Solon area residents will have the opportunity to place bids towards the purchase of any one of over seventy donated artworks at the Solon Library Foundation’s Second Annual “Put a Bid On It” silent auction, which runs for three weeks at the Solon Public Library, from Monday, February 27 until 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 18. The non-profit Foundation raises funds to meet the Library’s long-term building and program needs. It will dedicate the money raised through this auction to a fund for the purchase of equipment for a Mobile Computer Lab project.
Library Director Liz King explained that Library staff wish to purchase ten or so laptop computers or Chromebooks, along with the necessary software, and a charging cart. King said this mobile computer lab would permit staff to meet the needs of a wide range of patrons of all ages for services they cannot easily provide with the Library’s fixed-in-place bank of ten desktop computers. With the mobile lab, people would be able to bring computers into the Library’s Community Room, or one of its smaller meeting rooms, where Library staff, or perhaps outside volunteers, could conduct activities such as computer classes or writing workshops. King said the portable computers would also be available for use during high demand times, such as on Thursday afternoons after Solon schools release students at 2:00 p.m.
Speaking of the Library Community Room, that’s where volunteers spent the morning of Saturday, February 25 hanging framed artworks and their corresponding bid sheets. Additional works for sale are available for viewing in the library display case. Each bid sheet requests an initial bid of a certain amount, usually twenty dollars. The bid sheets further request that each subsequent bid be at least five dollars higher than the previous one.
The works for sale come in an array of formats, from paintings, to prints, to posters, to photographs. A good many of them depict outdoor scenes, particularly ones of Midwestern wilderness, wildlife, and agriculture. Examples of these include: a hunting ammunition company poster featuring the image of a duck in flight, a painting of a stand of trees at dusk, a photo of a pair of owls perched on a lawn chair, and a print of a Grant Wood painting of the rolling hills of our region of East Central Iowa.
The library, located at 320 W. Main St., is open Monday-Thursday 9:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m. and Friday-Saturday 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

Gallery • 10 Photos