Want Your Name on a Library?: It Can Happen in Womelsdorf. An eBay Auction is Under Way.
By Rebecca Vandermeulen, Reading Eagle, Pa.
Jan. 31–standstill. “Desperation and necessity,” she explained, was her reasoning. “Everything is done on the Internet now.” The eBay auction started Monday and is scheduled to run until Feb. 9. The winner will get to name the library, although Chamberlain said the name Womelsdorf would probably still be included, and the library’s trustees would reject any name they deem inappropriate. “It’s a really unique, out-of-the-box thing,” said MaryAnne C. Beamesderfer, co-chairwoman of the fundraising campaign. Trustee Betsy Hedbavny said the auction will be conducted long enough to secure a winning bid. “If you want the naming rights, you’re going to do it,” she said. “You’re not going to think about it for two months.” In June 2003 the trustees started to raise $740,000 to expand and restore the 2,000-square-foot building at 203 W. High St. By July the board had raised $520,000, which Did you ever want to name a library? Here’s your chance. All you have to do is log on to eBay, the wellknown auction Web site, and pay at least $375,000. Womelsdorf Community Library trustee Nancy G. Chamberlain thought of selling the library’s naming rights to secure money for an expansion and restoration project, which is at a was enough to pay for the construction. Any money beyond that would have gone toward restoring the building to how it appeared when it was built in 1903.
Beamesderfer said the board now has only $480,000 remaining because of fees to file expansion plans and pay architects’ costs and other charges.
Initial bids were sought in September, and the lowest came in at just below $1 million, said board president Harriet L. Grimes. Even after the project was scaled back to include just an expansion and parking lot, bids still were $680,000.
Beamesderfer said architect Olsen/deTurck Associates, Bern Township, was told that construction costs could increase 20 percent this year to $816,000.
The money from the eBay auction would pay for the library expansion, a new heating system, a renovated emergency stairway and a new parking lot, she said.
Any extra cash would go toward restoring the library and knocking out three bank vaults left from the building’s days as a Bank of Pennsylvania branch.
Library director Melanie J. Motchenbacher said the board hopes to seek bids again in March for additional work.
She said the building is often crowded with patrons.
Last year the library was visited nearly 38,000 times. And in 2005, Womelsdorf’s circulation increased 20 percent to about 50,000 items — the highest percentage rise of Berks County’s 23 public libraries.
The library board is working with eBay’s GivingWorks program, which assists charities that use the Web site.
A different company, MissionFish, makes sure charities spend winning bidders’ money properly, said Catherine England, a spokeswoman for San Jose, Calif.-based eBay.
Christopher A. Ritter, president of the Berks County Library Association, said he did not know of any other local libraries auctioning naming rights on eBay.
Naming rights have been sold for other buildings in Berks County.
In 1999, Sovereign Bank paid $2.25 million to name the Sovereign Center on Penn Street. And in 2004 an anonymous donor paid $200,000 to name a baseball stadium next to the city’s Lauer’s Park Elementary School after Principal Gordon G. Hoodak.
According to eBay’s England, other recent auctions on the Web site have included naming rights for a puppy, a restaurant and a softball team.
“It (the auction) is clever, and hopefully it works for them,” England said of the Womelsdorf effort. “We wish them the best of luck.”
Contact reporter Rebecca VanderMeulen at 610-371-5015 or rvandermeulen@readingeagle.com.
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Copyright (c) 2006, Reading Eagle, Pa.
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