The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Library 'books over' to temporary spot
By Brian Cox, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: May 10, 2007
The Saline District Library is going "old school."
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At 5 p.m. Friday, library staff will lock the doors of the building at 555 N. Maple Road and prepare to relocate operations for the next 10 months less than a half mile down the road at Liberty School.
The library will remain closed for two weeks to give staff and professional movers time to transfer to Liberty School more than 90,000 items, including books, videos, CDs, DVDs, CD-Roms, newspapers and magazines, said library Director Leslee Niethammer.
The library will be up and running again at Liberty School May 29. No borrowed materials have due dates between May 12 and 28. Materials can be returned to the current library site's drop box up until 8 a.m. May 14, after which materials should be returned to the drop box at Liberty School.
Niethammer said she does not expect much interruption in library services and programs as a result of the relocation.
"It will be a little cramped," she said, "and we are not going to offer any meeting space to the public at Liberty.
But all library-sponsored programs, such as the summer reading program for youth, will continue.
The current library is 16,000 square feet and the space the library is renting from the school district amounts to a little more than 8,000 square feet.
It might be a little tight.
"We'll try to get in as much seating as we possibly can," said Niethammer, who is considering using the lobby and hallway for more seating room.
The main adult collection and computers will be housed in Liberty School's former media center. Two classrooms down the hall, the youth department will set up shop. Administration will run out of the school's old central office.
The rental fee is $10 per square foot and will cost the library about $8,000 a month.
The school will continue to host other Community Education activities and programs in its gym and classrooms, and Niethammer welcomes the arrangement.
"I think it's going to be exciting to be in a building that has multiple users," she said. "I think it's a great opportunity."
The temporary move is necessitated by the $4.5-million expansion of the library that is to start later this month. The expansion will double the size of the building and will include enclosed areas for youth, teens and computers, plus dozens more shelves for the now overflowing book collections. Voters last August approved a 20-year millage of 0.55 mils to fund the expansion.
The Saline library first opened to the public in 1901. It operated out of the city's council rooms until 1907, when it rented space in the rear of a bank at 105 N. Ann Arbor St., where the coffee shop The Drowsy Parrot is located today. The library moved again in 1969, this time to 201 S. Ann Arbor St.
The library employed a "kid brigade" then to move carted books and materials to the new location, an idea Niethammer said would be cute for the upcoming relocation, but not quite feasible.
The library moved to its current 11-acre site on North Maple Road in 1994.
Staff Writer Brian Cox can be reached at 429-8173 or bcox@heritage.com.
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