From the WNIN Tristate Public Media Center in downtown Evansville.

I'm David James, and this is two Main Street.

Well, you're never too old to make a dream come true.

That's the legacy of one of Evansville's most prominent citizens in the 19th century, Willard Carpenter.

After a business career that saw him losing most of his fortune.

Willard Carpenter had to give up on his longtime dream of building a college.

So in his 70s, he went to work raising money to build a library.

One of the first public libraries in Indiana, work began in 1877, but stalled due to financial concerns, and new architects had to be hired.

Work resumed five years later, and Carpenter, now in his 80s, was at the construction site every day, hoping to see the library completed in his lifetime.

He almost made it.

Willard Carpenter suffered a stroke in 1883 and died a few weeks later.

Willard Library opened in 1885.

My guests are here to continue the legacy of Willard Carpenter and start a new chapter in the Willard Library.

Story.

George Carter is the new library director, and Riley Fugate is Willard marketing and events director.

So, guys, welcome to to Main Street.

Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Good to have you here.

140th anniversary coming up.

That has to be pretty exciting, guys.

Absolutely.

It is.

It's, you know, just to be a part of the 140 years is kind of crazy.

Growing up in Evansville, you hear about Willard, and you go there as a child, and then to work there is kind of fun.

Now, George, of course, you're the new library.

Director.

And so you've got this on your plate.

Any big plans for the 140th?

I'm just now hearing this for the first time.

Not not aware.

We, we just got done celebrating 139.

So, we we haven't yet started planning 140, but, we're thinking about it's on the forefront of our minds, and so we'll have something special.

Yeah.

I'm sure.

And of course, when I in as a connection to Willard Library.

Willard Carpenter, the station used to be located in his home, the historic Willard Carpenter House, built back in 1849.

The basement of the home was a stop on the Underground Railroad for slaves crossing the Ohio River.

And the Greek Revival house is an Indiana landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

So let's learn more about Willard Carpenter.

The pioneer of public charity, his philanthropy.

And, what brought him to Evansville?

Who wants to tackle the the history?

Well, as far as what brought him to Evansville, one of the funny stories that I've learned from our, archivists and other librarians is the fact that, Willard was not the first family member of the Carpenter family to come to Evansville.

It was, in fact, his brother.

The name is all escaped me, but his brother was here, and he wrote to Willard, who was living in, I think, Vermont.

And he goes, hey, there's going to going to be this thing called the Wabash Erie Canal.

It's going to be right through Evansville.

It's going to bring in so much business.

You need to come in here, need to cash in on this.

And so Willard did.

So he came here in how is the Wabash Erie Canal doing?

I forget.

Well, you know, it was completed and then the railroads came in, and that kind of just, you.

Yeah, stifled that dream.

So anyway, but he, persevered.

He came.

I think his brother had a dry goods business or something like that.

And I guess they made some money, and, he was successful in Evansville.

Now, let's clear up some confusion now.

What's makes what makes Willard Library different from the Evansville Vandenberg public libraries?

Well, we're a separate system.

Evansville is unique in that it's one of the only districts in the country that actually has to library systems and as a long history in that.

But, the long and the short of it is, when Willard create his library, there was, already established library in Evansville, but it was run out of the school corporation of a tiny room.

And Willard thought Evansville residents deserved a bigger library building.

And when they opened in 1885, this the city or whatever the existing, library operation, they gave all the books to Willard, and the two staff members actually went and started working for Willard.

So for a period of 30 some odd years, Willard was the only public library in Evansville.

And then, when Andrew Carnegie wanted to, start funding libraries across the country, a group of citizens got together and asked for four Carnegie libraries to be added to Evansville, and Andrew gave them two.

And then that's kind of how we started the two systems, because they ended up being separate, because the original charter that Carpenter, made didn't kind of allow for a merger of two to libraries.

And so there was some disagreement about how they would run.

And that's how you ended up with two library systems.

But we are separate and distinct.

And I think it's a privilege for Evansville residents that they have two great library systems.

Now, Willard Library, of course, known for its archives and research materials.

Genealogy very important there.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

We've got, we've got some, patrons that come in that they can track their genealogy and family history back, you know, centuries.

I think our, genealogy library, when I spoke to her the other day and she's tracked her family history back to the 1100s.

So no matter, you know, if you're if you're from Evansville, we've got all the, you know, the tools and research, the books that you need to find your history.

If you're even if you've just, just come from North Dakota, we've got books from North Dakota and everywhere.

And so, it's really a crazy thing that we have so many books and research materials here.

Now, is there a special room for all these materials?

Yeah, it's the entire second floor.

Really?

Yeah, well, it's completely dedicated genealogy.

And if you're from Vanderburg County, I mean, there's no way we're the best, best bet in town for tracing your history.

Because we have more materials on Vanderburgh County than probably any library in the country.

