Friends of the Corrales Library is preparing to enter its 50th year as the financial backbone of the Corrales Community Library, even as it pleads with village officials for relief from a cramped, rodent-plagued storage shed and a hallway barely three feet wide. Group president Kristie Gilbert laid out the organization's needs, old and new, during the Oct. 27 Corrales Village Council meeting, describing an operation that has quietly bankrolled library programs for decades but is now running out of room to function.
The Friends of the Corrales Library, often shortened to FOCL, was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 1977 to raise funds and gather volunteers in support of the library, according to the group's own account on its website. As reported by the Rio Rancho Observer, the Corrales Community Library itself provides a place for people to belong and educate themselves free of charge, and FOCL has spent nearly five decades keeping that mission funded.
Half a Century of Quiet Fundraising
Per Gilbert, FOCL receives all of its library funding through monetary donations and the sale of community-donated goods, without relying on taxpayer dollars. The group says it has contributed more than $350,000 to the library over the 15 years before 2025, according to Gilbert, and it fully funds annual programs including summer reading and lifelong learning classes.
Gilbert said the organization also covers newspaper subscriptions, the DVD collection and the seed library, and has purchased furnishings while funding building repairs and capital improvements over the years. By the group's own account on its website, FOCL funds 100 percent of the library's programs and DVD acquisitions, with donated jewelry sales and twice-yearly used book sales serving as its main sources of income. The site notes that in recent years FOCL has furnished the library with roughly $25,000 annually to cover expenses.
Those book sales alone have become a serious revenue engine. The group's book sale brings in about $20,000 a year, with all programs the library puts on paid for by funds generated through the sales, the organization told the Rio Rancho Observer in a prior report. The sale has grown bigger every year and has run for at least a few decades, per that same account, with the twice-yearly events stocked entirely with books donated by the community. A 2024 fall sale offered thousands of books, DVDs and CDs priced at $2 or less, according to the Corrales Comment, with proceeds designated for the library.
A Shed With Structural Problems and Rodents
Despite that fundraising track record, Gilbert told the council that FOCL and the library are constrained by a small storage shed with structural issues and a rodent problem. The group also shares a hallway just three feet wide with the library itself, she said, and pays more than $2,600 annually to rent off-site storage just to manage the overflow. FOCL had planned to replace the shed with a newer, larger one, but National Park Service restrictions tied to La Entrada Park prevented that construction.
Village Administrator Melanie Romero said library expansions that existed when La Entrada Park was designed had not been officially approved, and she told the council that the village's grant contact denied the proposed new shed plan. Mel Knight, a council member, said the current storage space poses health hazards because of its structural issues and rodent problem, and she described the old bank building as the best temporary solution she saw on the table.
FOCL has proposed using the old bank to temporarily store books, and Gilbert said the group's preferred space there would measure 12 by 24 feet for work and storage. Fred Hashimoto agreed that the old bank could serve as a potential solution but cautioned that formal discussions would take time to work through.
Parkland Rules Complicate the Path Forward
The sticking point throughout much of the discussion was how federal parkland restrictions apply to any future library space. Council members Stuart Murray and Zack Burkett asked officials to examine options for meeting National Park Service requirements, while Burkett and fellow council member Lisa Brown asked whether outdoor reading could qualify as outdoor recreation under those rules, since the requirement specifies that the space be used recreationally. Bill Woldman expressed frustration with the National Park Service requirements during the meeting, and Murray urged officials to escalate the matter directly to the Park Service for clarity.
FOCL first raised the idea of a new meeting space for library staff and the organization back in 2021, and the group has continued pressing the issue since. Gilbert asked the council to include FOCL in ongoing discussions about the old bank, Gonzales Field and La Entrada Park, telling officials the group depends heavily on volunteer labor and holds its own meetings virtually and outside normal work hours specifically to avoid monopolizing library space. She added that FOCL is willing to work with the council and discuss potential compromises as the village sorts out its options.
The group's broader ambitions for La Entrada Park have been in the works since 2018, when FOCL received a generous estate donation from longtime library patron the late Fred Emerson, according to the organization's website. The proposed annex there would add book-donation intake and storage, a small used bookstore and free book exchange, plus storage space for the tables and chairs used in outdoor library programming. FOCL is working to build a small used bookstore in the park, even as it marks 2019's commemoration of 40 years since the library building at 84 West La Entrada Road was completed in 1979, and prepares to enter its 50th year supporting the library that calls that building home.
