Human chain moves books to new Spanish Fork library

SPANISH FORK, Utah — Hundreds of volunteers gathered in Spanish Fork Saturday morning to help move books from the old library to the new one across the street.

Main Street was closed for about an hour and a half between Center Street and 100 South for the event.

The Reagan family was among the volunteers.

Nichole and James Reagan brought their three children and were excited to give back to their community because the library means so much to them.

“We homeschool, and so the library is a huge resource for us,” Nichole Reagan said. “We get to come and check out books for fun, but we also get to come and check out books that we use for school.”

Volunteers formed a line from the downstairs of the old library, out the front door, across Main Street, and into the new library right across the street.

They carried as many books as they could.

“It’s pretty cool, huh?” said Nichole Reagan to her children. “You won’t ever get to do this again.”

Main Street in @SpanishForkCity was closed for a little bit early this morning. Hundreds of people volunteered to move books from the old library across the street to the new library. We're doing this fun community story for @KSL5TV tonight at 5:00 📚 #ksltv pic.twitter.com/OGds9KIGHn

— Alex Cabrero (@KSL_AlexCabrero) March 25, 2023

The old library closed for the last time Friday evening. Plans are to use the space for Spanish Fork city offices.

A groundbreaking ceremony for the new library was held in April 2021.

It will include several rooms for library programs; the old library only had one room for adults, teenagers and kids programs.

The new library will also feature a café style booth, video game consoles and more books to reflect the growing community.

There is also more parking at the new library, which is set to officially open on April 29.

“I love the library and it’s so cool that they’re doing this,” said Rowan Meagher, who is the 2023 Miss Utah Beehive Volunteer. “It is a lot of books, but it is so much fun to help.”

Library workers were thankful for all the people who helped.

“Thank you for coming and helping us today,” said Robin Brierley to people as she took their books and stacked them on the new shelves.

Brierly is one of the library’s children’s programming coordinators.

Originally, she was supposed to be in charge of helping volunteers go in the right direction once they got into the new library.

However, with the large turnout, she and other library workers had to change job assignments to get books on shelves as quickly as possible.

“I was standing there playing Vanna White,” she said with a laugh. “And then we’re like, this is really backed up here, we got to do something else.”

The event was a success, and although there is still a lot of work to do to catalog all the books, Saturday was a big head start in preparing the library to open next month.

“You know, this is an amazing community. It truly is. We have great people and support and they’ve really been behind us all the way and it has been fantastic,” said Brierley.

It also shows those who live here love their library.

For the Reagans, it was nice to be a part of history where so much history is already kept.

“My children, they’re all old enough. They’ll remember it and remember the time they walked books across Main street,” said Nichole Reagan. “We’re looking forward to coming back when it opens.”