Now, how does that work?

Somebody just walk in off the street and say, I want I want some information about my my family.

And, well, we for them.

We take a blood sample first, get their DNA.

And.

Yeah, just come on in the library, go up to our second floor, and our helpful librarians will get you started.

And they'll they'll ask you a few questions and, you know, start you in the right direction and start that long journey of finding and tracing your history.

Well, that's part of the fun of the journey.

Yeah, it is the quest, the discovering.

You know, how you're I thought I was from German descent for so long.

And whenever my dad retired last year, he started tracing our genealogy and found that we came from, Wales and France before.

So, definitely different, iterations of my last name as well.

So Georgia, they traced your, lineage yet?

You don't want to do that, history of a long, traumatic and drama filled, family.

But I've done some myself, independently on the, one of the websites that we use it to, maybe ancestry.

Ancestry?

Yes.

We've used ancestry.

Well, you never know what you're going to find.

No.

In your family history could be exciting.

It could be frightening.

Yeah.

Okay.

My guests are George Carter.

He's the new library director at Evansville's Willard library and marketing and events director.

Riley Fugate.

Both are relatively new on the job at Willard.

So, George, George, let's start with you.

20 years experience in the library world, all of that in California.

Yeah.

Well, except for the last, nine, ten months I've been here, and so.

Yeah.

So what was your first library gig in California?

I started at a place called the San Bernardino County Public Library, and it's in downtown San Bernardino, which is, a city in California, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles and Southern California.

I, applied there on a whim, walked, you know, got my best shirt and tie clip on tie that I had at the time, at the young age of 17.

And we all had those.

Yeah, dropped off a resume.

And, they interviewed me a few months later and offered me a job, and I started working there.

While I was still in high school, two, 2 to 5 shifts, Monday through Thursday, 20 hours a week as a clerk.

And, one of the funny things about working there early on is they had, an older librarian there, Paul Sanchez.

He he taught me a lot about librarianship, but I remember him, in the stacks and watching him every day and think, oh, man, I can never do this for the rest of my life like him.

And then, you know, as it turns out, you can you can.

So you moved on from that library to another work that I worked there for 13 years, and then I moved on to, in California.

We still have, they still have, a public, hospital system for mentally incapacitated individuals or, mentally unwell people that, when they're found guilty of a crime based on their incapacity, they're put in an institution, state hospital.

So I worked at the Penn State Hospital for two years as their librarian, and they had two facilities and their head librarian.

So it was very interesting job.

That is very interesting.

So what kind of books did you acquire?

The same types of books that you would find in any public library minus we did have some restrictions that didn't want, certain types of crime subject libraries or libraries about, or books about, you know, certain mental illnesses that are related to crime.

So, that we avoided those to kind of, you know, protect the patients.

And and was this part of the rehabilitation then, I guess part of the recovery?

Yeah.

So just like you think about like a correctional facility, you know, they sometimes have, you know, gyms or libraries in those facilities, same, same idea.

You have to provide some type of services to help their rehabilitation.

And the library was one of those privileges for people who are allowed out on, the, the library, the campus grounds of the facility.

You have avid readers?

Yeah, very avid readers.

A lot of, you know, institutions, correctional institutions are the same as the regular population.

You're going to get a little bit of everything.

You're going to have a sample demographic of every type of person, the readers, the people would just want to use the library to lounge, who want to use it for other services.

We also had a small law library as part of that, so people could research the pieces and try to, you know, navigate that aspect of it, or some favorite books that they checked out.

Oh, were there any special authors that they enjoyed?

Urban fiction was very popular, like, fiction about rappers, Street.

Yeah.

Things like that.

That was very popular.

We couldn't keep enough of those.

We couldn't keep enough of the, Highlander series of fiction.

Yeah.

And then also, people loved the Harry Potter series there.

We, we are always running out of our Harry Potter who does series and Game of Thrones.

We could not keep up with Game of Thrones.

They loved those series.

Yeah, yeah.

So what brought you to Evansville, Indiana?

Well, I was trying to get, a hotel for the eclipse and everything was booked, so my best bet was to get a job here.

I just started playing jobs across totality, and, Evansville was the first one that hired me.

So mission complete.

Is George always like this?

Under the next one?

Yeah.

He's always like, okay, you're.

Well, he's like the.

We do, you know, we do these ghost tours.

You know, George, for his first ghost tour, decided to take the script and then add in all of his dad jokes and puns to it.

So this is George all the time.

Okay?

Okay.

So, obviously, you learned something about Willard Library in California.

Yeah.

Well, actually, interesting connection between Willard Library and Southern California.

If you're familiar with the hotel Del California.

Yeah, it's the same architects as the Willard Public Library.

That's.

And so that was one of the interesting things that, kind of made made the connection a little bit for me.

My wife's family has some, some relatives close by.

