The Randolph County Public Library celebrates its 75th birthday on September 1, 2015.

On that date in 1940, the Randolph County Board of Commissioners — at the request of citizens who had established libraries in their own communities — first appropriated funding for a county library system, and appointed a Board of Trustees.

Establishment of the county library system meant support for the libraries operating in Asheboro, Franklinville and Ramseur; for those about to come into existence in Randleman and Liberty; and for those eventually to be developed in Archdale and Seagrove.

It meant professional leadership, a core collection of books shared among the libraries, and service to the entire county by bookmobile. Today, the library system consists of the seven libraries — three operated by the county with significant municipal support, and four operated by their municipalities with significant county support.

Today the citizens visit their libraries over half-a-million times each year, and check out over half-a-million items. The library has become a driving force for early childhood literacy, digital literacy, lifelong learning, workforce development and just plain reading for pleasure. Following is a chronological account of some highlights of library service in Randolph County.

Early History

1924: Franklinville library is organized around nucleus of books donated by Randolph Mills owner John W. Clark. Clark also arranges for space in the company-owned community center and provides a small stipend for operation of the library

1936: The Asheboro Public Library opens in two rooms above the Standard Drug Store on February 10, founded by a group of young women who created the Randolph Library Club to support library operations.

 The Randolph Library Club, later the Randolph Library Association, exists today as the Asheboro Public Library Foundation, Inc. and continues to provide major support for the Asheboro library.

1936: The Ramseur Public Library opens in November. The project is initiated by the Ramseur Book Club and continued by the Ramseur Library Association.

Asheboro and Ramseur public libraries are operated with a mix of private, municipal and Works Progress Administration (WPA) funding.

1938: The Asheboro library, supported by the State Library Commission, the Works Progress Administration and the County Commissioners, brings a bookmobile to the county for a month. The experience is positive and library advocates begin thinking of ways to offer the service permanently.

1940s

1940: The Randolph Library Association in July petitions the Randolph County Board of Commissioners to create a county library system.

1940, September 1: County Commissioners create the Randolph Public Library on September 1, appropriating funding and appointing a library board of trustees.

 The first library board chairman, Charles W. McCrary, serves in that role until 1975 as a strong advocate for the library. During his tenure and after, the McCrary family, business and foundation have provided strong financial support for the library, including acquiring and donating the land on for the Asheboro Public Library.

1941: Randleman Public Library opens, sponsored by the Randleman Lions Club with support from the Randolph Library Association, in a space over the People’s Bank on Main Street; Claudia Fox is the librarian.

1942: Ruby Byrd Campbell is named county librarian. She has a library degree from UNC-Chapel Hill and six years experience. She comes to Randolph County from the Cumberland County library.

1942: The Liberty Library Association, comprised of representatives from civic group and churches, establishes the Liberty Public Library.

1943: Countywide bookmobile service begins with a fully-stocked, 1938 Ford half-ton truck surplused from the WPA.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of the county library’s bookmobile for library service in Randolph County. Until all the current branches of the library were established, large areas of the county remained unserved by a local library. During World War II, the bookmobile reached residents who could not travel very far due to gas rationing. Bookmobile stops at schools essentially provided library service to students in the days before school libraries. Bookmobile deliveries also made it possible to place book collections in small communities, in homes, stores and community centers. By 1972, when more and more residents had access to a nearby library, bookmobile service transitioned to Extension Services, which brings the library to people who are homebound or in care institutions, and children in day cares.

1945: Campbell departs and Marguerite Gramling is named library director. Gramling is a South Carolina native with a library science degree from Emory University and experience in the South Carolina public schools.

1945: Weekly storytimes begin at the Randleman Public Library, when Mrs. Weaver Lineberry, a local teacher, presents a storytime for some 40 children.

1946: The Asheboro library initiates regular storytimes and a Summer Reading Program.

1946: An East Asheboro branch library was established to serve the African American community.

A group of young African American business women petitioned the library board for the East Asheboro branch. It was initially located in the parsonage of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, and later moved to the African American high school.

1948: A Chevrolet panel truck replaces the Ford bookmobile.

1948: The Randleman Library Association, made up of local civic leaders, takes over operation of the Randleman Public Library, which moves to the former home of Dr. Dennis Fox.

1949: Charlesanna Fox replaces Gramling as library director; she serves until 1977 and becomes legendary. Gramling becomes director of the Colleton County, S.C., library and later retires as director of the Florence County, S.C., library.

1950s

1953: Charlesanna Fox elected president of the North Carolina Library Association.

 During Fox’s tenure, the NCLA became racially integrated.

