Kathy Bartscht has processed more than 50,000 books since she began volunteering at the Bloomingdale Public Library-probably more books than anyone has ever read, touched or seen.
That`s because she loves books and words.
”Words fascinate me and they always have, says Bartscht, 75, a Bloomingdale resident and grandmother of four.
She particularly likes oxymorons, figures of speech in which opposite or contradictory ideas or terms are combined. (Oxymoron means acutely silly in Greek). Bartscht collects oxymorons as other people collect stamps. ”A happy hanging” is one of her favorites.
She generally is acclaimed as something of a human computer, her library coworkers say.
”We often use her as a reference source,” secretary Jean Hamilton says. ”She has a fascinating memory.”
Hamilton and other personnel say they can mention a snippet of a poem or a song running through their heads, and Bartscht can tell them its title and often can recite or sing it from start to finish.
”It sometimes seems that she uses the reference materials more than any of our patrons. She`s always on some sort of quest to look up the origin of a word in a foreign language,” Hamilton says, adding that Bartscht always remembers any word she looks up.
Harriet Smolla, a retired librarian, agrees that Bartscht has a remarkable memory.
”Her memory is the best in the library,” Smolla says unequivocally.
”It`s 100 percent better than mine.”
Bartscht concedes she almost lives up to her billing. ”We used to memorize poetry in grade school,” explains Bartscht, who grew up in Springfield.
She tells of a woman who came into the library and began humming a tune by composer Felix Mendelssohn. ”She walked up to each library worker in turn and hummed a snatch of the song. She wanted to know what it was,” Bartscht says. When the woman came to Bartscht, she identified it as Mendelssohn`s
”Spring Song.”
”There`s nothing you can`t find out at the library,” she says.
Her knowledge of the library and her memory were two reasons Bartscht was offered a permanent position at the library on three occasions. But each time she turned the offer down.
”I don`t need the money,” she says, ”and I don`t want to be tied down.”
Bartscht, one of four volunteers, works about 12 hours a week-”or until I`m done”-on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and is very reliable, says Mary Rodne, administrative librarian. ”She`s never sick, and only takes a week or two off each year for vacation. She`s a big asset. We look forward to her coming. She`s able to relate with everyone.”
Although Bartscht now confines herself to processing new books, ”I`ve done everything but scrub the johns,” she says, noting that she`s packed books, checked them out, done filing and secretarial work, and even taught knitting.
”I will continue until I fall over,” Bartscht says, adding that working at the library keeps her mind occupied.
Bartscht, who also volunteers one day a week as a ”girl Friday” at Trinity Lutheran Church in Roselle, says she gets first pick of the shelves, simply because she sees the books first. ”I take home two to four books a week and push them on my friends if I like them,” she says. Romances and mysteries are her favorites, she says.
Bartscht has volunteered at the Bloomingdale library longer than the building has existed.
In the winter of 1975 she was looking for something to do. Her daughter, Nancy Vanden Berg, with whom she lives, suggested that she volunteer at the library because of her interest in words. ”I came, and they grabbed me,” she says of the fledgling library, then operating in two trailers. ”It was the best thing that ever happened to me.
”I remember sitting on the floor of the inside of a trailer in March, 1975, three months before the library (building) opened, packing books in cartons, which were bursting at the seams.”
Bartscht is the only remaining volunteer from those days when the library was in two mobile classrooms bought from a Glendale Heights school district and located at Bloomingdale Road and Fairfield Way.
Planning for the the library-which now has 43,820 books, 400 video and 1,875 audio (tapes, records and compact discs) materials-began in 1973, Rodne says. A committee was appointed to study the feasibility, and the village board recommended an interim facility until a permanent building could be erected.
The mobile rooms opened on June 8, 1975, with 4,500 books, a staff of 3 and 30 volunteers. Six months later, it was one of four libraries selected as an All-Star Library by the Illinois Library Association. It was judged on its overall quality, including the number of books in a given category, the ratio of staff to residents and the variety of programs offered.
A year later voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum for a $1.25 million bond issue to build a permanent facility. The land just east of the mobile rooms was donated by a Bloomingdale developer, Campanelli Builders Inc. The 20,000-square-foot building at 101 Fairfield Way was designed by Art Jakl & Associates, Bloomingdale, and received an award from the Society of American Architects three months after its doors opened on July 15, 1982. The airy, two-story, pyramid-shaped building was awarded a blue ribbon for architectural excellence in the $1 million to $3 million category.
Rodne notes that the library has 9,401 card holders-almost 65 percent of the residents. Bloomingdale is a well-read community, she says with pride. Last year, 120,823 books were taken out, and Rodne expects this year`s total to exceed that figure by more than 100,000.
The first priority of the library, Rodne says, is to increase its stock of best sellers and other popular materials. The second is to enlarge its reference collection; the third is to develop more children`s programs. The library`s $571,468 annual budget is funded primarily from property taxes.
Rodne and her 19-member staff recruit Bloomingdale residents to make even more use of the library:
– After taking its campaign to all schools in Bloomingdale, 500 children participated in a reading program last summer.
– June 19-Aug. 4, it will hold a reading ”contest.” A free certificate for items at local stores and fast-food chains will be awarded to each child who reads at least eight books. There are two divisions: Children 3- to 5-year-olds will have the books read to them; those from 5 to 15 must read them themselves. The children will have to give a brief summary of each and answer a few questions from librarians, Rodne says, to show they know what the books are about.
– Five sections of story hours for preschoolers and children ages 5 to 8 are offered, and classes on baby-sitting for teenagers and first-aid for school-age children are also held.
– It also took part in a second-annual children-and-books festival weekend sponsored by and held at Stratford Square mall, Bloomingdale. Called
”A Child`s World,” the festival featured librarians telling stories every half hour-in costume, if appropriate to the story being told.
The library is one of 28 members of the Du Page Library System. It joined the system when its computer was installed in 1975. The library`s membership has been a boon, since cardholders have access to the collections of all the member libraries. And if a book is found at a member library, delivery to the requesting library is part of the service.
Thousands of framed art prints, books and video materials may be checked out through the system for three months and renewed if there`s no demand for them, Rodne says. ”One Bloomingdale woman borrowed about 100 prints throughout the year with her library card and hung them on her walls-and renewed them month after month,” Rodne says.
For more information on the Bloomingdale Public Library, call 529-3120.