Her parents moved out here to Tennessee.

Her brother's out in Iowa.

So, it was an interesting opportunity and time to maybe explore getting closer to our family, and.

Well, I'm glad you're here.

Yeah.

Now, of course, Riley Fugate, I know Riley.

He was, former production wizard at fire TV.

Now you're marketing the many programs and events at Willard Library.

What's what's going on?

You have authors coming in, you have this, read aloud program.

What's going on?

Riley?

Yeah.

So we've, you know, we've really tried to revamp the last few years.

Exactly the programs that we're doing, how we're operating, we're trying to make, you know, leave a larger footprint, and more availability for the community and to do things at Willard.

So, you mentioned we've got, a virtual author talks something that started in the, you know, in the coronavirus, you know, years, where we do an hour of just a, author, the, you know, I think it's, just online and streaming and they talk about new books or you know, books that they've written about, and it gives people an opportunity to do a live Q&A session with these local authors.

These are just these are all over the country.

So, just earlier this year, I think we had one with John Stamos.

Yeah.

So, you know, you can you can have these, you know, live Q&A with any authors and then we're also doing local author spotlights.

We've been doing maybe one a month for the past few months.

And these are more intimate, you know, settings with, local authors, where we meet and chat in our, Browning gallery, and we just have, book signing and Q&A with them.

Now, the YouTube channel.

Tell me about that.

Yeah.

So, once again, another thing that really, you know, started taking off in the Covid era was our YouTube channel.

Whenever I came in, that was one of the things that I really want to establish in 2021, when I started my job at Willard, given my history and my background with video, I was like, all right, this is one of the things I know that we can do.

We can step this up a little bit.

And so we've stepped up the production value a little and every month or actually twice a month, you can see, our children's librarian, Miss Lucy, read books on YouTube, sometimes featured on our Facebook, most time on YouTube, because that's where so many of, kids now spend their time.

So we're hoping that kids will kind of, you know, explore YouTube and stumble across our page, maybe listen to a book.

We we believe that listening to books is the same as reading books in a very entertaining to.

Yeah, we do our best, Miss Lucy.

She's, She's something she's a character.

Yeah.

She's, she picks some interesting books to read.

She does?

Well, you know, kids love interesting things.

They love reading about poop.

That's right.

Yeah.

And, animal poop.

Yes.

Yes.

Why animals?

Maybe eat poop.

And, you know that, I need to get off of the poop.

We also had, you know, one of our most recent ones is, Chief Philip Smith talking about, an officer and his canine dog.

And so, we're trying to do a wide variety of topics and things that, kids, younger and age can, you know, read and really relate to.

Okay, let's get back to the Gray Lady ghost.

You're talking about the tours.

Very popular.

Of course.

Are we still watching for her on video?

We do.

We?

We still have cameras running 24 over seven at the library so people can tune in.

People do tune in, and quite frequently and watch those cameras.

Hoping to get a glimpse of the Gray lady.

Those those cameras.

Actually, you can find them now at Willard ghost.com, but they're actually going to be migrated to our new web address, which is Willard lib.org.

So people are getting ready to make that transition.

They're all there.

So any recent sightings guys I think I'm the most recent not sighting okay.

But something the most recent experience.

Yes.

We had a young group of kids from Ivy tech.

They asked to use the the library recently to do a little project.

So I stayed late with them.

And after they left, I went to close up everything.

I went to use the restroom, and, I left the restroom.

That door closed.

I closed the hallway door.

That door closed behind me, and I walked down our long hallway to turn off the lights and I said, goodnight, everyone.

Is I just because I'm cheeky like that?

And you're just asking for.

I know.

And, as I went to turn off the lights, I heard a screech and another door close.

And, we actually have the camera footage of me frozen at the the light switch is wondering what what that was.

So that was the most recent experience that I know that's on record right now.

Of the paranormal or the the Gray Lady?

Yeah.

Number one, you were asking for it.

Yes.

I was, like, using the bathroom in the basement.

Yeah, late at night.

That's just.

That's asking for it, too.

That's pretty creepy.

He he passed right through the area.

Where was the, They're reciting the great lady of the Great Lakes.

So what's the history of the Gray Lady?

That is really open to interpretation.

That's true.

But, in 1937, what we do know is that 1937, there is a night janitor.

He was going to stoke the fire or stoke the furnace.

And as he went down into the hallway, he kind of he came up to, you know, do that.

And he saw a person, a lady in a dress standing, you know, in this hallway just after hours.

And this is early in the early morning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so the version of the story that I've been told that I know and that I repeat, is that, whether the library in that time would open up this area of the building to let, homeless people in to seek shelter during cold nights.

Okay.

And so the janitor thought, okay, this is someone who got outside of the gated area, and he was like, hey, what are you doing?

You're not supposed to be in here.

