WESTMINSTER COLLEGE Library opens its doors to public

The library is open 91 hours a week during the school year.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. -- The Westminster College library has an open-door policy.
In addition to serving college students, faculty and staff, it serves the general public in this small college town, which has no public library.
"Anyone in the community is welcome to walk in our front door. Anybody in the world is welcome to walk through our front door. You don't have to sign in. You don't have to show an ID card," said Molly P. Spinney, college librarian.
"We like to be good neighbors," Spinney said of the college, whose campus is in the midst of a rural area. The open-door policy dates to the early days of the liberal arts college, which was founded in 1852 and is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, she said.
Anyone may use the main college library, known as the McGill Library, any time it is open. It is open seven days a week, for a total of 91 hours a week, during the regular college year -- a schedule that far exceeds that of most public libraries. During the summer, the schedule drops to 47 hours a week, and the library is closed on weekends.
Anyone may use the library's 250,000-volume collection of books and periodicals on the premises free of charge. Those who aren't affiliated with the college pay $10 a year for a borrowing card.
Westminster's open-door policy stands in sharp contrast to those of many colleges and universities, which generally limit use of their libraries to their own students, faculty and staff.
Coming to the library
"Kids in New Wilmington can ride their bikes over here and use our collection," Spinney said in an interview that was punctuated every quarter hour by the chimes in the tower at the campus' Old Main building. "They couldn't ride to New Castle or to Sharon," where the nearest public libraries are located, she said.
For those who don't drive, the campus is also accessible from Grove City, Volant and New Castle via New Castle Area Transit Authority buses operating on regular day and evening Monday through Saturday schedules.
Last month, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., presented a check to the library for $100,000 in federal money to help the library install an updated computerized catalog and circulation system and 25 new public access computers.
"There are more than 125 town cards in use, and they have access to everything we have," said Yvonne Ayers, circulation assistant. Users of the library include local adults and school and preschool children, senior citizens from the nearby Shenango-On-The Green retirement community and even local Amish people. Classes from local high schools make pre-arranged visits to the college library to work on research projects.
Other features
The library features a broad collection of books and periodicals and indexes to periodicals to support the liberal arts education of nearly 1,600 students of the college. In addition, it has a community bookshelf containing popular reading materials, a children's reading room and a broad range of current magazines and local and metropolitan daily newspapers. Almost all of the library stacks are open for all users to browse through.
The open-door policy also applies to the college's J.S. Mack Science Library, which is housed in a separate building near the science labs.
Both the main McGill Library and the science library also double as museums containing artifacts from Africa and Asia, which were donated to the college. Included in the collection is an ancient Egyptian mummy and X-rays of it, which are housed in the science library. School and community groups can arrange tours in which experts describe the artifacts.