January/February 2010

The Library is about to embark on the final phase of our multi-year rearrangement project. This project, begun in 2002, has had as its primary goals making better use of our space to extend the lifespan of our building and improving patron convenience. To keep our costs down, we have spread the project over several years. Our next phase will be in February. Exact dates and times will be announced closer to the date.

Libraries are normally "programmed" to last about 20 years without an addition. Our 1992 addition was 18 years ago, and our collection and services have grown much faster than originally anticipated. In the first phase of the rearrangement project, we moved our upstairs stacks closer together, moved adult fiction upstairs, removed a wall on the first floor, rearranged the youth section, and created the Popular Library for new and audiovisual items. In the second phase, we began work on making our lobby more patron-friendly by removing the large checkout desk, putting holds out for people to pick up themselves, and adding more self-check stations. This final phase will enable us to fine-tune our arrangement. After living with the current arrangement for a few years, we have analyzed what works well and what needs to be tweaked a bit. This phase will primarily affect the first floor.

We plan to move the Teen Area to the rear of the building, where the children's picture books are now, and move the picture books to the front of the youth area near the program room (yes, it is where they were originally!). This location makes more sense because of its proximity to the program room and the family restrooms. Audiovisual materials (CDs, books on CD, DVDs, etc.) and the anti-theft DVD dispensers will move to the area to the west and south of where the Teen Area will be. Books on hold will be on the west wall (the wall along the rear arcade entrance) and new books will be on the wall along the stairway. Spanish for adult and youth will move to where the music CDs are now. This rearrangement will enable us to make the lobby a more comfortable, welcoming place with seating, self-checkout machines, and space to show off special collections. We are also going to move some of our back issues of magazines out of the anteroom to the Belluschi Room and add comfortable seating to create a more welcoming entrance into our historical portion. Improved signage and lighting will also be installed.

Because this final phase will involve much of the first floor, we will need to compress our services into the Belluschi Room for the week or so that the stack and collection moving will occur. Patrons will enter through the old front doors of the Library near the fountain, and we will have holds to pick up and popular materials available. We realize this is an inconvenience, and we appreciate your patience as we finish up this multi-year project. By doing it the way we have, we have been able to postpone any kind of addition for a number of years, saving millions of dollars. Funding for this project has come from several bequests left to the Library, savings we have accumulated, the Library Foundation (including a donation from Nobel Prize winner Carl Wieman), and the Friends of the Library. We truly appreciate all the support we have received from our community, and hope you like the result!