And so as he got closer, this person just disappeared around the corner, a corner that, you know, there's nowhere to go after that.

And so he sees that, he freaks out.

He tells the boss, of course no one believes him because he's the first one to see the great lady.

And so, evidently no one believed him.

And then he kind of turned to the drink a little bit, you know, or, and, ended up quitting because he was like, I can't take it.

You're making me feel, you know.

Yeah.

So he's the only person ever quit unemployment or employment at Willard because of the because they go, yeah, there we go.

So as the urban legend continues, yeah, it is, but a lot of people think, I, I can see how it is.

Willard Carpenter's daughter.

I do you think it could be, Well, it doesn't make sense because she.

She passed away in New England or something.

Do they make sense?

So they don't, no.

It's fun, but, yeah, it could be anybody.

This ghost is benevolent, right?

It's very benevolent.

They're very friendly.

Yeah.

Okay, so there's been no, no, no harm by the spirit.

Yeah.

We we have employees that have seen books thrown across the room.

Floated across the room.

Give her the scan version.

I've heard she said it was like it was chucked, I think.

I think, Jeff Lyons from channel 14 had an experience to it.

Yeah.

He he heard a, you know, Jeff is such a kind of a prankster a little bit.

And so he was wanting he was running some antics behind the camera, but, I guess the, the ghost just took it upon herself to, to lean into his request, and she knocked a book off of the off the shelf.

We actually have footage on our Facebook page and our YouTube page, pretty recently in the last couple of years of a book at, I think, 11:00 at night in the children's department, you can see the book just topples over and there's no way for that to happen.

I came in the next day.

I was shaking this bookshelf, trying to trying to mimic it.

It's like that bookshelf is so solid nothing can make that book fall over.

Well, tell me about these these tours, the ghost tours.

What happens during this tour?

Well, so every October, you know, we get a lot of interest that peak season for interest of the Gray Lady goes.

So we offer tours the last couple weeks of October so people can come in Halloween during Halloween tour guide takes them through the entire building and recounts some of the stories that we've collected over the years of people experiencing The Gray Lady or Paranormal Activity.

And so it's real fun for everyone.

And we've got, a little less intense tours for the kiddos as well.

They want to experience that with our with Lucy.

She's she does a great job with her tours and and then we have the ones that are for everyone and people really love them.

They they fill up quickly and, I and we and the the fun thing about the ghost tours is if George gives his dad joke, pun filled, ghost tours that tour is going to be different than the one I tell, because so many of these stories have been handed down from, you know, staff member or staff member.

You've read it on a script.

So, I mean, it's it's a loose interpretation of it, but the stories are pretty much the same.

So, George Carter, what's on your wish list for Willard Library in the next 5 to 10 years?

Do you have a wish list?

I would like to see us raise a lot of money to help, repair a lot of the deferred maintenance.

That's happened over the years with the with the the building to make sure it's in tip top shape and, ready to be preserved for the next generation of 140 years worth of patrons.

What's the most critical point, project that you have in mind?

Well, we have to replace our roof with slate roof and we are a historic landmark, so we have to follow certain rules when we're doing repairs like that.

So we and remain keep the integrity of the of its historic nature.

So it's it's a lot of work and a lot of specialists trying to find specialists that can do the work properly and make sure it, it maintains its, look and feel.

Have you had leaks in the we've had leaks that have caused, some damage on the inside.

So we've got to stop the water from leaking on the roof so that then we can move on to repairing the plaster and the paint on the inside.

Now, be kind of a unique fundraising, a campaign, a half pot at Willard Library.

Riley.

Yeah.

So, kind of leading up to, our annual book sale.

That's always the first Saturday in June.

We're, we're selling half pot tickets, so hopefully that, you know, that that grand total, you know, whole pot will grow so large that we'll have no problem, being able to repair these, you know, the roof and everything like that, but, Yeah.

Who doesn't love a half pot?

You know that there's so many good organizations in Evansville that have had success doing this.

We're kind of hoping that we can share that same success and repair this 140 year old building.

Besides the roof, what else needs to be done?

Well, we need to reinforce stairs.

So that's going to be a massive project.

We've got some wood floors.

Wood floors are still original.

They need some some, tender loving care.

They sound very original.

Yes, they sound very friendly.

Here.

I'm speaking.

Like I said, we got to, repair the plaster inside.

We've got some mechanical and electrical upgrades that need to happen.

One of the big problems we have, with the roof as well, which we're going to try to tackle at the same time, is, it's very difficult to get into our roof.

And we have some Hvac, components up there that people don't want to repair because you got to climb through a little hole in the tower, and then you gotta scale up this little tiny ladder that, and then into another hole into the attic.

So it's quite, an adventure getting up up there to do some of the repairs that need to be done.

So we've got some, engineers working on some ideas about how to make that more accessible.

And user friendly.

Our electrical system for the whole library needs to be upgraded.

