There was a worn-out blue chair for $15, golf balls displayed in an egg carton, old cookbooks, and other unwanted trinkets on tables.
A garage sale wasn't the normal scene you would expect to find in a library. But then again, the Whitehouse Community Library isn't an ordinary library.
Without any tax dollars funding its day-to-day operations, the library is staffed by 40 volunteers, and it relies on donations to keep its shelves stocked.
It's a community library -- one that has a small-town feel since the building at 10651 Waterville St. was several mobile school classrooms.
But at a time when many school librarians are being laid off and public library hours are getting cut, Whitehouse library trustees said they are proud their programs are growing this year.
"I'm very saddened by the status of libraries. … Libraries are not being funded in the way they need to be. That's crucial," said trustee DeAnna Bradley, a retired media specialist and librarian for Toledo, Anthony Wayne, and Springfield schools. "We're kind of filling a niche."
This summer, Whitehouse's library is adding a summer reading program for 13 to 17-year-olds.
There's evidence of teen readers. On shelves, the hot item, The Hunger Games series, was checked out, while the not-as-hot Twilight series was still available on a recent day.
The children's program, held the first Saturday of every month, has grown to about 30 kids, up from a handful of youngsters from earlier.
And the shelves are packed.
There are about 12,500 books, DVDs, and other items in the library's circulation, a nearly 56 percent increase from when the library opened in 2004, the trustees said.
They said their library is financially sound.
"Our testament is we're open," Mrs. Bradley said.
"We really operate on a shoestring," said library trustee Barbara Smigelski, a retired Whitehouse Elementary School teacher.
For years, Whitehouse advocates pushed for their own library branch.
In 1998, then-Whitehouse council member Angela Kuhn, now the mayor, said she was disappointed but not surprised when the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library rejected the Whitehouse branch proposal after the village campaigned for a decade.
The library finally opened in in 2004.
First Published May 29, 2012, 4:30 a.m.
