Sneak peek of the First Floor!

A lot of change has been going on in the Children's and Young Adult departments downstairs. These two areas were closed off to the public when we opened the new additions a few months ago. The Children's Department is temporarily located in the new large auditorium, and Young Adult books are in the elevator lobby. We had to shift them around so workers could renovate their usual spaces. Here's an exclusive, sneak peek into what's going on back there!

In the Children's Area, workers have removed the walls of the Storyroom and all of the ceiling tiles. It's hard to get a good feel for what's going on in there from a photo, because it's a pretty jumbled space at the moment:

However, the middle part of the First Floor, where our Circulation and Tech Services departments used to be located, is really neat to see. This part of the building used to be closed to the public and was a maze of offices. Now, there's a wide, spacious hallway right through the middle of the building where Tech Services was, linking the Young Adult and Children's departments. Hallway might be the wrong word... this is a BIG, open space, so maybe it's more of a throughway. Here's a cool photo showing work on this area:

Those windows in the wall give us a peek into the new Storyroom (it was formerly the Circulation Department!). This new space will be much larger than the old Storyroom. We'll even be able to divide it into two rooms if needed! See all those spaces under the windows for electrical outlets? Our Children's computers are going to line the walls in this area! (On an unrelated note, aren't those some cool stilts the worker is wearing?)

Standing in the middle of the throughway, here's a photo that shows where the new Children's Department desk will be located, at one end. The Children's staff workroom is behind that half-wall. (If you look at the red column on the left side of the picture, you can get a better idea of where the Children's Department desk used to be.)

Meanwhile, things are coming along on the other side of the building. In the Young Adult Department, we were pleasantly surprised to see that the back wall of the department (where all the tall bookshelves are supposed to be) has been painted a lovely shade of green. That's a really cool curvy feature on the ceiling, too.

Also, workers are installing carpet in the Young Adult Department!

That half-wall you see surrounds the area where the public copy machine will be located. The long windows on the far right look into the new Circulation workroom.


The first floor of this addition (the one that faces our parking lot) will house a corridor of offices for our Young Adult and Circulation staff. Here's something really cool: The former exterior brick wall of the building will stay, with its windows in place. Here's a shot looking down the corridor. Offices are on the left, and the windows in the brick wall look into the Young Adult Department. That open space you see in the distance is the lobby at the front of the building.

We thank our patrons for their patience as we go through the renovation. As you can see by these photos, we have a lot to look forward to in a few months!