ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Monday, October 28, 1996               TAG: 9610280090
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG

LIBRARY ADDITION DEDICATED BLACKSBURG BOOKS HAVE BIGGER HOME ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER

A library is part of a community's heart, as best-selling author Sharyn McCrumb has learned.

Lately, the Shawsville resident has been spending time in Morganton, N.C., spelunking through files filled with the past in search of archival records that shed light on the 1831 murder committed by the subject of her next book, Frankie Silver. She hit pay dirt with a detailed period map of the area.

"I couldn't have done it if I'd tried to write this book in Kansas or California," she said.

As McCrumb put it, a library is the archive "for things that are distinct to here." In Blacksburg, for instance, that might be oral histories about Montgomery County's former coal mining history.

So McCrumb and others helped to dedicate the new, $2-plus million Blacksburg Area Branch of the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library on Sunday. To be precise, she and 200 other residents came to celebrate the reconfigured and much expanded library, built onto the former library that was itself a former hardware store.

Communities are built on events like Sunday's dedication. The library's community room was named for former Montgomery County Supervisor and chairwoman of the library building committee, Mary Fessler. Local Kiwanis Club President Don Linkous, aided by five local children, snipped a blue ribbon to officially launch the Blacksburg Kiwanis Club Story-Time Room.

The state librarian and chairman of the state library board sent greetings from Richmond via a proclamation.

As Virginia Beach-based architect Richard Fitts chatted about the building after the ceremony, a Virginia Tech architecture professor approached.

"Simple and elegant," said Professor Joseph Wang. "Friendly."

And that's what the new library is, with the bright blue floor of the story-time room and the wide windows that allow the sunshine to enter.

It has been three years since local voters passed a $2million bond referendum that paved the way for the project. Groundbreaking came in 1995, and the new section of the library opened August19.

Still to come: more chairs, tables, shelves and computers. A $300,000 fund-raising drive to outfit the interior has garnered $150,000, said Jim Johnson, chairman of the regional library board of trustees.

LENGTH: Medium:   53 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  LORA GORDON/Staff. ``Fairy Princess" Emma Cudney and her
          father, Harley Cudney, talk about one of the books they found in the
          Blacksburg Area Branch Library after stopping by for the 
          dedication.