Built in 1930, the Westerville Community Library stands as a bastion of community and connection in the heart of Uptown Westerville.
After undergoing steady renovations for the past 30 years, the building looks drastically different from its one-room beginnings as it continues to evolve to meet the changing needs of the community. Behind-the-scenes team members, like Todd Harmon and Jim Eddingfield on the maintenance crew, are key in keeping the library a welcoming space for all.
Harmon joined the Westerville Library team in 1992. Harmon worked as a facility cleaner at Tee Jaye’s Country Place restaurants but was laid off during company cuts. Immediately after he hung up with his former Tee Jaye’s boss, he got a call from the director of the Westerville Library asking him to come in for an interview.
“I was sitting there with my head in my hands, and about a minute later – it was that fast – the phone rings,” Harmon says. “I could not believe it. I went from desperation to elation in like a minute and a half.”
When Harmon started work at the library, he taught himself flooring and carpeting skills so he could help wherever possible.
“When I got here I just thought, ‘No matter what happens, I’m going to make it my job and make this thing work,’” Harmon says.
In 2003, Harmon began a project retiling the front atrium of the library. After a particularly harsh winter, the tiles would no longer hold sealer. For a portion of each shift from 9 p.m. to midnight over the course of six months, Harmon scrubbed, replaced and sealed 10 to 15 tiles each night. After replacing 855 tiles by himself, the job was done.
“That was a big, big project I took on and I don’t think a lot of people would have done that, but I went ahead and did it,” Harmon says.
Thirty years after he got the job, Harmon has seen the building expand immensely. What is now the tiled atrium used to be a road, the 20,000-square-foot adult section used to be a parking lot and the new media area used to be the adult section, Harmon says.
“It was a much, much smaller building, only about 43,000 square feet when I started. It’s 105,000 now,” Harmon says.
In 2000, Jim Eddingfield joined the maintenance team. Eddingfield started out as a part-time worker at the library while he worked full-time as a baker at Otterbein University. After 21 years at Otterbein, he shifted to full-time at the library. The bulk of his work is custodial and, Eddingfield says, there are a lot of unexpected moments.
Within Eddingfield’s first week at the library, a set of glass doors shattered after a child ran into them. Later that same week, water began sheeting down from the public phone booths through the hall after the fire suppression system burst and flooded the hall.
“That was just my first week – my initiation,” Eddingfield says.
Over his 22 years at the library, Eddingfield witnessed the library as it shifted to accommodate an increasing need for technology and virtual spaces.
“The library always seems to be looking for new and innovative ways to serve the public,” Eddingfield says. “When I started, the media department was mostly VHS tapes, we had a small CD collection. … Now, media is everything from music to movies.”
Outside of physical renovations, the library is always looking for ways to accommodate the consistently progressing community. A recent addition, the Innovation Lab, provides a green screen video space, a 3-D printer and a soundproof recording booth.
“It’s awesome that you can come to the library now and make a podcast. You know, that’s innovative, that’s foreseeing what people are going to be wanting to do in the future, … and bringing it to the library for people to use,” Eddingfield says. “Even though it might sound cliche, almost everybody who works here does have a sense of … providing the public a service – myself included – even though maintenance might not seem the obvious way.”
Harmon and Eddingfield’s longtime relationship with the library has allowed them to witness the library’s continued dedication to the community.
“The both of them have such a history of what it (the library) used to look like versus what it looks like now,” Tamara Murray, marketing manager at the library, says. “It’s really nice for people to be able to go to them and have a real understanding of how we work.”
Looking to the future, the library is prioritizing sustainability – fiscal, environmental and social – Murray says. The library’s focus on social sustainability hinges on the library being comfortable and safe, which is where Harmon and Eddingfield come in.
“We are often people’s second living rooms. … Todd and Jim work every single day to make this a comfortable and safe space for people to walk into as their own second living room. It is extremely valuable for us as a community,” Murray says. “We really appreciate the work that they do to keep us afloat.”
Katie Giffin is a contributing writer at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
