There are two celebrations happening this week. Nationally, we are celebrating National Library Week, April 10-16, and a bit closer to home, Ebertfest is ramping up for its 18th year, April 13-17. The Archives staff have created a new exhibit that brings together these two seemingly disparate topics in the form of one individual, Roger Ebert.
Ebert loved Urbana, and he loved The Urbana Free Library. He got his first library card from The Urbana Free Library at the age of 7 and often rode his bike down to the library pedaling home with saddlebags bursting with books. Ebert lists his winning of the 1951 Summer Reading Contest – he read 105 books – as one of his first and greatest honors.
His guide in the world of books was children’s librarian, Bernice Fiske. Miss Fiske was the children’s librarian at The Urbana Free Library for 45 years (1927-1972). Ebert remembered her as having an unique approach: “Miss Fiske was right on your level. She never told you a book was good for you. She never said, ‘you should read this.’ She never pushed you. She conspired with you. You were readers together. And her eyes would twinkle and she would say, ‘I think you might like this one.’”
Stop by our exhibit case, outside of the Archives on the second floor, to discover more of Ebert’s remembrances of The Urbana Free Library, his boyhood in Urbana, meeting of the love of his life and business partner, the beginnings of Ebertfest, and his affiliations with the University of Illinois as an undergrad and later in life.
- Sherrie, Archives Librarian