And then we also have some tuck and mortar, items that we need to do around a lot of the building.

And, a lot of things regarding that actually with, with the outside of the building that needs to be addressed with, with 140 year old building, like, I imagine, like it just doesn't stop.

Oh, yeah.

I have a 30 year old house and there's constantly things need being done.

Well, that's the beauty of, of what we're hoping with the half pot, which was, brought to us by our friends of the Willard Library.

So that's one thing people can do to a sign up to be a member that also helps support the library.

But they had this great idea to do the annual half pot.

And so we're hoping this will this will be an ongoing thing and will allow us to dress some of the stuff in phases and, build up a good reserve so that we don't get behind in the future and we can keep up with these things every year.

George Carter, of course, you have a, t shirt on there since 1885.

Nice.

Rendering of Willard Library, a very classic, t shirt.

Now, what was your first impression when you walked inside Willard Library for the very first time, George?

Oh, I was I was stunned.

It's a beautiful library.

I mean, the the wood intricacies that you can tell all of the care and all of the, really craftsmanship that was put into it originally.

You just don't see them these days when when you build modern buildings.

Just the intricate details.

Definitely.

We've got these great, beautiful windows that look into our beautiful park.

It was just a great environments.

One of the things that, you know, helped me make the decision, you know, to, to come to Evansville and to comes giant bookcases to.

Yeah, yeah.

Because is incredible.

Yeah.

But whenever you're like, sitting actually like on either of the floors, you know, the, the second or the first, like whenever I first got there, one of the things I really noticed is like the 20ft doors or like the 18ft doors, I mean, you just realize, like just how small you can feel in this giant room.

Yeah, of course you have a great lot, too.

And you have a great, I know the landscaping is very good.

And you had a park there.

You know, we have, park, sponsored by the city's, the city, sponsored park.

We actually held we hold events there all the time.

We we were just there open for the eclipse.

We had over 300 people camped out in the park with us.

They had a great time.

We had people as far away as Oregon.

We had people from Florida.

We had people that worked, with NASA.

They had their big telescopes and large, cameras out, and they took some amazing photos.

They just we got so much positive feedback about how beautiful the park was and the building.

They had such a great time just hanging out with us.

And the Jamesville community.

So we really are privileged to have such a beautiful park that people can enjoy and, and use.

It's a great asset too, because we, you know, in the summer, if you drive by, you know, on a Wednesday, you probably will see some kids running around because we have our summer reading program going on.

We do, scavenger hunts and all sorts of things.

We, you know, puppet shows, magicians, we, we try to go all out for our summer reading program for our kids.

Now, Riley.

Fugate, tell me about the libraries community outreach.

Know you have a summer reading initiative you talked about?

Yeah.

So, one of the things that's really been growing the past few years is our summer reading program.

Last year, we had almost a thousand kids that joined, which is that was a really big accomplishment for us because, we are such a small library, but we are trying to build and be more community focused.

So, yeah, anytime that we can get, you know, kids come out and that's one of our key initiatives.

One of mine, for marketing is that if we can try to get these kids into our doors and see what kind of a treasure, whether it is at a young age, we're hoping that maybe they can come back whenever, you know, they're not doing the summer reading program, or they can come back and maybe, you know, check out some books and then eventually come back whenever they have kids and the cycle continues.

But we are constantly teaming up with, other organizations and businesses to throw events.

George just mentioned we teamed up to do the eclipse event in our park with the, Jacobs, Jacob Ville neighborhood.

And, we're just trying to be better community neighbors and partners with, you know, other businesses and entities.

Now, George Carter, are you a library tourist?

Have you visited some other libraries?

I have, I've been to some some I've actually eaten ice cream in the Library of Congress.

I don't I can list.

Well, they don't, but, sometimes you get to be a part of cool events.

Me being in this profession.

When I worked at the San Diego County Law Library, we had events with, the government printing office.

And so we got, a special reception there one year in the Library of Congress.

We got to tour it and they had a little ice cream bar for all the librarians there.

You're a very, very small group of people.

Get a can say that.

Yeah, it's very small.

I'm sure it's not encouraged.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I'm in now.

Let's see here.

You have relationship now with, local universities, is that correct?

We do have, you know, we are kind of involved with, UC and USC.

They both have, programs that they host, and our Browning Gallery occasionally.

But, USC has got a really good, archives department, and it's often where we kind of, we host a Am or sorry, not we, but USC does a archives madness competition.

And so it's kind of a friendly archives madness, archives madness to see.

It's during March, but it's kind of a friendly, you know, bracket competition to see who can, who can dig up and, like, display the most.

I think it's just the coolest artifact.

You know, that they can find.

And so, we actually went a couple of years ago with the, original Evansville City Charter.

We have that in our archives.

This year, we, entered the building itself, which I don't know how the building itself does not win, but, we we got booted pretty early in the competition.

