Our public library celebrated the 25th anniversary of opening the new building with cupcakes and community on Saturday, Sept. 29. It was a great reunion with so many people who have been associated with the library over those years.

My time at the event passed quickly with many conversations with old friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. I talked so much, I forgot to take a cupcake until after the event was over and the extras were moved into the kitchen. I found one and took it home for a dinner dessert.

I enjoy telling the origin story of the library in the basement of the bandstand in Mushroom Park on Main Street. This sentence particularly captures the 1960s era, “Members of the Women’s Club painted the space, their husbands built the book shelves with donated lumber, and many donated books were gathered.”

We moved to the community in 1993 and one of the first things I did was get a library card. At the time, the library was in its third location at an old fire station. The space was so cramped that library activities had to be conducted outdoors. In the late 1990s, the community decided to invest in a new building.

The late Jack Neuzil’s fingerprints are all over the building. Native oak trees were locally harvested for the project and he was involved in forming them into molding and other applications. Local entrepreneur Dick Schwab built and donated the main desk where staff interfaces with patrons. Names of donors are carved into stone in the entry way. I stood in front of it to read the names, remembering so many who died since then. Most of the community helped build the library.

The state legislature has been ratcheting down controls over libraries. They started with a 2023 law regarding school libraries, and have now turned to public libraries. In 2025, legislation was introduced to prohibit certain materials in public libraries, with penalties for non-compliance. They also proposed repealing Iowa Code §728.7 — the longstanding public-library/educational exemption from the obscenity chapter. This year, the legislature introduced HF 2309, which would have made willful dissemination of material classified as harmful to minors to a minor without parental consent a criminal offense. This was a topic of discussion — about charging a librarian with a felony — at the cupcakes and reunion event. While only the bill regulating school libraries went into effect, it is fair to say the legislature has repeatedly introduced measures that would move state regulation of public libraries beyond the traditional obscenity law and into collection management, parental-consent systems, employee liability, library governance, and state funding. If any of this were enacted into law, it would not be good for public libraries as we know them.

We didn’t let the doom and gloom of the legislature’s new dislike for public libraries weigh on us. It was a fine autumn day and I spent time outside talking with other attendees. For its age, the library still looks good. Here’s to another 25 years!