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Photo by Chris Wright
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Saline District Library Director Leslee Niethammer is looking forward to returning to the remodeled library once construction is completed in May. The $5.8 million library expansion, more than halfway done now, is expected to be great resource for the almost 25,000 residents of the Saline Area School District.
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The Saline District Library is on schedule to reopen in May in its former location at 555 N. Maple Road, and when it does, it will have more than doubled its size and amount of media material.
As much as anyone, Saline District Library Director Leslee Niethammer is looking forward to moving back home once construction is completed. The $5.8 million library expansion, more than halfway done now, is expected to be great resource for the almost 25,000 residents of the Saline Area School District.
The library is still more or less just a construction site, with piles of building material stacked high and bare interior walls, ceilings and floors. Some recognizable features from the library the way it was are still visible. The old entry way, circulation desk and vaulted ceiling above the entry door are still intact.
That's about it. The rest will be new.
"We're going to have a whole new look," Niethammer said while walking around the site last month.
She points out where certain rooms will be built. Some already have the skeletons of wall support beams in place. Others are just left to the imagination.
There will be an enclosed kids' program room. The separate room is designed to cut down the noise so as not to bother other patrons, she said.
"What's really nice about the kids' room is that there will be a lovely view into the woods," Niethammer said, pointing to where a bank of windows has yet to be installed.
The new library also will feature a room for teens complete with Internet-accessible computers, as well as three quiet study rooms, a periodicals room and perhaps the director's favorite room, the local history room.
The local history room is expected to display many of the Bixby Marionettes, which are now housed at the Saline Area Chamber of Commerce office. The hand-carved wooden puppets, 84 of them in all, were crafted by Saline's own Meredith Bixby, who toured and performed with the Marionettes for more than 40 years throughout the Midwest and South.
"We have worked hard to incorporate patron suggestions in our new spaces, including quiet places to read and study, separate spaces for our youngest visitors and a special room for teens," Niethammer said.
"We think everyone will be delighted and pleased with our new look when we return."
When it reopens, the library will boast 33,000 square feet of floor space, a collection of media that will have doubled and $600,000 worth of new furniture and shelves.
The library also will be able to expand the programs it offers, Niethammer said.
The number of materials checked out has grown an average of 8 percent per year and attendance has increased on average 7 percent per year since the library became a district library 14 years ago, Niethammer said.
Use of the online resource catalog and the Internet in general at the library has risen dramatically in recent years, she added.
The library is currently operating in exile at its temporary home inside Liberty School, located at 7265 Saline-Ann Arbor Road. Since moving to the school, attendance has dropped off substantially, Niethammer said. The library, which had been getting more than 18,000 visits per month prior to the temporary relocation, is only getting a fraction of that in attendance now.
So it appears that Niethammer, the library's director for the last 18 years, is not the only one looking forward to getting back to the former site.
When the library reopens, it will have expanded hours, Niethammer said. It will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays all year.
The library is also hoping to increase its parking by working out an agreement with Saline Area Schools to use a part of the nearby Saline Middle School's parking lot.
Originally built in 1994, the 16,000-square-foot, $2.2 million library was designed by Saline architect Mike Pogliano. In August, 2006, voters approved a 0.55-mill tax increase that solidified funding for the expansion.
About 64 percent of the expansion's funding came from library savings and interest earnings from the Carl and Joan Rodman Schrandt Endowment Fund, donations from the Friends of the Library, citizens and local businesses, and the first year's payments of the increased millage.
The library has borrowed the remaining $2.1 million in bonds to complete the project. The 20-year bonds will be paid for by the millage's future collections.
View video of Niethammer speaking about the new library at www.salinereporter.com.
Chris Wright is a freelance writer. He can be reached at liberty4589@comcast.net.
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