Volunteers at the desk of the Riddle Public Library. Beth Nakamura/Staff

RIDDLE — A year ago, Douglas County’s public library branches began to close, one by one, after residents voted down a tax initiative to keep them open as money, and services, dried up in this timber-dependent region.

The news made headlines. People pondered how a community of loggers and agricultural workers could forego an institution considered by many to be as fundamental to American life as schools and paved roads.

But since then, one by one, library lovers from here to Reedsport have fought, wrangled and inspired to launch a grass-roots effort to help re-open the doors. Small but growing armies of volunteers have worked to rebuild collection catalogs, staff reference desks and run summer reading programs for kids.

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Drain, Oregon. The town's local library has been closed since April 2016 after voters in Douglas County rejected a tax proposal to save it and other branches. Beth Nakamura/Staff

They’ve been aided by their cash-strapped communities, which have managed to drum up donations, hold fundraisers and even pass local tax levies.

Nine of the 11 closed libraries are now back up and running in a rural DIY fashion. Roseburg, home to what was once the county’s largest library, will begin checking out books and providing free internet access this fall.

“It’s very heartening to see so many people turn out to preserve something that is so very good for this community,” said Robert Leo Heilman.

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Robert Leo Heilman, a woodsman turned author and essayist who volunteers at the Myrtle Creek Library. Beth Nakamura/Staff

Each Monday, the woodsman turned author and essayist swings by his local library branch in Myrtle Creek — currently open 20 hours a week — to read stories to children.

The turnaround marks a rare bright spot for a struggling county forced in recent decades to gut services amid declines in logging on public lands. Federal timber revenues, once as high as $50 million a year, plummeted to just several million dollars annually.

In response, the county has largely privatized its health care system and scaled back its land department. It cut its number of public employees by 60 percent to about 500. Landfills and parks, once free, had to start charging fees.

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The Herbert Lumber Co. in Riddle, Oregon. Beth Nakamura/Staff

Earlier this month, local government officials suspended recycling services indefinitely. There's long been talk of the county museum or even the sheriff's office getting the axe next.

Yet residents in this conservative swath of southwest Oregon, home to some of the state’s lowest property taxes, have remained loathe to raise new revenue — even when its entire library system was placed on the chopping block in 2016.

That year, library supporters devised a tax proposal on the local ballot that would have added about $6 a month to the bill of a median-priced home — comparable to the price of a fast-food meal, proponents argued.

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Roseburg's public library, the largest branch in Douglas County, closed June 1, 2017. Thanks to an outpouring of community support, it's now expected to re-open in October. Beth Nakamura/Staff

Yet the whiff of even a modest levy was enough to spark a furious backlash. The measure failed with 55 percent of voters casting ballots against it.

The defeat rippled across Douglas County, which is roughly the size of Connecticut.

But it was especially felt in towns like Riddle, whose 1,200 residents have witnessed a decades-long procession of losses, said city manager Kathy Wilson.

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The view from Northwest Dole Road in Myrtle Creek, Oregon. Beth Nakamura/Staff

Even with six timber mills still humming on the outskirts of town, 70 percent of children in Riddle's school district are eligible for free or reduced lunches.

But Riddle had always kept and cared for its library, a vibrant symbol of community and civic pride, said Wilson. It’s a public events space. A place to look for work or learn to read. A source of free and reliable information in the age of fake news.

“I just like the way it smells,” said Wilson, whose timber family moved to Riddle after the mill in Powers — a town 80 miles west — closed in 1971.

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The Veterans of Foreign Wars building, now boarded up, in downtown Riddle. Beth Nakamura/Staff

As the town prepared to close its library at the end of March 2017, Wilson and Riddle Mayor William Duckett began to think of ways to save it.

The city could afford to cover utilities and upkeep of the building, they figured. But there was zero money for paid staff or other basic services.

Wilson knew they had to turn to Rita Radford.

Bespectacled and soft-spoken, Radford as a girl created a home lending library and made her family check out books in their living room. For the past 17 years, she had worked as a library assistant in Riddle.

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Rita Radford, a volunteer librarian at the Riddle Public Library. Beth Nakamura/Staff

“I just couldn’t picture any reason why we shouldn’t have one,” she said in a gentle voice during a recent interview, seated at a reading table. “It seemed really simple to me.”

Still, the devil was in the details. The town owned the library building, and leaders had recently persuaded the county to let them keep the 12,000 books and computers it housed. But that was all.

When the Riddle Library reopened in June 2017, its volunteers had to check items out using index cards and a ledger.

Slowly things came together. One resident, an IT worker, helped install all new software on the computers. Another, with a dog-eared book on public administration, helped guide the library as it filed to become a nonprofit organization.

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Abigail Helmholtz, 19, takes out a stack of books at the Riddle Public Library. Beth Nakamura/Staff

Community members helped build a new website from scratch. Donations paid for software, which allowed for them to have a digital catalog and check-out services.

Radford now oversees 38 volunteers who staff the library three days a week for a total of 15 hours.

On a recent Tuesday, patrons roamed the stacks gripping growing piles of books. A woman worked on her resume at a computer. Four people behind the circulation desk caught up with friends and neighbors who popped in for mystery novels and DVDs.

“You light up when they come through the doors,” one of the volunteers said. Radford laughed. She blushed.

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A mural of books on the side of the Riddle Public Library. Beth Nakamura/Staff

Small town libraries across Douglas County have seen similar revivals. Reedsport. Yoncalla. Oakland. Sutherlin. Winston. Glendale. Canyonville. Myrtle Creek.

“People tell us we’re crazy,” said Pat Lynch, who walked into the Sutherlin library shortly after moving there last summer and was baffled that he couldn’t check out a book.

Lynch now oversees 50 volunteers and a library that attracts readers and information seekers from miles around.

“They’ve never seen anyone succeed with what we’re doing,” he said.

Which is the rub. Many, including Heilman, Radford and Lynch, concede the future is uncertain. Even the most dedicated and passionate volunteers burn out and become hard to replace.

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Pat Lynch at the Sutherlin Public Library. Beth Nakamura/Staff

And while town coffers and nonprofit groups, such as the Douglas County Library Foundation, have helped keep the lights on or provide money for a summer reading program, sustainable funding for the long term remains largely elusive.

Meanwhile, county officials say they have no interest in getting back into the library game.

"I believe in library services. I'm just not convinced they need to be funded by the county," said Chris Boice, a Douglas County commissioner who publicly opposed the library tax proposal in 2016.

“I have constituents angry that the libraries are even open again,” he said.

Other local officials and library lovers are pushing ahead.

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A sign on the front door of the former Douglas County Library, now the new Roseburg Library. Beth Nakamura/Staff

Voters in the towns of Reedsport and Drain last month each approved initiatives to create local library districts. The measures aim to provide permanent funding for their branches.

And in Roseburg, home to about one-fifth of the county’s 107,000 residents, the city and library supporters are being more ambitious.

Private donors, businesses and philanthropic groups have raised more than $615,000 to renovate the central branch in the heart of downtown, said city manager Lance Colley.

Roseburg has also hired a new library director and has dedicated money to fund its branch long-term.

It will open in October.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh skavanaugh@oregonian.com 503-294-7632 II @shanedkavanaugh