The Story and History of Evon A. Ford ( Taylorsville) Public Library

 The Story of Evon A. Ford( Taylorsville) Public Library 

We have had a great outpouring of help and upgrades to our library in the past year made possible by our town employees, mayor, Friends of the Library, and our volunteers, which have made it all possible.

Our library was built in 1975. Ruth Walley was our town librarian a well-educated woman from Australia, after Ms. Walley retired, Ms. Frances Gregg began her time as our town librarian and was here for about 15 years. Joyce Mckinley then took over as librarian in 2005, after being a sub for two years prior. There have only been three librarians at our library since its opening in 1975.

Our mayor was John Locke Bryant at the time the library was built. Evon A. Ford of which whose home originally sat on the property until it burned in the early 70s donated the land that our library sits on.

Our Friends of the Library are very active in our library they can always be depended on to help with programming, as well as volunteering for anything we need help with. For example, for the upgrading of our carpet, The Friends of the Library offered their help, as well as funds to feed our volunteers as they helped box books and move the shelving, and then unboxed and put books back on shelves. A couple of years ago the Friends of the Library upgraded our bathrooms and we got new sinks, countertops, and toilets. They also upgraded our children’s area with new flooring a few years ago. Recently they have had our carpets cleaned and the floors cleaned and waxed. They are also working on replacing our doors.

Our mayor, Kelli Phipps has also provided her services and the town employees on keeping the grounds up kept, and clean as well as helping with moving things and keeping the inside maintained.

Our patrons are a great part of making our Smith County libraries a great success and asset to our communities. Our statistics reflect how well we are received in our towns and communities. With 25,883 visits in Fiscal 2022, we have 9,266 library cardholders. Our circulation of materials was 19,078. We have had 5,000 patrons attend our programs and 1,896 computer users for the fiscal year of 2022, Our WiFi has been used for 3,455 sessions.

All in all, our community, patron’s city, and county officials, and our Friends of the Library make our library what it is today and with their help, our coming year will be even bigger and better than our previous year. With more programming and more to offer to the community.

We are open Monday-Friday from 9:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. We are closed on Saturday and Sunday. We offer photo copying (Black and White, Color), Sanning, Faxing, Wireless Printing, WiFi. We were the honored as the Branch of the Year for the medium division in 2023. The Branch Manager is Joyce McKinley and the Youth Specialist is Jackie Jernigan.