In 1960, Bainbridge architect John Rudolph wrote out a vision statement for the island’s new public library.

It stated that a library should be “a forum for the meeting of minds. For the transmission and the discussion of ideas. A public place, not a private club. A place where the past meets the present and the present meets the future.”

The vision hasn’t changed much over the last 50 years.

“This is the library today,” said Bainbridge Public Library board member Hilary Hilscher of the statement.

Hilscher was one of about 50 attendees at the library’s first-ever board reunion earlier this month.

And while the building, the program offerings and the library budget may have grown over the years, the half a decade of board members and library community reminisced on a single theme the building has always been centered on: a community space, the kind that Rudolph envisioned.

“So many libraries are dedicated to the old folks, but here there are teens,” said Barbara Winthers, a local historian and author of “They Like Noble Causes,” a history of the Bainbridge Public Library.

When Winthers moved to Bainbridge in the 1980s she said she remembered seeing teenagers standing on the curbside holding signs that asked for citizens to donate to the library.

They read, “Cut it out. No horseplay. Bale your bucks. Fork over your hay. Library building campaign.”

This was the first example to her that from its inception the Bainbridge Public Library was not only for the community, but by the community.

The tone was set in the late 1950s, when proceeds from the island’s first Rotary auction were donated to constructing a new library, which at the time was a one-room building that had been there since 1924.

It was for this expansion that Rudolph wrote the library’s initial vision statement that’s stuck.

And around the same time, 10 citizens were elected to its first board.

A little more than 50 years later, the building has undergone two more expansions, and while the library’s small budget has remained citizen-funded, it has grown substantially.

In the 1990s, then board treasurer David Boyce said the library functioned on a $25,000 annual budget to maintain its outdoor and indoor spaces.

Today, the library has a $200,000 annual budget.

Its what’s given Bainbridge Island its newest library building, maintained its Japanese-inspired garden and brought to life its many programs.

“We have an island community that’s willing to support funding for not only the books but the programs and space,” said current board treasurer Charles Browne.

“We’re all fortunate.”

During its latest expansion, former librarian Cindy Harrison said the community waited anxiously for the new building to open.

“We knew Bainbridge wouldn’t be happy if they didn’t have a library,” Harrison said.

In the meantime, books were stored at Commodore Options School.

“I remember one woman said something I’ll never forget, ‘There are men that I miss less than I missed this library,’” Harrison recalled of the transition.

It comes as no surprise that these days about 100,000 books are donated to the library every year. Volunteers show up three days a week to sort through them before they’re sold at the library’s regular book sale.

“We call that virtuous recycling,” Browne said.

The library hosts a book sale three times a month, and for $1 per book, they’ve never earned less than $700 at any single sale.

As, Hilscher explained, how the library began, is how the library is today: “A public place, not a private club. A place where the past meets the present and the present meets the future.”