EAST PALESTINE Library set use record in 2001

Among the library's nearly 8,000 cardholders are 202 Mahoning County residents.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
EAST PALESTINE -- East Palestine Memorial Public Library patrons checked out more materials in 2001 than any other year in library history.
Lisa Rohrbaugh, library director, said patrons checked out 129,163 books, magazines, videos and other materials during the past year.
The library has been circulating books and other items since 1920 when books were checked out from the basement of a local bank, Rohrbaugh said. The library opened its doors at 309 N. Market St. in September 1992, and circulation that year was 61,901, Rohrbaugh said.
"We're doing great and seem to just keep growing," she said.
Among the 7,921 people who held library cards in 2001, 202 were from Mahoning County, and 40 from Ohio counties other than Columbiana or Mahoning counties, she said.
Year-end statistics also revealed 520 cardholders are from Pennsylvania, more than in any other year, she said.
How this happened: Rohrbaugh attributes the growth to word about the library's being spread by friends and neighbors, she said.
In recent years the library added music on compact disk and books on audiocassette to its circulation collection.
Annual poetry and prose contests attract about 50 entries each, with participants in 2001 residing in Youngstown and its suburbs, Sebring and Berlin Center, West Virginia and Pennsylvania -- including some Pittsburgh suburbs such as Ambridge and Sewickley.