GORHAM – Virginia Rundell will close her 30-year chapter as library director at North Gorham Public Library at the end of this month.

“It’s time for someone younger to be here,” said Rundell, who will stay on as a volunteer at the library. “I’ve resigned, but I haven’t retired.”

The library, long a vital part of the North Gorham community, has undergone some significant changes through the years – most dramatically, in Rundell’s tenure, the advent of the computer and the Internet.

“Our encyclopedias don’t get much use,” Rundell said.

The original library, which dated to 1895, was near the pond in North Gorham. Present-day library neighbor and historian Warren Gilman said it was destroyed by fire in July1975.

“It was arson, ” said Gilman, whose father had been library treasurer for 45 years.

Constructed in 1977, the new library is a wing on the fire station at North Gorham. In 1981, Rundell succeeded Gilman’s wife, Emma Gilman, who was the first director in the library’s new home.

The town of Gorham, which provides $12,000 a year, pays for heat, electricity, books and a library director’s stipend. But the library has to raise money to pay for its telephone. The North Gorham Library houses 11,000 volumes.

Jan Labrecque, president of the library’s board of trustees, said the library has been fortunate to have had Rundell as its director.

“She’s done a wonderful job. She’s seen us right into the technology age,” Labrecque said.

Rundell’s assistant for the past year and the first-ever assistant at the library, Wendy Wales, will become the new librarian on July 1.

“Wendy came as a story hour mother. She loves the library and the books,” Rundell said.

The library collection offers audios, videos and DVDs. It will soon have a page on Facebook.

“People are surprised with what we have,” Rundell said.

Small but modern, the library interior is a distinct contrast with its long-ago predecessor with a wood stove and its smoke pipe.

“That’s the way we were,” Rundell said as she looked at a framed photo of the former library’s interior featured in a Life Magazine issue.

The passing of decades has led to changes and a library friends group is no longer active.

“I started as president of the friends group,” in 1979, Rundell said.

Ten years ago, Rundell started the story time for babies up to age 30 months. But this year marked the first that no parents showed up with infants.

Rundell attributes the absence of the infants to the increase in the number of working moms, who have children in day care. But, a story hour for older children continues and a child care facility takes its children to the library.

A summer reading program is named in memory of Josephine (Manchester) Scholl, a longtime library supporter.

The library once had 600 cardholders, but that number has dwindled to 400 now. Rundell said more schools have libraries these days and the local library patrons are aging.

It doesn’t charge for library cards and doesn’t levy fines for overdue books. But it does have a jar on the desk near the entry to collect donations.

Located next door to the United Church of Christ at North Gorham, North Gorham Public Library still plays an integral role in the community.

“We try to help the community in any way we can,” Rundell said.

It’s a gathering spot for local poets, and Emma Gilman, the previous library director, said a writer’s group meets in the library.

Some patrons visit the library to just chat.

“I like talking with them,” said Rundell, who added many residents go there to see neighbors and friends.

An inviting atmosphere beckons. An art display decorates a wall and antique china is displayed in a case.

A potted geranium, a gift to the library by the late Agnes Gibbs, a North Gorham legend who was a TV chef, sits in the library’s front window. “This geranium has been here as long as I have,” Rundell, the ninth library director, said.

“I have some big shoes to fill,” Wendy Wales said.

Virginia Rundell, who has resigned as director at North Gorham Public Library after 30 years, displays a geranium that stems from a plant donated by the late Agnes Gibbs. “This geranium has been here as long as I have,” Rundell said. (Staff photo by Robert Lowell)