RAPID CITY, SD — Voices filled the air today as children gathered excitedly outside the Rapid City Public Library for the ceremonial ribbon-cutting, which inaugurated the start of outdoor storytime in the library’s new musical garden, in an effort to expand library services to provide more to the community
“This is really a culmination of a lot of great efforts,” said Emily Tupa, Board Chair of the Rapid City Public Library “The Rapid City Library Foundation is just heroic. You know, they brought us the bookmobile. You didn’t think it could get better, and now we have this amazing sound garden, which is going to encourage play and creativity, and just make sure, especially our youngest library members, can enjoy the library inside and out,” Emily elaborated on the features of the park, which focuses on low-maintenance and native plant life, as well as musically-focused installations such as bells resembling flowers and percussion instruments resembling beetles, and on the Library’s devotion to creating “Third Spaces” (Those being places for community gathering outside of work and the home).
On the library as a whole, former city council member, and member of the board at the public library, Rod Pettigrew and Tupa echoed one another in sentiment: They hope that the public will be vocal in their support for the library as an institution. Quoting Pettigrew’s speech “Andrew Carnegie once said, ‘A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people,’ and I’m a firm believer in that if you have a strong library, you have a strong community”.