The mission of the Octavia Fellin Public Library is to nurture and enrich our Community through the exploration of ideas and information, to honor local heritage and create new traditions, and empower the people to engage with each other and the world. Those 100 years have seen many changes in location as well as advanced services, resources, and innovative programming. The story begins in January
1920, when the Philanthropic Educational Organization Sorority (P.E.O.) donated fifty books for placement in the Gallup Community House. The P.E.O. had been working toward creating a library for several years, and it became a reality in 1922 when the library moved to a larger space in the basement of Gallup Central School at 315 West Hill Ave. Now it was considered the Gallup Public Library, and while the use of the library was free, a $1.00 deposit was charged for a library card. Members of the local P.E.O. chapter volunteered their time to look after it. A benefit tea and book “shower” was held to expand the collection, and the entire community was encouraged to attend. Other local organizations started to make monthly contributions to purchase books. In 1926 Gallup Town Council appropriated $500.00 to the library and paid a local woman $10.00 a month to keep the library open from 3:00-5:30 PM three days a week. In September of the same year, Gallup’s Town Board and several local organizations made plans to erect a new library building on the old city jail site at 111 West Hill Ave. $1,500.00 was raised through events staged by local clubs. The new library would belong to the public and would be supervised by the Town Trustees. The
new building was erected, and the formal opening was held on April 26, 1927. The City Council voted to officially assume responsibility for the Gallup Public Library on May 29, 1936. Octavia Fellin came to Gallup to visit her family in 1947. She volunteered at the library for a proposed two months, after which she intended to go to California, where a position with the San Francisco Public Library was waiting for her. In October of that same year, Octavia was officially named Librarian of the Gallup Public Library, and her 2-month visit turned into a career that lasted 43 years. That year, the town of Gallup appropriated $4,000.00 in its budget, and the county provided $1,000.00, a 45% budget increase to accommodate for the extension of library services to McKinley County. A letter from the Library Board Chairman, C.E. Gurley, was mailed to every service organization in Gallup requesting financial support that would go toward an expansion program for the library. Octavia was up for the challenges she faced as the new head of the Gallup Public Library and successfully created a space that has continued to flourish for the past 75 years. Octavia began to campaign for a new library building in 1949; because the old building was woefully inadequate; for example, the library only had an outhouse. The City Council issued a $65,000.00 bond to construct a new facility in 1950, and it passed by a 4-1 margin. The Chamber of Commerce contributed $13,500.00 to create an exhibition space in the proposed building for its Southwest Indian Art collection. The new Gallup Public Library opened on December 22, 1951, along with the Museum of Indian Arts. The Library’s positive impact on the community is apparent because there was a need to expand the building less than 20 years later. The remodeled and expanded library opened in 1969, nearly doubling in size. A performing arts wing with a stage was added in 1985. The City officially changed the Gallup Public Library to the Octavia Fellin Public Library (OFPL) to honor Octavia upon her retirement in 1990. Due to overwhelming need, the City of Gallup purchased and remodeled a bank building at 200 West Aztec to create what is now the Children’s Branch in 2003. Octavia passed away in 2013 but is still remembered very fondly by the Gallup community. The City Council funded a library building feasibility study in 2013 to assess structural problems in the current building and identify possible sites for a new state-of-the-art building. The City Council approved an area north of Route 66 between 2nd and 3rd Streets on February 9, 2021. A conceptual design is pending. Once known as the Gallup Community House, OFPL has evolved in many ways since its story began in 1920 and has shown a steady increase in use throughout the last century. The library is now a City of Gallup department, and McKinley County residents receive services for free while contiguous county residents and those living in Arizona pay a nominal fee. OFPL is the only public library for McKinley County and the Southeast District of the Navajo Nation. Not believing the economic condition of its region should ever limit a library, OFPL seeks community partnerships and soft funding opportunities, always striving to meet and exceed the needs of the people it serves. OFPL is the cornerstone of our community, bringing together people, information, and ideas in a safe space. Our community is the quintessential American melting pot with diverse cultures, ethnicities, religions, backgrounds, and viewpoints. This diversity is apparent in the resources and innovative programs OFPL has made available to the
people. OFPL is on a new trajectory and has changed as an institution to reflect our community’s needs. We actively work to decolonize the library and create collections, workshops, and interactions rooted in people’s empowerment. The collective trauma in our community cannot be underscored enough. This guides our responsibility in being a positive and trustworthy institution. The library’s resources, services, and programs are substantial, considering our limited funding, staff, and space. Services have expanded to include enhanced research support, beginning to advanced technology classes, a partnership with Google, a MakerSpace, a Seed Library, online access to digital collections such as Ancestry, Kanopy, Overdrive, and Creativebug. In light of the pandemic, we solicit programming ideas from the public via social media so that individuals can suggest content that proves to be relevant to our community. As the world around us changed, the OFPL team adapted and built something new. We work together to keep our community connected. Regularly scheduled programs such as Crafty Kids, Creative Corner, Tech Time, We Read, We Talk-Book Club, Storytime with Anne, and Spring into STEM, have been transformed into virtual programs and made available on our website ofpl.online and social media . Special guests enrich our digital programs by providing talks, Zumba instruction, and cooking demonstrations, to name a few. The Octavia Fellin Public Library’s mission is to nurture and enrich our community, explore ideas and information, honor local heritage, create new traditions, and empower the people to engage with each other and the world. Our mission is an integral part of planning for the future of OFPL and has proven to be a successful tool used to measure both its successes and failures in order to enrich the community. OFPL and City staff worked tirelessly to renovate the main library during the Covid closure. New flooring and fresh paint throughout, a new information desk, meeting room tables, chairs, new study carrels, and even wireless printing. Although there have been several improvements to the physical space this year, it does not alter the fact that OFPL outgrew the current facility more than two decades ago. The Gallup community was proud of their new library in 1951, and 70 years later, it’s time to be proud of a new library building once again.
