Our Town Revisited: Ocean Pines Library

OCEAN PINES, Md. – Now it’s time for our flash to the past. as we look at Ocean Pines Library was the largest library in Worcester County at the time in town in 1999. Over 25 years later, the Ocean Pines Branch is still a staple in Worcester County, and they’ve still found ways to continue to reach all members of the community.

Busy Branch

For nearly 3 decades, the Worcester County Library has been a staple in the community. Library Director Jennifer Ranck says, with all of those card holders, the Ocean Pines Branch stays extremely busy.

“Worcester County has about We have about 35,000 library card holders, and the Ocean Pines Branch is the largest facility in our system… It seems like 300 to 350 people about a day come in, which is fabulous…We actually have about 100 different groups use our meeting rooms each month which is great, and we have a very active Friends group.”

Remodeled Rooms

The interior includes a meeting room, the local historical room, and a conference which has many uses including story time for the kids. “We just have a wide depth of programming for all age- we do things like story time, we have after school programs for kids, we do home school events… We do weekly story telling’s, and we can have anywhere from 30 to 50, even more people, so when it gets that big, we did move it to the large community room.”

Jennifer Ranck has been here just shy of 20 years and says while the inside may look similar, the exterior has expanded, like their outdoor garden for the public. “In June, we opened up an outdoor learning classroom that was donated by the ocean pines friends’ group.”

Modern Movies & Music

In the late 90s CDs and DVDs were popular, and many people got their news from good old-fashioned newspapers. While this section is still alive, they’ve expanded a bit to keep up with modern times.

“The library definitely has CDs and DVDs when we first opened, and we still have them today, some of our movies are now Blu-Ray… One thing that has changed is our digital content. So, people can use their library card now to download E-books, Audio Books, even movies and music.”

Love for Libraries 

In the beginning, they had about 5 people on staff. Ranck says they’ve grown as the community has grown, and they plan to do what they can to help the residents of Worcester County and beyond.

“I think the staff was about 5 people, 5 or 6 people when they first opened, and I believe we’re up to 13 people now. And we couldn’t run this library without our volunteers. We have about 25 people each week come I to help us shelve books, help us with programming… I think a lot of us are drawn to libraries because we do love to read, but really what we love to do is help people.”

Their summer reading is their biggest program of the year! Sign-ups start in May and if you want more information, visit their website.