She said the book drop is needed to accommodate library visitors who can only use the facility — located in an old trailer behind Monroe Primary School on Macready Avenue — on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.
“A lot of people complained that they need someplace to drop their books off. So we’re trying to again accommodate our patrons,” Sells said.
“Someone said, ‘well why don’t you just drill a whole in the door’ and I said, ‘well this is not our property it belongs to the school board, and we can’t do anything like that.’ So the only other thing we can do is buy a book drop and put it outside for people to drive by and drop their books in.”
Sells said she also looked into buying a old post office drop box to use as a book drop, but was told by United States Postal officials that since 911 that these boxes can no longer be used.
“Because we thought that would be ideal to get one of those, but it can’t happen. So that’s when had to start thinking so how do we go about doing this,” she said.
So far the library, which was started by Monroe residents in Nov. 2005 and begins its fifth year of operation this fall, has received $1,500 in donations with two $500 contributions from Duke Energy, and money from Baker Concrete and from other individuals in the community, she said.
“Yes, it does help for individuals to give us $100 here and $100 there, but it’s the big dollars, the $500, the $1,000, and if we can only get the community businesses to do a little bit more,” she said.
How to donate
Anyone interested in making a donation can send contributions to Friends of the Monroe Lending Library, P.O. Box 132, Monroe, OH 45050, or stop by the library and make a donation by dropping money into a jar.
Operating hours are 3 to 8 p.m. Mondays, 10 a.m. to noon and 2 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays.
For more information about the library, visit www.monroelibrary.net.
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