By Crystal McGough, copy editor
PINSON — When Pinson Public Library first opened in a small area in the back of the Pinson municipal building on Oct. 1, 2011, neither the city nor the staff had any idea of the big things in store for their little library. From the start, the library grew at unexpected rates, both in patronage and resources. The library received many awards and grants, including the American Library Association’s Bookapalooza grant, which provided the library with about 1,500 award winning and award eligible books, the American Dream grant, which helped the library provide ESL classes to the community and expand its Spanish Language collection, and grants to pay teenagers for summer internships and jobs at the library. Pinson Public Library is also an Alabama Public Library Service silver award winner.
According to a previous statement from Pinson Mayor Hoyt Sanders, within a few short years Pinson Public Library became the 10th most circulating library in the Jefferson County Library Cooperative.
At that rate, it did not take long for this young library to outgrow its first home. By 2013, there was talk of moving the library into the historic Rock School Center, and by 2016, that decision was made official. The city purchased the building and began making renovations to restore the building and transform it into a library, while keeping certain nostalgic aspects of the original historic site, such as the hand-laid rocks and most of the original floors, doors and windows. The city of Pinson and Pinson Public Library staff proudly opened the doors of the library’s new home on Jan. 13, 2019.
Photo by Crystal McGough
About eight months later, Library Director Allison Scanlan received the surprise of a lifetime: Pinson Public Library had been selected to be included in the November architecture issue of Library Journal, one of the oldest and most significant national trade publications for libraries and librarians.
“They originally sent an email to the executive director of the Jefferson County Library Cooperative, who then forwarded that information to me,” Scanlan said. “That was in September; early September is when we received an email from them that said they’d like to include us in the upcoming architecture issue.”
Pinson Mayor Hoyt Sanders and Pinson Library Director Allison Scanlan
Scanlan said that her immediate reaction upon receiving the news was “definitely shock!”
“It’s a fantastic honor that they even thought about us,” she said. “I was definitely in shock for a while and then extremely excited.”
In fact, Scanlan was in so much shock over the news that she delayed sharing the information with her staff.
“I waited a little bit because it didn’t quite feel real,” she said. “I talked a little bit with the researcher for Library Journal. I also reached out to the architect firm, Hendon & Huckestein, Erik Hendon … they received the same email. It was maybe a day, I think, after I had gotten the notification – I kind of kept it to myself for a little bit just to kind of process – and then went out and gathered all the staff and just kind of announced it to them. We were all just in complete shock.”
Ever since moving into the Rock School Center, the Pinson library staff has had a running joke about pinching themselves to see if it is all real. This unexpected news gave the staff a whole new reason to pinch themselves.
“We’re all pinching ourselves to try to figure out if this is really happening, is this a real thing,” Scanlan said. “They include libraries from all over the nation, of course. Looking at their public library listing from last year, the only library in Alabama that they included was the Madison Public Library, which was a huge project. They’re a much larger library than we are, so just to kind of compare, as far as just last year alone, that they included this huge library in Alabama, then this year they have us; we’re a fringe rural (library), we’re considered by population a small public library even though the service that we actually perform is about medium-sized. So for us to be included, that’s a pretty big deal.”
In their excitement, the staff immediately started researching previous Library Journal architecture issues, to find out what to expect and how Pinson measured up to the libraries that are normally chosen for this honor.
“We talked a little bit about some of the other libraries who have been included in the issue,” Scanlan said. “The staff had a lot of questions about that, and of course since we’re all kind of researchers at heart, everybody was pulling up their website and looking at more details about what they usually include in their annual architecture issue.
“In years past, the architecture issue has been very focused on this modern, super-sleek, almost industrial look for libraries. That’s where a lot of library architecture and library design is headed. Sort of futuristic, bright colors and everything. It was nice because we kept our library classical … so it was nice to be included in that when we’re not really on trend right now. Our library is just sort of outside of the normal as far as what new and renovated libraries look like right now. So it was very exciting for them to choose us as kind of an example of that.”
Despite the large-scale of this national publication, and Scanlan working alongside a researcher from Library Journal for Pinson Library’s submission, Scanlan said she still does not know how Pinson Public Library got on Library Journal’s radar.
“We have a couple of possibilities, but we haven’t actually traced it back to how they found out about us … it was just a very happy surprise!” Scanlan said. “I always felt like our new library is very unique and has an interesting story, so it’s really great for that to be recognized, not just here, because it’s important here – this building is so important to people who know it and love it and drive by it everyday – but for it to also be recognized on a much, much larger level is a huge compliment.”
Scanlan said that she and her staff researched back a couple of years to see if any other Jefferson County libraries had been included in previous Library Journal architecture issues, but they did not find any.
“It’s my understanding that the Birmingham Public Library, the ‘new’ building that’s currently under construction that was built in the 70s … when it was new, that one was included in the architecture issue,” Scanlan said. “But that is the only one specifically that I know of. I could be wrong, but I haven’t seen any others.”
While Library Journal’s architecture issue comes out in November, Scanlan said that it will most likely not be available on newsstands for the public to purchase, due to it being a subscription publication for library professionals. For anyone wanting to follow this experience with Pinson Public Library, however, Scanlan said that Library Journal does put a lot of their content on their website at libraryjournal.com, so the articles in the architecture issue should be available online, freely accessible to the public.
