Wilsonville was incorporated in 1969, and in February 1982 dedicated a library. Prior to 1982, library services were provided by the county via a bookmobile. Phila Simmons served as the first librarian of Wilsonville's public library. At that time the library was located on the grounds of the old Wilsonville Grade School on Boones Ferry Road owned by what was then the West Linn School District. Wilsonville residents passed a measure in June 1987 that provided $2,225,000 for the city to build a library building and buy to add to Wilsonville Memorial Park. In December 1987, the city started construction on a new library building to be built on at the northwest corner of Memorial Park. William L. Lonigan General Contractors Inc. built the new library, designed by Nagao & Oroyan Associates, for a contract price of approximately $760,000. Part of the funding came from a $96,000 federal grant, and the new building was expected to handle the city's growth for 15 years, and it was also designed to be expanded. The new library was designed to have and include a conference room, children's area, and a large meeting room. While under construction, the city commissioned a sculpture of author Walt Morey to be paid for by the Friends of the Wilsonville Library. The tall bronze figure cost $7,500 and honored the Wilsonville area resident who wrote novels such as Gentle Ben. The library's children's room was also named after the author, and includes a bronze plaque. Wilsonville's new library building opened on August 23, 1988, at a cost about $900,000. The Walt Morey statue by Jerry Joslin was dedicated on December 18, 1988. In 1990, Steve Turner was hired as the library's new director to replace Phila Simmons. Local employer Fujimi America Inc. donated approximately 1,500 Japanese books and money to the library in May 1991. The library started being open on Sundays in 1994, but only during the school year, after Clackamas County passed a library operating levy. Wilsonville sent a bond measure to the voters in September 1995 for $3.9 million to be used to expand the library building, which at that time held 35,000 books. Voters rejected the measure, along with a measure to improve Memorial Park. In 1998, the library started offering passes to cultural institutions in the Portland metropolitan area. The city went to voters again in November 2000 with a $4 million measure designed to expand the library four-fold, and this time the measure passed. In August 2001, construction began on the expansion designed by Rich Turi that had construction scheduled for completion in May 2002. Both InFocus and OrePac Building Products donated equipment for use in the expanded facility. Starting in 2002 the library offered story time for children in Spanish, and in 2005 brought in Claudia Renata Osorio in an attempt to increase the number of people attending the sessions. The Wilsonville Public Library Foundation paid for a ceramic mural in the children's area of the library added in 2004. On December 21, 2003, Patrick Duke replaced Steve Turner as the library's director. The Library Foundation attempted a fundraiser in 2005 where participants paid for a tour of homes that used a line of paint from Devine Color. An attempt by the city to raise property taxes in November 2006 was defeated by voters, which led to cuts in the hours of the library. The library received a grant in 2008 to expand its out-reach program at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, a women's prison in Wilsonville. The $10,000 grant allowed for additional training and books for the program, entitled Book Bridges, designed to build and strength the connection between infants and their mothers who are serving time in prison. Also in 2008, the library's Storytime Collection was chosen by the Oregon State Library as one of the outstanding projects of the year.
Facilities and services
The building houses a variety of collections as well as 19 computers. One of the larger collections is the children's collection, which has its own room that can open onto an exterior patio. Two other rooms also open to the patio. Other features of the building include tile in the highly traveled portions, blue-heather carpet elsewhere, and wood accents on the walls and ceilings. The main entrance leads to the grand foyer that has a high ceiling and skylights, and is home to the library's reference desk. Another collection at the library is the Heritage Collection, which focuses on the history and genealogy of Oregon and southwestern Washington state. The collection includes U.S. Census records, biographies, vital records, local histories, and online databases, among other items. That section of the library also includes exhibits sponsored by the Wilsonville-Boones Ferry Historical Society, including models of sternwheelers and a photographic mural of the city from about 1910.
Circulation
As of 2011 the library had an annual budget of $1.3 million, which included $166,000 spent on the collection to serve a population of about 22,000. At that time the collection had 155,000 items, of which 102,000 were print items, nearly 11,000 were video items, almost 11,000 were audio items, plus 166 periodical subscriptions. The library had approximately 17,000 registered patrons and an annual circulation of 514,706 in 2011, which included about 178,000 items loaned out to other libraries. Also, as of 2011, WPL had an attendance of 24,406 at its 353 children's programs over the course of the fiscal year.
