Did you hear it?  Listen! There it is again. Like homing devices, your ears prick up as they swivel your feet in the direction of the strange, whimpering sounds. Slowly you move through the house, getting ever closer to the sorrowful laments. Then, at the peak of the groans, you abruptly stop. You are standing in front of your … bookcase!

You stare at it, suddenly realizing you have not done this in a very, very long time. Startled, you discover it is the bookcase making those desperate noises. Crying out for help, its sagging shelves are whimpering, “Arghhh! I have reached my maximum endurance and am about to collapse. Please relieve me of these unread, ignored, long forgotten books!”

And this is the moment you remember that the Friends of the Library are gearing up for their fall used book sale!!!!

Immediately you begin to pull books off the shelves while chastising yourself for having waited so long. What were you thinking, allowing those books to pile up like that? Of course you won’t be reading them again. Of course you are ready to hand them over to someone who will delight in them anew. Of course this is the way the world turns around. And with it a refreshing energy courses through your body — the sensation of a lightening of your load.

Now, fully dedicated to the task, you shout to your family, “Everybody, go to your rooms, post haste, and clean out your books. We’re making a run to the library!”

How impossible it is to imagine Austin without a library. But, it wasn’t always so.  In 1869, a determined sisterhood of 30 women decided Austin must have one. Together they established the Floral Club with the idea that if they sold flowers and seed packets, they might earn enough money to buy books. And, they did!  With the first sale of a single red geranium, they began to amass a total of $100, enough to purchase 123 books. Inspired by their hard work, local citizens donated 103 more books, thus forming the nucleus of the first Austin Library.

Eight months later, those 226 books were moved into a room on the second floor of the courthouse with each club member serving as librarian for one afternoon a week. In time, however, they were made aware of a major blight on their endeavor. One floor below their makeshift  library was the city jail. Deciding this was way too unseemly, three of the ladies volunteered to manage the library in their homes. By now the inventory had burgeoned to a startling 1,060 volumes!

For nearly 15 years, these three determined women rotated the thousand-plus books among their homes despite groaning floor boards and complaining husbands! Then finally in 1884, upon the completion of the new courthouse, the library books were at last moved into its basement where they remained for the next 20 years. Space (and marital bliss) were once again restored to the homes of the three beatified women.

Still, the dream of a dedicated library building remained. One day word of a philanthropist, the owner of the Carnegie Steel Company, reached the women. A stunningly magnanimous man, Andrew Carnegie was giving much of his fortune to establishing libraries throughout America. Without hesitation, he told them, if Austin would provide the site and maintenance for the building, he would agree to build a library.

In 1904, 35 years after inception, the Austin Carnegie Library was completed. By then Austin had a population of 6,000 and a book collection of 3,500. For the next 54 years, it adequately served the city. I well remember the original library with its many concrete steps leading up to the front doors. Even stronger is the memory of the major domo librarian, Mabel Olson. With her hearing-a-pin-drop ears, it was a place of deepest reverential solemnity. During her 18-year tenure, no one — NO ONE! — ever dared to breathe a perceptible sound in “her” library.

When checking out books, I tried very hard to see what Mabel Olson looked like even though I feared her mightily. With her desk rising up from the polished wood floor like a gigantic oaken throne, she was too high up in the stratosphere for us little children to clearly see her. Still I loved Miss Olson, in a terrified sort of way, for later she provided a constant flow of Nancy Drew books, the roadster-driving, fearless sleuth whom I passionately wanted to be.

Yes, I worshipped the flawless Nancy even though I thought she could have treated her devoted beau, Ned Nickerson, a sight better. And just what, I wanted to know, would have been so almighty bad about occasionally giving the poor, love-starved guy a peck on the cheek just to show her appreciation for his unstinting support and protection?

But now, in my reminiscing, I am digressing from the story. In 1964, at a cost of $210,500, a wrap-around addition was attached to the library. It proved, nonetheless, to be only a temporary fix, for its three floors — and numerous partitions, nooks and crannies — to say nothing of the sparse on-site parking, were simply inadequate.

By 1958, when the populace had grown to over 27,000 residents and the book inventory had exploded to 42,000 volumes, the city realized something had to be done. This doing took 38 years, but finally, in 1996, a completely new, modern, one-floor library was completed; the one we now know and love.

All this brings me to a request. Isn’t it time you listened to the moans of your own long-suffering bookcases? Books, after all, like to be cleaned, gleaned, sorted and passed on to others. No two ways about it, your gently-used contributions will be turned into money to enhance our library. Donations will be accepted Sept. 17-26, with the sale on Sept. 27, 28, 29. This, folks, is your moment to shine!