SOUTHBURY — Staff, board members, volunteers, and residents packed the Southbury Public Library last Saturday to celebrate the building’s 20th anniversary and to honor the people who built it, funded it, and brought it back after the flood of 2024.
The community hub at 100 Poverty Road is unique in that it’s a place that asks nothing of you: There are no purchases required, no appointments necessary. The library is one of the few places left where your presence alone is enough.
Saturday’s gathering in the Kingsley Room served as part history lesson and part reunion, with past and present members of the library’s Board of Directors on hand to reminisce about the process and outcome of their years of planning for the building.
For Head Librarian Heather Aronson, the building represents more than her place of occupation, but rather a welcoming access point for all in the community.
“It truly is like a second home,” said Aronson, who has been with the library since 2003, before the current building even existed. “It’s really beyond the building, it’s the people.”
The building’s story began years in advance of any construction, as Shirley Michaels, the Chairman of the Library’s Board of Directors, said the board’s vision of a new library was a major undertaking.
She acknowledged the efforts of past board members, including some who were in attendance, such as Ken Karin, Wayne McCormack, Chris Bozzuto, and Chuck Crowdis.
Their efforts are recognized by numerous library plaques, which are displayed in the lobby on the east wall.
“A building like this and what goes on here doesn’t just pop up,” said Michaels, who also credited Aronson and her team with creating a warm and welcoming culture while also providing important services to patrons.
“It really is a family,” added Michaels.
Michaels also presented Chuck Crowdis with a proclamation, honoring him for nearly 30 years of service and two decades as the board’s Technology Committee Chair.
During his tenure, Crowdis helped guide the Building Study Committee and the actual Building Committee, while also creating and executing the Commemorative Brick Project, which helped fund the construction of the current library in 2006. Additionally, he oversaw technology improvements and installations over the years as the library kept up with the times in a changing world.
“Whenever there was a tech issue that would come to the board, we all looked at Chuck and we said, ‘Chuck, what do you think?,’” said Michaels.
Before Poverty Road
Saturday’s gathering doubled as a timely history lesson.
Melinda Elliott, President of the Southbury Historical Society, shared the library’s history at the celebration, walking the audience through centuries of growth and evolution.
She noted that the earliest documented evidence of a library in town comes from the diary of David Hicock, who wrote on November 26, 1776, that he “went up to the library meeting” and borrowed sermons by Jonathan Edwards. Books were moved house-to-house in those years, as the shared collection of reads was just that – a collection of books.
Then, the official building that was later used as a library was the Hall of Benjamin Downs in South Britain. There was an annual fee of four dollars, and a fine of one penny if a reader damaged the book, sometimes caused by candle droppings.
In 1904, the collection of books found a more stable home in Munson’s Hall in South Britain. The modest 475-square-foot library was built on land donated by the Mitchell family. Axel Wilson constructed the building at a total cost of $746.
In need of a bigger space, a new library opened up along Main Street in 1969 and then expanded again shortly after into what is now the building that houses the town’s Senior Center and Parks and Recreation department.
By 1994, the card catalog system had been phased out in favor of a computer catalog system, and a total of 70,000 books was part of it.
Elliott shared a quote from the library’s 25th anniversary on Main Street, when Shirley Michaels said, “As long as Southbury keeps growing and advancing and bringing in so many people who are interested in the world, the library will keep growing.”
She may have willed the next chapter into existence, as in March 1998, plans for a new library building began.
“There was no doubt that it was important to move to a larger space with a larger population in town,” said Elliott, noting the growth of Southbury with the addition of Heritage Village and Interstate 84.
In a 2002 referendum, Southbury voters approved spending more than $7 million on the new library by a two-to-one margin. With shovels in the ground by March 2004, the building was completed in 2006 and opened to the public in May of that year.
“No matter what disasters, wars, problems, Southbury still reads,” said Elliott.
Rough Waters
Catastrophic flooding struck the area in August 2024, sending water throughout the Southbury Public Library and destroying nearly everything in the basement, from books, DVDs, and materials stored for book sales run by the Friends of the Southbury Library.
The damage was severe enough that the library closed its doors for nearly a year, relocating its operations to the Heritage Hotel, where librarians continued to serve their community. Space was limited, and board meetings went on to the tune of hotel lobby music, but the library ultimately prevailed.
Through all of it, Aronson was named Librarian of the Year by the Connecticut Library Association (CLA) for her work guiding the library through the disaster and back into its home.
She was also invited to present at the CLA annual conference, leading a workshop titled “Navigating Rough Waters: Managing Through a Natural Disaster.”
“I was just doing my job,” she said. “But for me, the most important part of that was putting the staff first. The staff, the patrons, and then the books. Because books are replaceable. People are not.”
In September, a ribbon-cutting was held to celebrate its official reopening.
The library’s comeback was also made possible by elected officials at the state and federal levels.
The Connecticut State Bond Commission approved $350,000 in state funding last year to assist with flood repairs and the building’s restoration. The funding was approved unanimously in Hartford to cover the balance of the costs after reimbursement by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
More recently, Congresswoman Jahana Hayes secured $1.5 million in federal funding for flood repairs as part of a broader $10 million community investment in Connecticut’s Fifth District.
Celebration Continues
The Southbury Public Library will continue its birthday party on Saturday, May 30, with food trucks, a photo booth, and live music.
All-day events and programs are scheduled, including a concert by the Elderly Brothers.
The Brown Room will show a rotating slideshow of library photographs spanning from the 1970s through 2025. Historic scrapbooks from the same era are also on display – the same scrapbooks that miraculously survived the 2024 flood.
Stations on both floors invite anyone who enters to leave a note for the library that has, for two decades on Poverty Road, and for 250 years before that, always been there.
For more information about Saturday’s Spring Open House 20th Birthday Celebration, visit https://www.southburylibrary.org/birthday
By Evan Triantafilidis
The Southbury Record 