1954: Randleman library moves to quarters near Randleman Elementary School, opening there on October 15.

1956: Edith Sink replaces Claudia Fox as Randleman librarian.

1956: The library is selected as the depository for the State Library’s music collection.

1956: County library purchases a new, purpose-built Gerstenlager bookmobile.

1960s

1961: State legislation establishes how public libraries are governed in North Carolina; a local bill formalizes the Randolph Public Library’s cooperative municipal/county governance in which the municipalities provide the libraries, and the county provides centralized services.

1961: The Blanche C. Johnson Memorial Building opens as the home of the Ramseur Public Library.

The Ramseur library is still housed in this building today. Shortly after it was built, the facility was recognized in Small Library Buildings, a publication of the American Library Association, as an excellent example of a small public library.

1963: Library becomes a department of county government, but remains governed by the Board of Trustees.

1963: Asheboro voters pass a $300,000 bond referendum for construction of a new library building to house the Asheboro Public Library and also serve as headquarters of the Randolph Public Library.

1963: The Franklinville library, in September, moves into its current home at 11 Sumner Place above town hall. Its previous locations included a Randolph Mills building; a corner of the Franklinville Store Co. and the Masonic Hall.

1964: The new Asheboro Public Library opens on the corner of Worth and Cox streets, and becomes headquarters of the county library system. The East Asheboro library closes and is integrated into the new facility.

 Built on land acquired and donated by the Acme-McCrary Foundation, the building, designed by Alvis George Jr., is recognized with an Award of Merit from the North Carolina Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Plans for a new building had been in the works since 1952, spearheaded by the Asheboro Library Corporation (now the Asheboro Public Library Foundation).

1966: Liberty Public Library moves to its new facility and (current home) at 239 S. Fayetteville Street.

1970s

1972: After 28 years, bookmobile service comes to an end on August 31 and the Gerstenlager vehicle – with 126,413 miles – is retired. The Extension Services department provides library services by home visits and by mail to people who cannot come to a library, and aids people with visual impairments in accessing the State Library’s “Talking Book” service.

1972: The Archdale City Council establishes the Archdale Public Library and appoints a Board of Trustees to plan, open and operate the library.

1972: Seagrove town commissioners establish the Seagrove Public Library.

1972: Randleman library becomes part of city government.
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1973: The Seagrove Public Library opens on March 11.

1973: The Archdale Public Library opens on June 5
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1973: Library supporters form The Friends of the Randolph Public Library.

The Friends of the Library become indispensable library boosters. The group brings top-name authors and other speakers and performers to the community. Friends used book sales supplement the library’s book budget, and progress from annual events at the library to monthly sales at a house nearby the library, to a city-owned storefront in downtown Asheboro open three days each week. The Friends also provide primary funding for library programming, including the Summer Reading Program.

1973:The Randleman Public Library reopens on April 16 in a new facility on Commerce Square, where it will remain until its move to the former Richard Petty Museum in 2015.

1973: State legislation again revises and formalizes the way library systems are governed in North Carolina, and the Randolph County Public Library becomes a department of county government, with the library director reporting to the county manager. The Board of Trustees takes on an advisory rather than a governing role.

 In its advisory capacity, the Board of Trustees acts as a bridge of communication between the citizens and the library, and board members act as advocates for the library. The board also has five specific roles: to set library policy; to set fines and fees; to act as the final arbiter of challenged library material; to manage a trust fund into which gifts and bequests to the library are deposited; and to call for an evaluation of the library director if warranted.

1974: Suzanne Chatham (later Tate) is hired as the library system’s only professional librarian other than Director Charlesanna Fox.

1975: Charles W. McCrary steps down as Board of Trustees chairman, and Charles C. Dorsett of Ramseur is named chairman.

1976: The libraries in the region served by the Piedmont Triad Council of Governments develop a cooperative program to share resources and continuing education opportunities for staff, and to offer reciprocal borrowing privileges to each others’ patrons.

1977: Charlesanna Fox retires; Nancy Brenner named library director. Brenner has a library science degree from UNC Chapel Hill and has worked in several positions at the Randolph County library.

1978: Charles Dorsett steps down as Board of Trustees chairman and is replaced by W. Ed Gavin.

1979: The Xerox Education Publishing Company donates 21,980 books to the library as part of the Reading is Fundamental program. The library works with the Asheboro City and Randolph County school systems to place most of the books in classrooms, and also adds many to the library’s collection.

1980s

1983: A short-lived branch of the library system opens in Cedar Falls. The John D. and Edith M. Workman Memorial library operates in the Cedar Falls Community Association building.

1983: The Ramseur library is expanded with an addition to the rear of the building.

