Capi Lynn

Statesman Journal

Come with me to the historic Oregon State Library, the first building constructed on what we know as the Capitol Mall.

Climb the granite steps and venture beyond the marble facade and walls.

Take the brass elevator to the second floor and head north to the end of the hallway, where natural-colored oak doors are wide open to the reference room.

Underneath the towering coffered ceilings and atop the built-in oak shelves is perhaps the most comprehensive collection of family history materials in the state.

Come Oct. 1, the public will no longer have free access to the collection, which has been provided through a partnership between the Oregon State Library and the Willamette Valley Genealogical Society.

The library is being reorganized and the reference room, where the society has been tending to the collection since 1986, will no longer be staffed.

RELATED: Why is the state library closing its research room?

"It's very sad that Oregonians are going to lose this resource," said Liz Tice, president of the Willamette Valley Genealogical Society. "This is the public face of the state library. In our opinion, it belongs to Oregonians. They paid for many of these books."

The genealogical society also purchased and donated many items in the room. Once the partnership with the state library is dissolved, titles to the books and all other materials donated by the society will revert to the society, which will also help coordinate disposition of other materials in the collection.

Tice said her group has until the end of December to come up with a plan. A nonprofit organization that operates on a budget of less than $25,000, it doesn't have the money to rent space and create a new home for the collection. It would take about 1,500 square feet and plenty of shelves.

There has been discussion of relocating at least some of the collection to the Oregon Historical Society in Portland, but there wouldn't be free access unless you're a member of the historical society or a resident of Multnomah County. (Admission is $11 for adults, $9 for seniors.)

"It's taxpayer materials going to a non-state agency that charges you to use it," Tice said.

We've been spoiled. The reference room at the state library is a gem, and not just for genealogical research. Whenever I do a column about anything related to Oregon history, it's the first place I turn. State library employees and trained volunteers from the Willamette Valley Genealogical Society are always so helpful and knowledgeable.

RELATED: Readers ask, SJ answers: State library research closure

Two volunteers generally are on site every hour the library is open, and the patrons they assist are not just Salem-area residents and Oregonians.

Volunteer Mary Jo Stoutenburg was busy earlier this week doing research for someone in California on Mary E. Decker, who was born in 1840 in England and died in 1893 in Oregon. In a matter of minutes, Stoutenburg had located an obituary for Decker and a photograph of her gravestone. There was some discrepancy as to whether Decker was buried at City View Cemetery or neighboring Pioneer Cemetery. She eventually confirmed that it's City View.

Other general research requests waiting for a volunteer to tackle included an email from a woman in North Carolina wanting information about her grandfather and a television production company in Los Angeles wanting information about Chief Quinaby of the Kalapuya Indian tribe.

"It goes further than people just coming in and looking for their ancestors," said Stoutenburg, a retired state employee who volunteers on Monday afternoons.

A February 2012 report from a work group on libraries and archives in state government noted "the value of the partnership over the past 10 years is over $522,000 in FTE savings and collection materials valued at approximately $241,000."

The volunteers are the first to admit that people don't use libraries like they used to, especially during the summer. A sign-in sheet this week listed 32 people coming to do genealogical research over the past business five days, including an up-tick of 13 on Tuesday, the day we published a story about the closure. In July, there were 155 patrons, more than for the same month the past two years.

"Maybe not a lot of people use it, but to just lock it up is a shame," said Tice, a retired high school math teacher who volunteers on Wednesday afternoons.

Online resources make it easier for people to do their own genealogical research, but there are costs associated with some of those. One of the perks of using the reference room at the state library is the free access to Ancestry.com.

"I would say neither the library or maybe the society have promoted it enough or done enough advertising," Tice said.

Members of the genealogical society knew closing the reference room was a possibility, but they had their hopes up because they thought library staff was working on a plan to cut costs and keep it open. That's why they were blindsided by the bad news in an Aug. 7 letter from state librarian MaryKay Dahlgreen.

Tice made pleas last week to the chiefs of staff for both Senate President Peter Courtney and House Speaker Tina Kotek for other funding options. She has yet to hear back from either office.

"Forward This" appears Wednesdays and Sundays and highlights the people, places and organizations of the Mid-Willamette Valley. Contact Capi Lynn at clynn@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6710, or follow her the rest of the week at Facebook.com/CapiLynnSJ.

If you go

The reference room, located on the second floor of the Oregon State Library at 250 Winter St. NE in Salem, is open weekdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, except on holidays. It also is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the second Saturday of the month, the last of which will be Sept. 13.