For over a decade, there was no place to check out a book in Kake, Alaska.
Tucked into a pocket on Kupreanof Island, the Kake School District closed the library in 1999 because of funding loss.
Through outside partnerships and the hard labor of volunteers, the books were put back on the shelves and the library reopened one year ago.
Christmas has come early for Jocelyn McKinnon-Crowley.
She unpacks a cardboard box, filled to the brim with hardcovers that were donated by a couple in Juneau.
Where to donate
The Shirly Jackson Community Library welcomes donations of novels/graphic novels/picture books, published within the last 10 years. They also welcome any historical Alaska books and documents, as well as Tlingit books and oral histories, no matter the publication date and condition. Monetary donations are welcome as well.
Shirly Jackson Community Library
P.O. Box 450
Kake, Alaska 99830
“Oooo, ‘Heroes of the Frontier.’ Dave Eggers. These are really great,” she exclaims, peering further into the box. On top is a note. It says, “Best wishes on the opening of your library,” written in cursive on sunflower paper.
Kake’s library catalog lists 13,705 titles, but many are old, outdated or missing.
In the Shirly Jackson Community Library, named after a famed local teacher, there are bean bags, potted plants, and six computers beneath a sign, which says “Light up your Imagination and Read.”
The only thing out of date are the books.
A good portion of the collection is pre-1999, when the library closed.
And there are a lot of duplicates and classroom sets, like 20 copies of C.S. Lewis’s “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”
McKinnon-Crowley is the second AmeriCorps VISTA to work on the project.
“We recently removed about 1500 kids books that were all pre-1960s kids books that were falling apart,” she said.
To refresh the collection, the library began seeking donations of gently used books, especially those geared towards kids and about Alaska.
This is the seventh box to arrive.
While the library is operated and paid for by the school district, it’s open to the public and offers programming to both kids and adults.
“Sometimes, Saturdays will be incredibly quiet and then we’ll have knitting and crocheting and it will be super quiet in here,” she said. “Some Saturdays, six or seven kids will show up.”
Re-opening the library has been a major goal of school administration, said Kevin Shipley, superintendent and principal of Kake’s schools.
“Watching the kids have an opportunity to say, ‘Hey, I can actually have a place to learn and use,’ it’s a great thing,” he said.
Shipley said the resurrection of the library mirrors the history of Kake.
In the 1990s, Kake’s economy — built on logging and fishing — collapsed from what Shipley calls a “perfect storm of factors.”
“You had the (federal government) put regulations on logging, you had changes in the fishing program, and then you had prices of fuel go up,” he said.
School enrollment dropped as families left, which cut funding. And the library was one of the casualties.
“You cut the fat first, then you cut muscle, then you get down into the bone,” he said. “So we are bare bones here.”
When Shipley arrived in 2012, most of the collection was packed in boxes.
But that year, the school had a lucky break.
Enrollment was 101 and that extra student qualified them for $300,000 through the state’s per-pupil funding formula.
With the extra cash, Shipley hired a principal, Evelyn Wilburn who, alongside community member Marsha Ward, got the library back on its feet.
The one-year anniversary of the reopening was in October.