1989: W. Ed Gavin steps down as Board of Trustees chairman and is succeeded by Ralph Hardison, who continues to serve in that capacity today.

1990s

1990: The Archdale City Council votes on August 2 to build a new, 4,400 square foot library facility at Creekside Park on land donated by Bill and Elizabeth Aldridge, after including construction funding in its 1990-91 budget.

1991: Nancy Brenner departs; Suzanne Tate is named interim library director.

1991: Library begins participation in the State Library-sponsored Public Library Quiz Bowl for high school students, an annual event that runs until 2006-2007.

1991: Richard Wells is named library director.

1992: The Archdale Public Library opens in its new facility at 10433 S. Main Street.

1992: Following action by the Archdale City Council and the Randolph County Board of Commissioners, the county takes over operation of the Archdale Public Library on July 1, making it an official branch of the county library system.

1992: The Asheboro library begins offering public computing in the form of a single CD-ROM based computer station. Resources include an encyclopedia, an atlas and a “bookshelf” CD-ROM that contains a dictionary, thesaurus, a quote books and an almanac.

1992: A space needs analysis conducted by a library facility planning consultant shows that the Asheboro library needs an additional 10,000 square feet to grow 15-20 years into the future.

1993: Asheboro voters on April 6 approve a $1.5 million bond issue for renovation and expansion of the Asheboro Public Library.

1993: A federal Public Library Technology Equalization Grant enables the library to offer public computing to each branch, and upgrade the Asheboro library’s service. The grant funds a computer station at each library, as well as research-oriented CD-ROMs.

1993: Richard Wells is named Library Director of the Year by his colleagues in the North Carolina Public Library Directors Association.

1994: The Asheboro library moves to the former Food World location in Northgate Shopping Center while the Worth Street building is renovated.

1994: The library begins offering children’s books in Spanish with a collection on loan from the North Carolina Foreign Language Center at the Cumberland County Public Library.

1995: Asheboro Public Library reopens in its expanded building at 9 a.m. January 17. Square footage increases from 18,000 to 25,000.

1995: Fire on January 7 damages the Franklinville library that closes the library until April 12. However, in the time intervening, the library gets a makeover that includes freestanding shelving the building’s windows to be uncovered.

1995: A gift from the Timken Foundation and a federal Library Services and Construction Act grant yields the library’s first computer network, which links the Asheboro library’s public computers to a multi-disk CD-ROM changer goes online in November. New resources available include regularly-updated full-text magazine article database and national business and residential phone listing, among many others.

1996: Paper records for the library’s 89,389 holdings are converted to machine-readable format by staff members at the Nantahala Regional Library working under a federally-funded grant, in preparation for library automation.

1997: With funding from the county commissioners and a federal grant, all library functions are automated via the Dynix Integrated Library System; the system goes live in August after bar codes are placed on every item in the system. The project unites all seven libraries in a countywide information technology network.

Prior to automation, checkout and check-in of library material was accomplished using book pocket cards. A patron would sign an item out and the card would be filed for later sorting; a date due card – stamped each day by library staff – would be placed in the pocket. At the end of the day, staff at each library would alphabetize all the items checked out and place them in a “carding table” behind the day’s date. When items were returned, the card would be retrieved from the appropriate date due.

1998: Library begins offering public Internet access, anchored by NC LIVE, the online library of electronic resources.

1998: The Extension Services Department receives two new Ford Windstar minivans thanks to a federal Library Services and Construction Act grant. The vans replace a 1979 Chevrolet station wagon and a mid-1980s Ford Crown Victoria surplused by the Sheriff’s Office.

2000s

2000: The City of Archdale breaks ground on an expansion of the library, which will add 8,400 square feet to the existing 4,400 square-foot facility. The library will stay put during construction, moving into the new part of the building once it is complete so that work can take place in the old part.

2000: The Randolph County Partnership for Children provides a grant of $181,878 to provide a core collection of new children’s books and other early childhood materials for each of the seven libraries and the Extension Services department. It’s the first of several significant RCPC grants for library materials over the next 15 years.

2000: The library receives a federal Library Services and Technology Act grant to help provide services to the county’s growing Hispanic and Latino population.

2001: The library’s first website goes live in June, and provides online access to the text-based library catalog.

2001: Head of Reference Ross Holt begins a two-year term as president of the North Carolina Library Association.

2002: The library partners with the Randolph County Partnership for Children to establish the Franklinville-Ramseur Parents as Teachers Program, which aims to help struggling parents prepare their children to start school. It becomes one of the most respected such programs in the nation and is still in operation.

