Progress update

As you can see by the two pictures at the right the Central Library is rapidly being deconstructed. Work has begun on removing the existing roof and demolishing the northwest corner. We are hopeful that the new exterior of the library will be in place by the end of 2011.  Local residents have complemented Dustin Construction for handling noise and waste issues favorably and they continue to work diligently to keep these disruptions to a minimum.

A project this size has many facets: scheduling work and deliveries to keep the workers busy, planning around local utilities schedules, consideration of the neighborhood with regards to noise, traffic, and safety and taking into consideration the 1914 Maryland Roadside Tree Law! County Public Works staff is working closely with Dustin Construction to ensure that this project is successful for all parties concerned.

Little known fact: When building the columns in the current library (1964) cement had to be hauled up by buckets and poured into the framework by hand. Today machines are able to do it quickly and safely.

We continue to post photos on Facebook and our website. Watch us build our Great New Library and visit our two temporary locations, Downtown, 59 W. Washington St. and North Pointe Shopping Center (off Route 11).

 

- Mary Baykan,

Director of the Library

The walls come tumbling down

Things are moving fast!  Yesterday, our colleague Julie took this picture of the building with the back wall gone, and this morning the Herald-Mail website reports that Antietam Street is temporarily closed for removal of the other walls.  Here are a couple other photos showing what things looked like this morning.

 

A look inside

As we’ve mentioned, the early stages of the project will mostly involve interior demolition, so you won’t see any dramatic changes from the street for a while, but here are a couple photos showing what the inside of the building currently looks like.  The crews have been working fast — notice the bare ceiling and remember how many fluorescent fixtures were up there.

A picture of the interior of the library during demolition - Feb. 14, 2011

A picture of the interior of the library during demolition - Feb. 14, 2011

A couple photos

We stopped by the old building today to see what’s up, and took a couple snapshots.  The streets in front and on the side are now “no parking” zones, and the construction fence is up.  The project is off and running!

Construction starting at last!

View of the new library from Potomac Street

It’s official – work on the new library will begin Monday, Feb. 7.  Today’s Herald-Mail has a good story all about it.  As our Director, Mary Baykan, says, “It’s really the beginning of a marvelous asset for Hagerstown and Washington County.”  From what we’ve heard, not much may be visible from the outside at first – demolition will start with the interior.  And if you were hoping for a chance to see a big implosion, that won’t be happening – not even a wrecking-ball.  The framework and floors of the old building will be incorporated into the new, so demolition will be done methodically. In any case, even without explosions, it’s an exciting milestone for the library and for Hagerstown.  Check back here regularly for updates, or subscribe using the RSS link at the right.

Where did all the books go?

Now that the temporary branches at Downtown and North Pointe are up and running, you may have visited there and thought to yourself, “Where are all the books?  There were thousands in the old library, and I only see a small portion of them here.”  In fact, most of those books have gone into storage, but we can get them for you – just ask at any branch.

The movers worked like crazy to get everything out of the old building and moved into our temporary storage facility, in the former Phoenix Color printing plant on Western Maryland Parkway.

The new arrangements will take some getting used to, but we want to be sure all our customers can get the books (and audiobooks, and DVDs) they need.  If there’s something you want that’s not on the shelf at the temporary branch, just ask us to get it for you, or put it on hold when you look it up in our catalog.  Either way, it will be delivered to the branch of your choice within a day or two.

The new library building – in 1964

We found a really interesting brochure in our files the other day.  It’s a flyer that presented the arguments for building our current building back in the mid-60s.  Among the interesting tidbits:

•  ”the new building is not pretentious, but it will give you a functional library of which you can be proud”
• it will increase the capacity of the library from 65,000 to 200,000 books
• the bookmobile will no longer have to park across the street and books be carried across to it
• there will be “individual study alcoves with typing permitted”
• it will have an elevator and air conditioning, unlike the previous building

Needless to say, our user’s needs have continued to change, and library services have continued to evolve, in the last 40+ years.  The new building that will replace this one will be equally modern and equally forward-looking, but no doubt our successors 40 or 50 years from now will find our ideas about our new building just as quaint as we find the ones from 1964.  If you’d like to see the whole brochure, we’ve scanned it and put a copy here.

Plans for new building announced!

It’s official — the architects have come up with a design for the new downtown library, and we think it’s beautiful!  It will double the floor space we have now, give much better access for people with disabilities, and make the library much more user-friendly for everyone.  The plans were announced at a celebration on Nov. 18 — and are available here. (That is a large PDF file – almost 3 Mb.)  Drawings of the new building are also on display on our mezzanine, outside the Western Maryland Room.

Starting in the Spring next year, while the new library is being built on the site of the current one, we will continue to operate in a temporary location, which is still being determined.  We will look forward to moving into the beautiful new building in late 2011.