County Station Libraries
The Great Depression took a toll on libraries. Staff took a 50% pay cut and purchases of new books and materials virtually ceased between 1930 and 1939. As a result, State Senator Robert A. Taft drafted a bill that allowed library boards to request funds from the County Commissioners if they offered services county-wide. The law passed in 1933 and in July 1934 Columbus Metropolitan Library became a county-wide library.
To support library services around the county, new facilities called “county stations” were established. They were typically a room in a school and were often staffed by teachers. Canal Winchester was the first county library station in 1937 and was followed by Briggsdale, Dublin, Fornof, Gahanna, Galloway, Harrisburg, Hilliard, Lockbourne, New Albany and Reynoldsburg. Operated year round the county stations were for all customers, but the emphasis on children’s materials made it more of a draw for school-aged children. Once a month librarians from the county station department would go out to the stations and pick up books that needed mended and they would replenish the collection with new books and perform other tasks that needed done in the library.
At one time nearly all villages and townships in Franklin County had a county station. At its peak there were 11 county stations in addition to full library branches. With the introduction of the bookmobile service in 1950, those 11 county stations dwindled to only four by the mid-1950s; Fornof, Harrisburg, Canal Winchester and Reynoldsburg. The average collection for a county library station was about 4,000 books that would be replenished once a month. Bookmobiles contained about 2,750 books. They made their stops twice a month and visited a wider swath of the county that were underserved by the county stations.
