Rural District Completes Branch Library System

The Stevens County Rural Library District has established the countywide service voters envisioned in November 1996 when they voted to create the district.

Earlier this year, the district opened the last of six planned branch libraries and completed contracts that allow rural residents to use the Colville, Chewelah and Kettle Falls municipal libraries.

Director Regan Robinson has four part-time librarians who rotate among the branches at Loon Lake, Suncrest, Hunters, Onion Creek, Northport and Orient. The Orient branch actually is in Ferry County, but serves Stevens County residents isolated between the Kettle and Columbia rivers.

Only the Lakeside Community Library at Suncrest, across from Lakeside Middle School, and the headquarters Library of the Lakes at Loon Lake are stand-alone libraries. Others are tucked into the Northport and Orient schools, the Onion Creek General Store and the Greenwood Park Grange Hall at Hunters.

The Northport branch will soon move into its own building, though: the former town hall, which the town will provide rent-free.

Several of the branches have only a small selection of books, and four are open only one day a week. But all have computerized catalogs for ordering books.

Each of the district branches and the three municipal libraries also will have a summerlong reading program with activities for school-age children, Robinson said.

The district also has established a toll-free number at (877) 251-3300. The district’s e-mail address is askus@stevcolib.org.