2003: Through a federal Library Services and Technology Act grant, the Randolph Room digitizes some 1,500 historical photographs, creating and making available online the Randolph County Historical Photograph Collection.

2003: The ribbon is cut on the fully renovated and expanded Archdale Public Library.

2004: The Randolph County Board of Commissioners appropriates $750,000 for construction of a new Seagrove Public Library.

The plan for the Seagrove library is a departure for the county library; traditionally, the cities and towns have provided the library facilities. But the small tax base of Seagrove proper, plus the need for a regional library serving the southern part of the county, persuades the commissioners to assume responsibility for the Seagrove library. The facility will sit on land donated by the Randolph County Schools adjoining Seagrove Elementary School. Architect Dean Spinks donates the site plan, and the City of Archdale donates the blueprints for its 1992 building. Once the building is complete, the county will take over operation of the Seagrove library with support from the town.

2004: At the North Carolina Library Association (NCLA) Centennial Conference, Assistant Director Suzanne Tate is named recipient of the first William H. Roberts Distinguished Library Service Award presented by the NCLA’s Public Library Section. Every library staff member signed the nomination penned by Library Director Richard Wells.

2005: Seagrove Public Library opens in new building on October 10.

2005: The library in December migrates its automation system to the Horizon system, which features a web-based catalog and vastly improves online and in-house access to the library’s collection.

2006: Richard Wells is named county manager effective January 1; Suzanne Tate succeeds him as library director.

2006: Library begins offering WIFI.

2007: The Asheboro library’s Teen Corner marketing project is selected as one of the top 25 teen programs in the country by the Young Adult Library Service Section of the American Library Association.

2009: The Liberty library undergoes an interior renovation that includes new paint and carpet, and a rearrangement of shelving that opens up the floor plan.

2009: For two weeks in July, teens from the Asheboro library and kids from the Boys/Girls Clubs create a mural on the 255' wide by 7' high retaining wall at the intersection of Church and Academy Streets. Kids from the Boys/Girls Clubs also help paint, and there are a couple of nights where adults can get in on the act. The project is a collaboration among the library, the Boys/Girls Clubs, Trees Asheboro, the Randolph Arts Guild and the City of Asheboro. The initiative receives an Outstanding Library Promotional Project Award from the North Carolina Public Library Directors Association.

2010s

2010: Asheboro library hosts the kick-off of the State Library’s annual statewide library card sign-up campaign. The event features N.C. Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers.

2010: The Asheboro Public Library celebrates its 75th anniversary.

2011: Suzanne Tate retires on January 1; Ross Holt named library director.

2011: A survey developed by the University of Washington School of Information and provided for use by individual libraries shows that 60 percent of Randolph County Public Library computer users said they used the library's electronic resources in the last year to search for jobs. Of those, 78 percent used the library's public computing services to apply for a job or send out resumes; 36 percent were granted an interview; and 18 percent were hired for new positions.

2011: The library begins offering ebooks for checkout on August 22.

2011: The Asheboro library’s new parking lot, complete with a spectacular fountain opens in August. The city and the county over several years acquired the land in front of the library, and the city constructed the lot.

2012: Asheboro library Children’s Room initiates Tails to Read, a program in which children gain reading confidence by reading to certified therapy dogs.

2012: Charlesanna Fox passes away at age 102 on November 14. Honors during her lifetime included the UNCG Alumni Service Award in 1974; the Citizen of the Year award from the Randolph-Asheboro Chamber of Commerce in 1999; and The Order of the Long Leaf Pine – North Carolina’s highest honor – in 2008.

2014: The library in August introduces downloadable audiobooks and electronic magazines for check out.

2014: The City of Randleman begins work on the former Richard Petty Museum to transform it into the new home of the Randleman Public Library.

2015: The Randleman Public Library reopens on February 2 in the space at 142 W. Academy Street formerly occupied by the Richard Petty Museum. With all new furniture and fixtures, the move doubles the library’s square footage.

2015: The Randolph County Public Library becomes the home of the Randolph County Historic Landmark Commission, which had been administered by the Planning & Zoning Department since its inception in 2008. The commission designates important historical places as landmarks or cultural heritage sites and ensures that the places get proper recognition and protection.

2015: For the fiscal year 2014-2015, the citizens visited their libraries 561,019 times; checked out 549,497 items; used library Internet computers or WIFI 129,114 times. An audience of 43,257 people attended 1,681 library and Friends of the Library programs.

2015: The Randolph County Public Library celebrates its 75th anniversary on September 1.

Compiled from A History of the Randolph County Public Library, 1935-1967 by Marjorie Whittington Memory; Randolph Room clipping files; and Randolph County Public Library News newsletters, 1992-present.