BUCHANAN — Despite heavy snowfall Saturday evening, people flocked to the Buchanan District Library, dressed in their best, to celebrate an important community milestone.

The library turned 80 years old on Sunday. To celebrate, the building hosted an 80th birthday soiree fundraiser Saturday evening. Proceeds from the $20 entry tickets, $5 drink tickets and silent auction sales will go toward the final phase of the library’s building campaign. The event also featured live music.

“It’s our 80th birthday as a district library,” said Buchanan District Library Director Barbara Wallace. “Our history in Buchanan actually goes back further than that, though.”

The history of the library really dates back all the way to when the state of Michigan was organized, as each township in the state was required to have a library, according to local historian Peter Lysy.

“There’s really been some kind of library presence here since the township was established in 1837 or 1838,” Lysy said. “1927 is kind of when the professional library that we know of today was established in Buchanan.”

Though 1927 saw the establishment of a library in Buchanan, the true library was not established until Dec. 10, 1937, complete with its own staff and organized hours of operation. Originally, the library was located at Front and Oak Streets and moved around a few times before settling in its current location at Front Street and Days Avenue in the early 2000s.

As a historian, Lysy feels that the library is still an important cultural and community aspect of Buchanan, even after all these years.

“Libraries are important in every community because they provide free books, free magazines, free knowledge,” he said. “The coming of technology and the internet hasn’t killed libraries, just the opposite. It’s made them even more important, because everyone has the opportunity to tap into the information of the world here at the library. It doesn’t matter if you are poor or rich, kid or adult, computer-literate or don’t know what you are doing, you can come here to the library, get on the internet, get help and find out the knowledge of the world.”

Wallace agreed with Lysy’s sentiments, adding that the library works hard to meet the needs of the people of Buchanan to stay as relevant today as it was 80 years ago.

“We are in the middle of downtown and we try to fill a lot of voids and needs for a lot of different people,” she said. “Whether it’s a meeting space or providing access to computers, we try to sense what the needs of the community are, and I think that the people of Buchanan and our donors recognize that we put that effort into it.”

The event was exciting, Wallace said, not only because it celebrated the library’s history, but because it gave the library the chance to show off its plans for the last phase of its building campaign, which will include renovating the upstairs to include a kitchen and community room and adding an ADA compliant elevator to the side of building.

“We are moving forward in a big way,” Wallace said. “It’s great to be able to show [people] what we have been working on.”

One of the architects on the project, Andrew Grontkowski, was in attendance at Saturday’s party. Having worked on other libraries before, Grontkowski said he is excited for this project as it will help the Buchanan District Library better serve its community, something he feels is important.

“No matter what, no matter how much technology there is, we all still need to read,” Grontkowski said. “This is probably the easiest place for kids to learn to read. I still have my original library card from when I was probably 5 years old, so I really think it is important and that libraries stand the test of time.”