They didn't, like repeat winners, so they make sure they don't.

It was it made sure we we went out fast.

Well, the building itself, like I said, the Reid brothers were the architects of Willard Library, and they did the hotel del Coronado in San Diego, the Dell.

Yes.

Which was the scene of Some Like It Hot, the movie, of course.

And now the library was damaged during the June 8th, 19.

1982 storm.

I think it was the 8280s.

Yeah, for the 80s.

And, structural issues from that, of course.

Yeah.

Compounding the age of the building.

There's a really cool story with that when we have, and our archives and our reading room, we have a cool photo.

That's the only way I really know about that is, like, there's a photo with, governor or speaking in front of, you know, the library, and you can see, like, there's a big crane or something, like doing something, but, that was the storm that actually blew off the roof or damaged the roof.

Over the Bayard, the Bayard room.

Wow.

And the Bayard room.

Now it's this, really pretty, like, green color that you probably associate with Christmas.

But that's by design, because it's during that storm they found, like, layers and layers of different paint, I guess.

And then at the bottom was this, like, green color, and they're like, hey, this is kind of funky and cool.

Let's go with that.

Yeah, that was the original green color.

And so, the color that you see now, it's not the original, you know, paint, but it's the original color, okay.

In that room.

So how have have investments in technology affected?

Willard Library over the years?

George?

Well, they've affected all libraries.

I mean, we we've had become more mobile and more responsive to community needs.

Across the country, libraries everywhere are experiencing huge demand.

And their digital assets, including audiobooks and ebooks.

I mean, hard to really keep up.

And residents of Indiana should be really proud of their library system, because Indiana State Library and Indiana Legislature has provided lots of resources for resource sharing among libraries.

Not only do we do the archives managed with USC, but libraries across the state have been set up to share resources so you can borrow from other libraries, including USC, R, U of E, and They also have a resource sharing for our digital assets.

So we're part of that, consortium of Indiana libraries where we have digital ebooks and, and audiobooks through our app called Libby, which is available to, to cardholders so they can just check out from the convenience of their phone, a book or e-book that they want to listen to or read from.

The convenience of their phone.

So that's one of the really big advancements in libraries.

And of course, a lot of people still don't have access to wi fi or technology, and they still use libraries, to, to kind of bridge that gap to help them, meet their needs of everyday life.

Imagine being without internet at home, and, your libraries are one resource.

So, another proud point for Indiana residents that they have libraries across the state that can help provide.

What I think is very important is to is they're digitizing these documents that you you could never probably find on your own, digging through libraries.

And now you can just get these letters from these, important people.

Their correspondence is incredible for researchers and newspapers.

We have, oh, yeah, tons of digital newspapers.

We actually were given a long time.

Patron of our library, passed away, and they donated $70,000 to the genealogy department, and they have used that to buy some, books, scanner and a microfiche scanner so that we can help as part of that digitization, because we have tons of archives that we still need to digitize, that we're still working through.

And thanks to that, you know, that donor she she is and help making that possible, that special collections department they are constantly digitizing.

Yeah.

Old microfilm.

And it's something I didn't know about this problem before, but that can actually go bad.

And it can vinegar.

Yeah.

And it and we, we did a really good TikTok, of one of our, librarians, talking about the vinegar, the vinegar ization.

Yes.

Vinegar ization of these riddles.

It's, stands, stands a hoot, but.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's, he's a good character.

And he was perfect for that video.

Of course, Willard Library is a go to place for historic documents and photographs.

And you have, quite a collection there of photographs.

I know.

Yeah, yeah, we're still, it seems like our archivist is constantly finding stuff in Maine.

Like.

Hey, guys, check this out.

This is something I found in this box.

And so a lot of the times that's, you know, these cool things, that's how they come about.

And we always have, you know, exhibits showcasing this stuff right now on their first floor.

We've actually got, Willard Carpenter's glasses, his pocket watch in the original.

Oh.

What is the letter to his trusty, his friends who were, turned into trustees, for the Willard library.

So, that's on display right now in our on our first floor.

But, these are things that really haven't been displayed or talked about at the library.

So this is a first that, you know, we're talking about now, these items here, now, how do you, people just find these items in their attics or basements or they're they're passed down through generations.

How do you get some of these items?

Well, if you've ever seen the movie, National treasures, where we still the Constitution of independence or the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

It's similar to that people go on these wild adventures and they, No, I don't know, they just they they have, they acquire them through various means, you know, passed down as family heirlooms.

And eventually they make it into the the archives of the Willard Public Library.

And we're very thankful for it.

We have, one of the, front pages of the London.

It's one of our oldest items.

It's old.

It's four years younger than our oldest book that we have here at the library.

And, regional recently discovered.

We don't know how it came to us.

Oh, it's okay.

You can take it out of there.

