GALESBURG, Ill. — Galesburg is in the final stages of getting its new library open and on Monday, the library got some extra special help.
Around 500 fifth and sixth grade students from Lombard Middle School lined the two and a half blocks between the old and new libraries, passing 450 books one by one down the line.
"I thought they just take it to a truck and unload them," said sixth grader Laila Davis. "I never thought that they'd do this. Although it's fun."
The Galesburg Library has around 140,000 items in total, not just books. Director Noelle Thompson estimates hired movers have completed about half of that. However, they wanted to get the kids involved, too.
"When our library opened in 1902, a group of high school students moved from the small location to the permanent library," Thompson said. "We actually have records of how many books each student carried and what their process was so we're also keeping history alive by kind of recreating that event."
It took students three days, she said. They carried however many books they could carry in a stack.
"It's cool to have that record and we'll be documenting how this move goes today so 120 years from now people will be able to look back and see how Lombard helped move this library," Thompson said.
"I think it's really amazing and I'm glad to be a part of it," said Lombard Sixth Grade Teacher Laura Bosomworth. "I'm glad we have a chance to be part of it. They're never going to have a chance to do anything like this again and it's part of the community. It's a way to give back."
The students worked in the human assembly line for just under an hour. Many were chanting "pass the book!" while others took a page out of Home Alone with "pass this to Kevin!"
Lu'kilia Currie was one of the fifth graders leading the chants. She's excited for the new library to open.
"You get to sit in peace and quiet and none of your siblings are being annoying and bothering you," she said. "You get to just sit and read whatever book you want to read."
Davis is excited too because the new library is closer to her house. She's also excited to see her time passing the books pay off.
"Honestly I can't wait for it to open so I can see," Davis said. "Later on in life we can be like I was the one who transferred the books from one library to the other."
The library saved the children's board books for the middle schoolers to move. The first book of the stack was titled "A is for Alice" and the last book was "A Little Happy Book for a Happy You." The last book was marked with a big gold sign too so the kids would know.
"We're doing board books so books that kids would have read when they were very young," Thompson said. "We're hoping along the way a student might stop and say, 'Oh I remember this one!' or this is a funny book about animal butts. If they stop and the book takes some time to get back here because the students are engaging with the material, I'm really thrilled with that."
It took one book 16 minutes to make it through the line of 500 kids across the two and a half blocks.