Library growth

Goshen, Monroe and Warwick libraries look to expand to meet demand, By Linda Smith Hancharick Libraries have played a major role in Marilyn McIntosh’s life. Her memories are vivid and her love for books is passionate. “Whenever I’ve moved somewhere, the first thing I did was get a library card,” said McIntosh, director of Monroe’s Free Library. McIntosh started her library career as a volunteer, filling in for 10 weeks when she first moved to Monroe 33 years ago. Just as her role has grown within the library, so has the community around it. Because of that growth and the demand for services from the library, Monroe is one of three towns in the area proposing to build new library facilities. Warwick and Goshen are the two other communities whose library boards are or will be asking residents to fund multi-million building projects. And while space - or lack of it - is addressed in each library’s proposal, the new libraries would be more than bricks, mortar and books. Library officials see the institution as a critical participant in a community’s cultural, economic, educational and social lives. While all three library boards have acquired property for their new libraries, Warwick and Monroe will go to the voters on March 8, hoping to get approval to build what they say are facilities appropriate for populations that have grown tremendously over the last few decades. Goshen is probably about a year or two away from that point. Little room to meet increased demands ”Our building is 5,500 square feet,” said McIntosh. “It is totally inadequate for our needs. There is no proper seating. There is no proper lighting. We have no community room, no specific space for children. It is like a one-room schoolhouse.” In Goshen, from 1994 to 2002, library circulation has doubled. Program attendance has increased 65 percent. Intralibrary loan requests have increased 1,396 percent and computer usage has jumped 618 percent. Goshen’s 5,600-square-foot building was built in 1918 and modified in 1977. The library board bought five acres of the old Salesian property from a private owner with private funds and library assets. ”This library has been outgrown since 1977,” said Pauline Kehoe, director of the Goshen Public Library and Historical Society. “It was built to serve 2,000 people. The population it serves now is officially 17,000 but more like 20,000.” Warwick’s stats are similar. The current building, which was built in 1927 and added to in 1982, has less than 5,000 square feet on four floors. It is not handicap accessible and has three parking spaces. Serving 22,000 residents, this size building is just not up to the task, according to its board. Land for a new library was donated by Leyland Alliance, a local developer. Plans for the new library total 20,000 square feet and would cost $8.5 million. Suffern’s new library Suffern was in the same boat as Warwick, Monroe, and Goshen a decade ago. Its 7,000-square foot library was not sufficient to serve its residents either. Waiting lists for all programs were the norm. Now, with a 35,000-square foot library, the public is much better served. Suffern Library director Ruth Bolin said the process usually takes about eight years from the first thought of “we need a new library” to actually opening the doors. “We got serious about building a new library in 1994,” she said. “Our referendum was in 1997 and we opened the doors to our new library in 2000. It is a beautiful library and serves the community in so many ways.” Bolin said the location of the Suffern library—across from Good Samaritan Hospital—brings many people through its doors. Many community groups meet there, bringing even more people to the library. “Our goal was to make this a community-minded building,” she said. “We have about 400 community meetings each year.” Bolin said the Suffern community was strongly behind the building of the new library. “People were very supportive of the library,” she said. “It was a long process but a smooth one.” The ‘myth’ of the Internet Monroe has bought property adjacent to its current building and plans on renovating the existing library into a children’s library. The proposed building, which was unveiled in November, will be a three-story addition with sections for adults, young adults, and reference, as well as updated technology and a divisible community meeting room. When it is complete, the new library will total 30,000 square feet at a cost of $11.9 million. The funds for the property were raised between 2000 and 2006 through the library’s operating budget. But it is more than the brick and mortar building that houses books, according to McIntosh, Kehoe, and Warwick’s library director Rosemary Cooper, that make a library so special. ”Libraries are the cornerstone of democracy,” said McIntosh. “It is a myth that the Internet is precluding libraries. The president of Google said that 85 percent of knowledge in the world is not on the Internet. If libraries ever went away, it would change the entire structure of our country and not in a good way.” Cooper agrees. ”The transformation of information resources from print to electronic changes the character of the library-as-place, but it does not diminish it,” she said. “As we become focused more on technology, the physical library still plays an important role as a place for inquiry, reflection, research, and civic interaction. It may be an oasis in a hectic work life, a meeting place for students, or a stimulating space for parents to introduce their young children to the joys of reading.” And, Cooper adds, libraries incur a sense of community. ”Today libraries are being referred to as the ‘third place’ outside work and home where people of all ages can come to think, create, explore, connect, and learn,” said Cooper. “Public libraries provide a safe space for all these things to occur. The increase of emphasis on collaboration in our culture, from education to civic life, reflects the need we have to connect with each other in a positive way, and libraries provide places for us to do this in a way that is inclusive-encouraging diversity and respect.” And the Internet, according to Kehoe, isn’t replacing libraries. If anything, it is bringing in more business. ”Not everyone has a computer. The internet has actually brought us more business,” said Kehoe. “The library is a place they can come and use computers. It is a place they can come and learn online information.” Future investments Each of the three libraries have fundraising groups that help raise money for the building projects. They run fundraising events, such as barbecues, river cruises, auctions and parties. Goshen aims to raise one third of the cost of its new library with donations. While that money helps the cause, it certainly isn’t enough to build a building that the library directors believe are investments in the future. ”Everyone should have the opportunity to read,” said McIntosh. “Not everyone can afford their reading taste. Thank God for libraries. They are an investment in our future.” And to those who feel there is no need for a large library, with so much available via the Internet, Kehoe counters that libraries are so much more than just a place to house books. ”Libraries are a good place to teach people how to find things,” said Kehoe. “We’ve always been in the business of searching for information. We show people how to proceed. Public libraries are about self-help, entertainment. They are about education. And I don’t see the day coming where people will want to read novels on a computer screen.”