Everyone agrees that the Nantahala Community Library is a mess. It’s tiny and ill-suited to house a library. And it’s falling apart. Mushrooms have been known to sprout from dark and dank corners of the 1,800-square-foot trailer.
“It’s a double wide trailer and it’s about rotted down,” said county commissioner Paul Higdon, who is the board’s liaison to the Nantahala community.
Discussions have been going on for years about how to address what everyone agrees is an obvious need. Library board member Ed Trask, who described Nanathala as a “whole different world,” spoke again at the November county commissioners’ meeting, reiterating the library’s needs.
Limited Options
Some community members would like to build a new facility or expand the current library, but the property just won’t allow it. The library is located on Nantahala School property, just several yards from the school building. A steep embankment rises on the other side of the library’s trailer.
A space needs analysis conducted for the county didn’t help. The study recommended that the county build a new library with a price tag of $4 million - way more cost and size than anybody involved in the situation wants.
“The Mosley Architect study done last year as part of the county’s capital improvement plan recommended 10,000 square,” Wallace said. “They didn’t talk to us at all. I don’t know where they got that figure. We don’t really need that.”
“We were hoping for a little bit more space; 2,500, I think, would be a perfect size for us,” said librarian Sharon Crosby, part of a two-person staff that includes Nantahala native Peggy Ellison.
So the county started looking at other options.
“If we abided by the space needs analysis, the library would never be built, at least in the foreseeable future,” Higdon said. “We realized we had to do something. The county found a parcel in Whiteoak Bottoms with an existing 1,200-square-foot building, and the county is in negotiations with the owner, he said.
“It’s not the perfect place for the library,” Higdon said. “There’s no broadband within three miles. But we need to do something. We are in negotiations with the owner, doing due diligence for sewer and water.”
Kupper said the new building is well-constructed. “It could be expanded or a second floor added.”
No access to broadband is a non-starter.
“We did focus groups, community meetings and surveys to determine what community priorities were,” Wallace said. “Internet access was very high because so few people can get good internet service. We don’t want to move into a facility that can’t support broadband.”
Higdon said that talks are underway with broadband supplier Balsam West, whose current coverage ends at school,” he said.
The price tag: $300,000 in construction costs, with a $300 monthly fee for the slowest access.
“That seems like a huge fee, but as a public library, we’re eligible for [FCC] E-Rate discounts,” Wallace said. “Those funds allow us to get between 75-80 percent discounts.”
Heart of the community
As humble as the library is now, it still serves as a community center. The Nantahala Community Club operates out of the library. The Fontana system calls its libraries the “heart of the community.” Nowhere is that more true than in Nantahala, where the library serves as a hub for the estimated 2,000 Nantahala residents, including about 415 patrons.
“It›s not just a library,” Crosby said. “It›s a community club. It›s a senior center.”
On a recent visit, welcome baskets assembled for new residents occupied a table in the library’s biggest room, a space where the community club meets and works on various projects.
“Craft classes have always been very popular there, but you have to have enough storage and let people spread out,” Wallace said.
“We’ve had several classes - art classes, cooking, bread making, jewelry making,” Crosby said. “We had a yoga class one time. Somebody volunteered to teach, and it was very popular.”
Crosby and Kuppers said there is demand for classes and programs, but the library and the community as a whole often feel overlooked by county government and service providers in Franklin.
“I have tried to get more county services over here, like senior programs,” Crosby said. “But I can’t get I can’t get anybody from Franklin to come over to present any of the programs that they have.”
The library is home to the Nantahala Community Club, and its public broadband access is one of its biggest attractions. The computer workstations are crowded into a tiny room right inside one of the two entrances.
“We need a quiet place for computers and people to work, not a space where everybody’s walking through,” Crosby said.
Hope for solution
Despite years of disappointment Higdon and Wallace are hopeful that help is coming soon
“There’s no perfect solution,” Higdon said.
“We’ve really tried to make the best of what we have, but we don’t want the building to fall down around us,” Wallace said. “We’re just holding our breath at this point. We just can’t stay in that space. I’m optimistic that something is going to happen sooner rather than later.”