Alpine's Library Keeps the Hours Its Volunteers Can Give
October 22, 2026
October 22, 2026
Alpine Community Library, the first public library in Alpine's history, is open 25 hours a week in a remodeled house at 491 S Alpine Highway, just past Burgess Orchards. The city doesn't fund it. Volunteers and donations keep it running, so the number on the door is a count of how much time neighbors can give.
That explains why the house works alongside the city's other two options. A bookmobile stops in town two Tuesdays a month, and Alpine City pays back up to $50 a year toward a card at another Utah library. Together the three cover the week.
Alpine was founded in 1850 and has about 10,500 residents. In all that time it never had a public library. A student feature by Bailey Nye traces how that changed. A group of local moms formed The Friends of Alpine Library in 2024. Before they had a building, they ran summer reading camps and set up small pop-up libraries around town.
Their permanent home came from Burgess Orchards, which donated the property. The feature describes a house that had endured "years of neglect" and was "filled with a pungent smell of smoke" until volunteers cleaned and repaired it and filled it with shelves. When the Alpine City Planning Commission took up the site in November 2025, it treated it as a conditional use in the CR-40,000 zone: a "quasi-public" building run by a nonprofit. The application also proposed occasional after-hours fundraisers, such as a small farmers market.
The orchard tie is more than an address. The library's team page lists development director Jennifer Qiao, who also helps manage the Burgess Orchards Farmstand. The farmstand has now closed for the season and says it will reopen in June. Through the winter, the house next door is where activity on that stretch of Alpine Highway carries on.
The city's October 2026 newsletter lists the library's hours as Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. That adds up to 25 hours. Highland Public Library, at 5400 Civic Center Drive, lists 50 hours across six days in the same newsletter. Alpine's library is closed on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays.
The gap comes down to staffing. Bethany Sorensen, the library's director of operations and facilities, has lived in Alpine for nine years. She explained the limit plainly in the Bailey Nye feature:
"I can't stay at the library all day [...] which is why we need volunteers so we can be open longer hours."
In the same piece she says running a library without city funding is "so hard," and that seeing kids at story time or a teenager arriving for the after-school coding class makes it "totally worth it." In practice, every added volunteer shift is an added open hour. The schedule can only grow as fast as the volunteer list does.
Here is how the three options in town line up this fall:
| Option | Where | When | Who it serves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine Community Library | 491 S Alpine Highway | Tue–Thu 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Fri 10 a.m.–2 p.m. | Volunteer-run nonprofit |
| Alpine City Bookmobile | Three stops around town | Tuesdays: Nov. 3, Nov. 17, Dec. 1, Dec. 15 | Alpine residents, free |
| Highland Public Library | 5400 Civic Center Drive, Highland | Mon–Thu 10 a.m.–8 p.m.; Fri 10 a.m.–4 p.m.; Sat noon–4 p.m. | Card holders; Alpine refunds up to $50 a year |
The bookmobile runs on a fixed route. According to the October newsletter, each visit day starts at River Meadows Senior Living, 137 Red Pine, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. It then parks in the Creekside Park lot off 100 South from noon to 2:30 p.m., and ends at the Alpine "Red Brick" church, 165 N 100 E, from 3:00 to 5:30 p.m. It's open to all Alpine residents, free, and includes Libby e-book access and interlibrary loans. The rest of this year's dates are November 3 and 17 and December 1 and 15, all Tuesdays. On those days, kids out of school by mid-afternoon can catch the last stop at the Red Brick church.
The refund covers the gaps the bookmobile leaves, such as Saturday afternoons and Monday evenings. On its library card reimbursement form, Alpine City says it pays back $50 once a year per household for a purchased library card. You need an Alpine address and a photo of your receipt, and processing takes one to two weeks. The city's FAQ page says receipts from any Utah library qualify, either dropped off at City Hall or sent by email. For most households, that means a Highland card and access to a library open until 8 p.m. four nights a week.
The library's own borrowing details, such as how to sign up as a patron, are on alpinelibrary.org.
With only 25 hours, the house has to fit a lot into a short week. The library's story page counts more than 10,000 donated books, more than 300 patrons signed up and over 1,000 program attendees. It also lists more than ten monthly programs, ranging from story time to Wellness Workshops, plus artisan markets featuring local artists such as Bryan Mark Taylor. The Bailey Nye feature adds music lessons, writing workshops, a STEM club and art classes.
Some of the regular programs on the events calendar are easy to drop into:
The Saturday knitting circle is notable because the house is normally closed on Saturdays. Some programs, it seems, can still open the doors on days when regular hours can't be staffed.
The library has written down its next priorities. Its about page lists improving accessibility, adding shelving, bringing the building fully up to code and creating an outdoor space for families. Treasurer Lindsey Nye told Bailey Nye the group wants to "eventually raise enough money to build a nicer building with more space."
Some of the outdoor work has already started, done by volunteers. In her October newsletter message, Mayor Carla Merrill wrote that Day of Service volunteers planted flowers, cleared weeds, prepared the park strip and planted numerous trees around the new library. The same day, other crews built and treated bridges in Lambert Park and cleaned the Dry Creek Trail behind the West Stake Center. Scott and Roberta Raban organized the effort. The library is growing the same way Alpine keeps up its trails, through one volunteer project after another.
From publication through the holidays, these dates on the library and city calendars are still ahead:
The library itself has a simple ask for anyone who wants it open on more days: give it a shift. Its get-involved page covers volunteering and donations.
At Echelon Luxury Homes, Jenny Mecham follows the places that shape daily life in Alpine, from Lambert Park's new bridges to the house past the orchard where the town keeps its books. If you'd like to talk through what that part of Alpine Highway is like through the seasons, request a private consultation.
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