AN ILSLEY INVITATION
From: Catherine Nichols, President of the Ilsley Board of Trustees, and
John Freidin, Ilsley Trustee and Chair of Middlebury Library Building Committee
On behalf of the Ilsley Board of Trustees and the nine Middlebury residents who served on the Middlebury Library Building Committee, we invite you to a public meeting at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, September 13, in the Ilsley Community Room to hear from our architects and discuss the needs and goals of our community for its beloved public library.
We hope to fund 50 to 60% of this project with private, philanthropic contributions.
Since 1988, when the most recent addition was completed, usage of the library has doubled. 170,000 persons use Ilsley every year. Our library ranks among the top five statewide in visits, circulation, program attendance, and public computer usage and in the top 5% nationally of 1395 libraries of comparable size.
For the past three years the Library Building Committee -- appointed jointly by the Middlebury Selectboard and Ilsley Trustees -- has conducted a written survey of citizens’ views; listened to residents in large and small groups; heard from Ilsley staff and library consultants; visited other libraries; and asked itself questions nearly identical to those raised on FPF. Below are the questions the committee thought were essential to making a worthy recommendation. We invite you to ask them of yourself – and tell us what you think.
1) Should the children’s library be moved from the basement where it suffers from water leaks and mold; where steel posts obscure lines of sight; where, when a new book is purchased, an existing book must be discarded; where there is little natural light; where an unobserved entrance is steps from young children; and where there is insufficient space for different age groups to participate in age-appropriate programs separately?
2) Should there be an at-grade, accessible entrance within sight of the Circulation Desk? Another from Main Street?
3) Should shelving enable all patrons to reach both the highest and lowest books and videos?
4) Should the failing elevator be replaced? Should it be moved to a more central location?
5) Should the library replace its antiquated heating system that requires expensive maintenance and heats the building unevenly?
6) Should the library replace its ten problematic air conditioners that often fail and do not cool the building evenly?
7) Should the library expand to provide more space for seniors, children, and high school students and to enhance spaces for computer users, digital instruction, and the media lab?
8) Do we need additional quiet, small meeting places?
9) Should the Community Room be larger, have a higher ceiling to accommodate movies and videos, and be able to be reconfigured into multiple spaces of different sizes?
10) Should the original 1924 building be retained and made more prominent?
11) Should Ilsley have more than its current two public toilets, which are in the basement, in poor repair, and are often used improperly?
12) Should Ilsley have a mechanical ventilating system and windows that work?
13) Should Ilsley seal the foundation of the original structure, which currently allows water to leak into the Children’s Library and Community Room?
14) Should Ilsley be moved to a different location, where a one-story structure could be built and there is plenty of parking?
With the exception of Question 14, the committee answered all these questions with a yes. It then worked with architects Gossens Bachman of Montpelier and assessed three distinct proposals to determine the most practical and structurally flexible building that could achieve public goals and accommodate evolving needs. The architects’ report has been unanimously endorsed by the five Ilsley Trustees and is available at http://tinyurl.com/ya8dwvq7. We encourage you to read it.
And we look forward to your ideas and to your participation in the September 13th meeting.
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