needed by the residents of the village area on both sides of the Saco River: Buxton and Hollis. The library is visited by citizens from Buxton, Hollis, Standish, and Limington, as well as many summer visitors. The library’s operating budget is funded by the appropriations of the Town of Buxton and supplemented with book and bake sales, memorial gifts and many monetary donations and collections. This year, like the rest of the world, the library had to adjust to the pandemic. We did have to close our doors from March until June. In June we were able to begin curbside pickup and get books back into the hands of our patrons. We excitedly reopened the library in July. Despite no longer being able to hold events inside we still managed to hold our annual pumpkin carving event this year. We setup outside and 28 people were able enjoy a beautiful fall day. We also held two outdoor story times with 23 people participating in those. In 2020 we had 820 library visits, 15 new families and we checked out 1,464 books. We also participated in the summer reading program with the Berry Library, Hollis Library and Waterboro Library. The four libraries hosted a virtual visit with Mr Drew and His Animals Too as part of the summer reading program. We are grateful for our library volunteers who help with story time, shelving books, cataloging books and so much more. We have enjoyed having high school, middle school and college volunteers this year. It is great to have young people involved in our library. The library would like to thank Snell Family Farms for once again donating pumpkins for our pumpkin event, Bob Gorham for getting our yearly Christmas tree and helping to problem solve around the library, Sargent Brothers Handyman Services for their yard work and snow shoveling and the board of directors for all they do to support the running of the library. In addition, we are grateful to Peter Mills and his family for helping to keep up with the lawn mowing. It takes the whole community. We appreciate the generous support of the Town of Buxton and the surrounding neighborhood. Your library is here to serve you. Let us know what you would like to see for programming. We are here to support the community. We have computers, Internet access and a printer available for community use. Thank you for your continued support of this wonderful library. “The health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.” Carl Sagan Sincerely,

Amy Hughes Library Director

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