Almost 13 years ago, a group of residents with the same vision, met to discuss the possibility of creating a library/museum in Alba. On Saturday, March5 2011 the thousands of hours of volunteer blood, sweat and tears finally came together as the library hosted its Grand Opening.
The library started with a donated building that had leakage problems. The group scraped together mismatched shelves donated from already established libraries that no longer needed them and received thousands of books from local residents and remnants from other libraries' books sales.
Saundra Burge worked on collecting local historical artifacts to preserve the city's rich heritage. Many local residents had items from previous generations that they wanted to preserve. They were happy to donate or loan them so thousands could enjoy them.
The same core group of volunteers tirelessly worked to fix, clean, and set up a library for the community to use. Computers were donated for public internet use, a computerized library cataloging system was installed and thousand of books were inventoried, labeled, and filed. The Economic Development Corporation and the City of Alba were in complete support of the endeavor and offered financial assistance as the budget would allow. Fundraisers were held, wild hog cook-offs were sponsored, and the group continued a community presence in all local events.
The library was on target to open when an unexpected gift was awarded. The board had applied for a 50,000 grand from the Tocker Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to encouraging rurtal libraries. Librarian Cheryl Gill called the Tocker foundation when the grants were to be awarded, and Mr. Tocker himself answered the phone. "I was so surprised that Mr. Tocker was on the other end of the phone call, and even more surprised when he told me that the Alba Library and Museum had been awarded the full $50,000 grant we had requested to buy matching shelves and furniture. Most of the furniture in the children's section was purchased with money from that grant.