Glenda Drapeau will be honored for 40 years of service as the librarian at Freeland Holmes Library, during an open house on Saturday, May 18, at the library. (Submitted image)

OXFORD — For the past 40 years, the community has enjoyed the welcoming smile of its dedicated librarian, Glenda Drapeau, who began serving as librarian at the Freeland Holmes Library in 1979. She offers a welcoming smile to the year-round and summer residents who stop in to read, research, access technology, or just chat with a friend.

Throughout this year, library patrons are invited to stop by the library and thank Drapeau for her service. The community also is invited to celebrate her 40 years of service, during an open house on Saturday, May 18, from 9 a.m. to noon at the library at 109 Pleasant St. in Oxford. Stop by and greet an old friend or become a new one.

Freeland Holmes Library has served the Oxford community since its dedication in 1914. Through the generosity of Freeland Holmes, the original library was established in 1873 as a reading room in the back of George H. Jones Drug Store on Pleasant Street.

During the summer of 1910, fundraising efforts to build the library were initiated by Mrs. M. F. Hitchings, Kate Starbird, and the Hersey Guild, a local women’s club. An extensive addition was dedicated in 1998, the Everett and Marguerite Starbird Lunt Wing and the Robinson Reference Area.