A symbol of perseverance is how Micanopy Mayor Jiana Williams described the town’s first stand-alone library during the new building’s groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday. 

The 5,000-square-foot library located at 829 NE 1 St. in Micanopy off Highway 441 is slated to open in one year with new computers, a designated teen space, study and meeting rooms, which librarian Wendy Schneider said have been the branch’s biggest need. 

The current collection of 10,896 books, CDs, DVDs and audiobooks will be refreshed with new volumes as the old ones get circulated throughout other branches.  

Around 100 attendees from the project’s Scherer Construction crews, Alachua County commission and library district officials, town representatives, residents and students from Micanopy Area Cooperative School and Micanopy Academy attended Wednesday’s event.  

Bishop Christopher Stokes from The New Beginnings Christian Worship Center gave an invocation, followed by remarks from Ken Cornell, who serves as chair for the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners and the Alachua County Library District, and Micanopy Mayor Jiana Williams. 

Everyone dedicated the new building as a milestone for the library district, Alachua County and the town of nearly 650 residents, which Cornell said had 13,382 checkouts and 16,366 visits over the past year to warrant the expansion. 

“The library district serves roughly 291,000 residents of Alachua County, and every one of those residents will benefit from this district growing strong,” Cornell said. “And today, Micanopy grows stronger.” 

The Micanopy Friends of the Library helped set up the town’s first library in 1959 out of a doctor’s waiting room. The library has been in its current location at Micanopy Town Hall since 1973. 

District Library Director Shaney Livingston said she started looking into purchasing property to build Micanopy a new library in November 2022. She said she was so ambitious to make it happen that she put plans for Hawthorne’s new library on hold.  

However, challenges arose and sent Micanopy to the back burner. Livingston said after Hawthorne opened its new branch last week, the time for the district to break ground in Micanopy is now. 

“Here we are today, almost four years later, ready to start to realize the dream here in Micanopy,” she said.  

Founded in 1821 as the oldest inland town in Florida, Cornell said Micanopy is a living chapter of American history that understands the value of preserving and honoring what came before, while investing in what comes next with projects like the new library. 

Cornell said the community doesn’t just have a library, but is the library, because of how the space has been woven into its civic fabric as part of Town Hall for decades.  

Micanopy deserves a library that stands on its own, he said, and the district’s investment in one shows it believes in the community’s future. 

“This library is exactly that kind of investment. It says we believe in this community, in its future, and we believe that generations of children who will walk through these doors and discover that something can change their life,” Cornell said. 

After giving a shoutout to her childhood librarian in attendance, Williams said the groundbreaking celebrated that long-awaited investment in knowledge, access and community, while honoring the perseverance of people who believed in the vision for Micanopy’s library. 

She said physicist Albert Einstein’s quote, “The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library,” was unfolding in the small town as a legacy for the next generation.  

“This new branch will preserve the spirit and charm of thinking while opening doors to new opportunities in education, technology, culture and fostering more community engagement,” Williams said. “It is an investment, not only in infrastructure, but if you take a look around, this is an investment in people.” 

Williams said the former library’s space in Town Hall will be rentable and that town staff is talking to the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office about opening a substation.  

Editor’s note: This story was underwritten by a grant from the Rural Reporting Initiative at the Community Foundation of North Central Florida.