Ohio Genealogical Society Reaches $2.5-Million Funding for New Building

The following is an announcement from the Ohio Genealogical Society:

Mansfield, Ohio--“We have achieved ‘full funding’ for our new building project,” reports E. Paul Morehouse, president, Ohio Genealogical Society. “We thank our members and other contributors for their support.” The amount raised to date is $2,564,889.

The Society plans to begin construction early in 2009 of an 18,000-square-foot facility to better accommodate the Society’s expanding membership and its growing library collection. Society officials believe that the new building will be the finest state genealogical library in the country.

The new home for the Ohio Genealogical Society, to be located in Bellville in Richland County near Mansfield, will serve professional and hobbyist genealogists with climate-controlled space for archives, a reading room, a preservation and digitization lab, meeting space and classrooms, and office space.

The final funding element came from the State of Ohio. In mid-November, the Ohio Cultural Facilities Commission approved a grant of $350,000 from the State to the Society for the new building.

While the funding goal was achieved, the Society is encouraging its members to continue to contribute to the building fund. Ted Minier, past president and building fund chairperson, points out that the Society needs to pay down a $600,000 loan from the U. S. Department of Agriculture. In addition, the Society aims to build an endowment fund to maintain the new facility.

According to Minier, several naming rights remain available in the new library in return for large donations.

Established in 1959, the Ohio Genealogical Society is the largest state genealogical society in the country, with over 6,000 members, 95 chapters, nearly 35,000 books and a lending library with more than 2,000 titles and publications. It publishes the OGS Quarterly, OGS Genealogy News (both included with OGS membership), Ohio Records & Pioneer Families, and Ohio Civil War Genealogy Journal. For more information on OGS, visit www.ogs.org.

The Ohio Cultural Facilities Commission is a state agency that helps enhance the quality of life for Ohioans by improving the state’s cultural facilities. Since 1988, the Commission has disbursed more than $400 million of capital funds appropriated by the Legislature and Governor for facility improvement projects at nonprofit theaters, museums, historical sites and publicly owned professional sports venues. The Commission partners with nonprofit groups and local governments on more than 300 projects in 72 of Ohio’s 88 counties. For more information on the Commission, visit www.culture.ohio.gov.

Comments

[Lee Martin]

The new facility is a long time coming. I go to its current location just off of SR 13 close to the I-71 interchange and it is small.

[Ellen]

I've used the current facility. While the collection is extensive, the space is very crowded. The new building will allow for so many more activities as well as additional research space. The completion of the preliminary funding is welcome news. I only wish I lived closer to Mansfield (I'm about 5 hours away).

[Amy]

I am thrilled to hear that the money is finally on target! However, the funds would have been raised a lot sooner if the OGS had been able to choose a more central location for the library. Due to the distance, it was hard to convince researchers in southwestern Ohio to contribute to the building fund. Only a handful of members from our OGS chapter have ever visited the current library and were disappointed that the new one is to be built in the same area. I just hope that the new library is such a knock-your-socks-off facility that it will be worth the six hours of driving and a possible overnight stay.

[Gary]

I just used GoogleMaps to get directions from the farthest town I could find in the farthest corner of SW Ohio--North Bend--to Mansfield Ohio, and was given a distance of 186 miles, and a drive time of 3hrs 16mins. From Sybene in the far south of Ohio to Mansfield, Google gives a distance of 199 miles and a drive time of 3hrs 54mins. One has to agree, however, that central locations are always desirable, both for accessibility and to maximize fund-raising.

[Roger Marble]

No matter where OGS placed the Library, someone would complain it is further for them than the current location. If you look at the population centers of the top 10 Ohio cities, calculate the average drive distance and compare the location 1 mile off I71 vs downtown Columbus, you will see that on average the distance to the Belleville location is only 9% further than in downtown Columbus.
Now, unless someone wants to donate a few acres of downtown Columbus I think the location near Bellville is not unreasonable especially when you consider that most of the current volunteer staff can still support the new location while downtown Columbus would need to develop a complete new staff.
Come on people, you are going to have the best state genealogical society library in the country, purpose built 1 mile from an Interstate (2 miles closer than the current one) and only 8.3 miles away from the current location.
As a Trustee of OGS I can tell you that a lot of thought and discussion went into the location and Columbus was considered. In the final analysis, the fact that the land had been provided free and clear, parking would be free for users and we received a lot of support from Richland Co and Belleville town made the final selection pretty hard to ignore.
With ground breaking this Spring and opening in 2010 I hope that all serious Genealogists make an effort to visit this new state of the art Genealogical facility.