“It has been a lifesaver for us,” Bee Cave Library Director Barbara Hathaway told us as we sat down to discuss the impact the Hill Country Galleria Rolling Sculpture Car Show has had on the library in the first two years of the show.

With the 2010 car show date set for Oct. 24, “Show King” Dean Mericas and his committee are naturally deep into the planning stages, working with the Bee Cave Library, the Friends of the Library and the staff at the Hill Country Galleria.
The first year, 2008, no one knew what to expect, even the organizers, though Mericas had helped organize shows like it when he lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan. That may be one reason his first thought on seeing “main street” at the Hill Country Galleria was, “What a great place for a car show.” That first year the show attracted some 75 cars plus half a dozen sponsors — including the Lake Travis View — and handed the library a check for $925.
Then the recession hit everybody, and Hathaway was scrambling to cover the needs of the library and its patrons with a budget that had been slashed, including a book budget that had been cut by nearly 60 percent.
“There are things we need every year, and things we need to replace every year,” she explained. “For example,” she said, holding up a tattered copy of one of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books, The Lightning Thief, “this book was checked out 29 times last year.”
The book was pretty beat up, and even though kids will check out a book in that condition, adults won’t. Books in this and the Harry Potter series, among others, also must be replaced regularly, of course, and with multiple copies to meet the demand.
“Since we had gotten nearly a thousand dollars the first year, I was hoping for two thousand from the Rolling Sculpture Car Show.” (The second year the show drew 160 cars. Both years had been blessed with sunny skies.) “The numbers were pretty tight, and then we found out we would be getting four thousand dollars from the show.” The actual amount, according to Barbara, was $4,310.
“Replacement of worn items often gets pushed to the bottom of the list,” she points out,” and we were so grateful to have the funds to do this. I told Dean I also wanted to use some of the funds to buy books for children and adults about cars and transportation in general and asked what he had in mind for the funds.
“To my delight, he said ‘whatever your urgent needs are.’” Hathaway bought books about classic cars, car collecting and restoration and so on for adults. But the library also bought “board books” for toddlers, picture books for preschoolers and nonfiction books for school-age kids about cars, trucks, fire engines, airplanes and transportation in general. As a “thank you,” on these she placed special bookplates reading “Made possible by a donation from the Rolling Sculpture Car Show.”
Following Mericas’ instruction to use the money for “whatever your urgent needs are, some of the funds went to provide, as Hathaway put it, “much-needed support for library operations… literally!”
“We purchased a series of modular shelving units for our storage area to house the many bins of craft supplies, holiday decorations, replacement cases for CDs and DVDs, holiday books and so on. We are no longer in danger of being crushed by falling boxes when we look for something in our storage area!”
Keeping books upright reduces wear and tear, so the library also purchased magnetic steel bookends for all the shelves throughout the library. Hathaway notes these are expensive, but work much better than other styles. The library also purchased a large hanging rack for puppets and props for the “storytime” closet.
Mericas thinks the show has been lucky with weather so far (though it could be moved “indoors” into the parking garages if necessary, so the 2010 Hill Country Galleria Rolling Sculpture Car Show will be in October for the third time.

By T.Q. Jones