Well, you can you can grab it.

You can take a shot of this.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't want to touch it.

I don't want to touch it.

And what's the date on that?

It was eight, 16, 67, so September of 1667.

I have my notes here, but, so I learned that, the London Gazette was eventually the Oxford Gazette.

King Charles the Second actually fled London during the Great Plague.

And so, the only Gazette went through a little name change for a little bit during that.

And so how it came into our possession, we have no idea.

But it's really cool and really unique.

It is definitely.

What's the strangest item that they've discovered?

You think, in the archives.

Oh, and there is, you know, one thing that we still have a mystery on.

We actually discovered, keys to a library.

A bank, which called bank safe deposit box.

Oh, yeah.

And we have information about this deposit box.

It says it, you know, it contains a letter that we're still tracking down.

We haven't been able to find where this safe deposit box is, but we have the keys.

We will be canceling the renovation raffle if we find this.

Oh, no.

Deposit box?

No.

Well, it could be anything.

Yeah, it could be anything.

That could be a big prank.

Yeah.

And we have, we have something called a murder mask, too.

Oh, okay.

That was something that we found a couple of years ago, and we had it on display in our archives for Halloween.

You know what I don't understand?

Murder mask.

What's that?

I'm just hearing this for the first time.

That's that's that's what I've been told.

It was, it was a mask, and the girls call it the murder mask.

So, we also found, one of the one of the coolest things, I think is, we have a Reitz, high school.

School banner.

But the colors are purple and gold.

Okay.

Yeah.

Which now the colors are, I don't know, gray, silver and blue, but, purple and gold for rights.

Banner.

I thought that was interesting.

We've got some old postcards soon.

We just did it.

One of our staff members just did a video about, one of the postcards.

She was recently traveling in Italy.

Is that right?

Yeah.

And, then she was going through our postcards as part of some, you know, archive, projects, and she found a postcard of the exact same picture she took of the square in Italy.

And so we find really unique and interesting things like that all the time that we can connect to.

Some of those old postcards are really cool.

Yeah, some of the things are no longer there.

Yeah.

I mean, that's old the old parks.

Yeah.

Shots from the zoo and stuff like that.

Now also, you have some incredible photos of the 1937 flood in Evans.

Yeah we do.

Yeah.

Those were actually taken by, Carl K connect, who?

We have his, large print bio photo here.

Those photos are, you know, on our Facebook page.

Every week we do a Throwback Thursday, and those are constantly, like, our biggest, you know, posts of the week and and really yearly let people love their history.

And we've got such a treasure trove of historical photos.

Mainly by Carl K connect.

He's we have like 6000 photos, I think, just in his collection.

We're really blessed to have that.

And, you know, lucky to share it with everyone.

Well, he's not only the cartoonist for The Courier forever.

He was their photographer, too.

Yeah, well, I had to write down, you know, all of his titles there, but cartoonist, photographer, columnist, director, and then eventually the vice president of the Evansville Courier.

Yet, 54 year career there.

Oh, yeah.

And that's that's crazy.

And so, yeah.

Unique.

Yeah.

That's in.

Yeah.

I love the little the steel plate that they use for printing.

Now tell me about the staff at Willard Library.

It's.

What do you want to know?

I mean, how many people are employed?

We have about 19 people currently, and that's a mixture of full time and part time.

Staff members.

They're very dedicated.

They try to be.

They are very friendly.

And we're known for our friendliness among the community.

And we try it.

We try to strive for that as as much as we can and, be a great resource and, great partner.

And how is the library funded?

Library is funded by our foundation, the original foundation that's grown over the years.

We do get a good portion of public funding.

Not as great as that helps, operate the daily operations.

Because of the way they're structured, we don't have all of the, financial tools like bonding and things that, like the regular systems like APL have.

And, so we we rely on the foundation to supplement most of the operations and things like building repairs.

That's why we're doing the fundraising for the half part and, different initiatives like that and selling our great merch is my.

And we actually even have books about the 1937 flood that are that people can purchase as well through the friends bookstore.

So what's been the reaction to this kind of this new chapter in Willard libraries?

Yeah, it does kind of feel like a new chapter because in the, I've been there for three years now, since I began working at Willard, we have, I believe, three new department heads, which we we have four departments.

So our new department heads and the special Collections Children's, and then our archives.

Everyone's kind of got a new spin that they want to do.

And something.

Then the person they did before.

And so there's, you know, new blood, including George that just joined us, last year.

And so, everyone I think is really excited with how, you know, we can use technology to, you know, advance our, our mission and expand the footprint of what we do.

Something that, you know, everyone's got their phone on them all the time.

Well, something that we just, got access to that.

Not a lot of libraries have access to is called Mango Languages.

And it's something that you can learn up to 70 new languages.

And this is a free offering that we do with your Willard library card.

It's something that, you just put in.

