Prior to the successful election, the driving force behind
the Bixby Library project was its first librarian, Mrs.
Opal Brewer. Mrs. Brewer was on the library committee of
the Bixby Homemakers’ Extension Club. She started
a petition to get library service to the Bixby community
of 5,000 and she contacted everyone she could to ask them
to vote.
The first Bixby Library was housed in a leased 2,000 square
foot building in downtown Bixby. The property owners, Fred
and Dalda Moore, provided the library with a building specifically
designed for the purpose and leased it until it was purchased
by the library system along with the adjacent land, which
would be used for future expansion. The operating budget
the first year was $3800. Other library service improvements
in south Tulsa County were new libraries in Jenks, Broken
Arrow and bookmobile service to Liberty, Glenpool, and Leonard.
Open House was held October 20, 1963 at 20 East Breckenridge
where the library is located today. The library provided
service 20 hours per week and housed 3,000 volumes. Operating
hours were 3-8 Monday and Thursday, 3-5 Tuesday and Wednesday
and 9-12 Saturday. The first week 621 books were checked
out and fines were 2 cents per day for adult books and 1
cent for children’s books. Customers could check out
up to three books. By 1969 the collection had grown to 6,750
volumes. The library was such a valued service in the community
that Mrs. Brewer was the first woman to be named Bixby’s
Citizen of the Year for 1968 by the Chamber of Commerce.
In 1985 the library was expanded to 5,000 square feet at
a cost of $260,000. There was space available for 20,300
books with study carrels, tables, lounge chairs and a meeting
room that was formerly the original library, and large enough
for 75 people and a kitchen area. The new larger library
was open 36 hours per week and included two additional part-time
staff and one full-time manager. Annual circulation grew
to 44,950. Tootie Sandlin served as the Bixby Library manager
after Mrs. Brewer took another job with the library system
in 1974. Mrs. Sandlin worked with the first generation of
library automation technology, the ALIS system in 1981,
and NOTIS in 1984. She was the Bixby Library manager for
21 years before she retired in 1995. Carolyn Trammell took
over as librarian.
In 1999, the Tulsa City-County Library migrated from NOTIS
to the Innovative Interfaces Incorporated System and is
now using their Millennium System for circulation of materials
and on-line catalog. The website www.tulsalibrary.org offers
research tools and information about the library system.