It's an app, and you just put your library card in there, and then you can start learning Spanish or Chinese or Italian.

And so we're, we're trying to, you know, be more technologically advanced.

As we kind of talked about earlier, I don't think George fits the role of as the stodgy Larbert librarian, does he?

No, no, not at all.

He says he kind of keep things light.

Yeah.

He eventually maybe he'll get there.

You know he won't.

So you like to keep things fun?

I try, I like, you know, like wrestling with our dad jokes, you know?

You know, how do you how do you find the leopard?

Well, always because they're spotted.

Oh, they're there and easy to spot.

Yeah.

Look to it growing more mature.

Yes.

Absolutely.

But yeah.

So, so I know you got the an anniversary coming up the 140th anniversary.

What do you see for Willard in the next maybe five years?

George, a new roof.

I know a new roof.

Yeah.

You know, we've got some, you know, advancements to make with our everyday processes in terms of making it easier for patrons to use our technology and and use our services.

We're hoping to, you know, just, improve our website, functions and hopefully, get more people involved in our ghost cams.

And we've got some ideas about, how to use those and market those and improve those.

We're coming up with ideas to, increase our, ability to record our lectures and make sure that we get all of those available, like one of, for example, one of our most popular, murders, most foul.

We started this last year.

It's a lecture series by our historic resident historian, Stan Schmidt.

And, the the response to this program was unbelievable.

We cannot handle all the people who wanted to come to this program.

And, so we're trying and we've we've plan number two, and that's coming up on May 7th.

May 7th, and it's already completely sold out, so to speak.

We didn't sell tickets, but the space available has completely filled up.

So we're trying to improve our ability to stream those types of programs so that no one misses out on a really interesting program that a lot of people have interest and some murderers.

Most foul was, you know, exploring the murders in Evansville in the 1800s.

So these are real life.

These are true crime.

You know, there's such a, such an audience and interest for this.

I know lots of people my age love the true crime, I guess.

And so, we're kind of taking the the real life, in-person version of this podcast and bringing it to Willard Library.

And we're going to talk about, handful of, you know, bloody true crime stories that happen right here.

Well, you got true crime.

You got the ghost, you got all kinds of things going on.

That's what we try to do.

We try to have the the broad spectrum and the children's area.

So a lot going on.

So what are you guys reading these days?

Oh no idea.

What are you reading?

You have time to read?

I have the library I don't I, I've, I the last year of that I really read a lot of books was probably 2019.

I read probably about maybe 15 to 20 books that year, all classics that I had just gotten into.

I was in, you know, law libraries before.

So my reading interest was a little bit different.

So I tried to catch up on all the classic, but the last few years.

So because I have two young kids and I'm working as a director, you've always got something on your plate.

So I, I do find it hard to read.

I've got some books on my list this year.

We actually have where, where where there's a Willard, which is the history of the Willard Public Library.

So I've been sporadically getting a couple pages in here at a time, but my reading habits are really poor right now.

Sad to say.

As a director of a library, I do listen to a lot of news, podcasts and sports podcasts, though that while I drive and commute and, when I'm working on other other items, Riley, we, before I give my answer, we we did a TikTok is punting.

We made a TikTok.

And, it was in January and I went around asking all of our, all of our librarians, just really, really like getting in their face, turning the corner, being.

Hey, how many books did you read last year?

And, like, the reactions are so funny from, our staff, because they're just they're not expecting it makes really good content.

And, George was actually the star of one where, George was probably 1 or 5 or out of 5 or 6 people.

And we're like, oh, here's George, my boss.

Hey, George, how many books to read last year?

And he just goes zero.

And, so many people in the comments are like, hold on, wait, what is this guy's the director of, And the offense.

I had to move across country.

Yeah, he he was busy, but, my my answer is, it's very low.

It's single digits.

I just read, I began reading a book called, well, fall, and it was.

Still, I still need to go back to it to finish out.

I don't know if I will, but, I like reading some, you know, fiction.

And do you have new books coming in all the time?

Every week and new books?

Yeah.

And we have, a new book item on our website and our social media.

So we post all the new books and for the week and, we get a lot of people that ask if we have new books.

And the answer is, oh my gosh, yes, we just because we are 140 year old building, we have we get 20 or 30 new book, new books every week.

We, we very much have new books.

So please, not only can you get classics like To Catch a mockingbird or To Kill a mockingbird, but, you can get the newest books out there too.

And if we don't have something, if you request that, we will get it for you.

Okay, guys?

Yeah, well, George Carter and Riley Fugate, thanks for being my guest on two Main Street.

Letting us know there's much more to the Willard library than just stacks of old books.

And remember, a library card is a key to open a world of new experiences.

Yes, yes it does.

Okay, so enjoy your adventure at Willard Library.

Thank you so much.

I'm David James and this is two Main Street.