Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 18, 1993 TAG: 9309180009
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
On Aug. 27, rain water from a sudden downpour leaked through the northern side of the former lumber company building that now houses the branch library and damaged more than 400 volumes of fiction.
The novels - soaked alphabetically by author from A onward - are back on the shelves now. Some of the swollen, ruined volumes are out of print and impossible to replace, library officials say. A sheet of black plastic hung over the imperiled section Thursday.
Three days after the flood, the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors voted 4-3 to ask the Circuit Court judge to put the issue on next month's ballot, after earlier deadlocking on the question. Another referendum, $2.9 million for a new county Health and Human Services building, will also be up for voters' consideration.
From 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Monday, public library supporters will put forth their vision of how the situation can be improved at the Blacksburg branch of the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library. The public is invited and encouraged to attend.
Hosted by the Friends of the Blacksburg Area Branch Library, the evening will include the recently completed plans for the library project and the Virginia Beach architect who drew them up, Richard J. Fitts of the Design Collaborative.
Friends member Marion Wooldridge said the campaign kickoff at 400 Draper Road will be only the beginning. The group also will send speakers to clubs and organizations across Montgomery County, distribute bumper stickers and fliers and have people at the polls come Nov. 2. The campaign push coincides with a membership drive next month.
If the past is any guide, the library expansion bond question will need all the help it can get.
In November 1990, Montgomery County voters turned down three bond questions totaling $6.7 million, including $1.36 million for the Blacksburg branch library. Voting returns showed widespread support for the question in the Blacksburg precincts but less enthusiasm elsewhere.
A 1988 effort by the Board of Supervisors to gain voters' approval for general bond authority - which would have allowed it to issue bonds without individual referendums - was in part motivated by a desire to improve the Blacksburg library. Voters defeated that question by a 4-to-1 margin.
This time, supporters are focusing on the positives a bond referendum win would bring for the entire library system, which includes the headquarters library in Christiansburg, the Jessie Peterman Memorial Branch Library in Floyd County and two bookmobiles.
The proposed bond issue, for instance, would include $150,000 to computerize the entire library system, which still uses card catalogs and manual tracking of checkouts - practices that are obsolete in other parts Virginia.
The library system already has the existing collection entered into a computer database, paid for by an earlier grant, and adds new books as they come in. The bond money would pay for the computer hardware and software necessary to open that information up to the public.
It also will allow the libraries to provide better service while freeing up staff time for other projects, said Ida Comparin, interim library director.
Comparin and associate director Jo Brown, as county employees, cannot lobby for the bond referendum. But they can show the situation as it exists now and explain how the new design would change things.
According to Brown and Comparin, the overhaul would reorient the entire building. The main entrance would move from the current Draper Road storefront to what's now the service entrance at the rear, facing the parking lot. It would make more efficient use of a huge warehouse area by making it the centerpiece of the building. Today, it is filled with surplus county property and voting machines shrouded in plastic.
A side addition would increase the building's size from 9,000 to 16,000 square feet, some 500 more than the Christiansburg headquarters.
The renovation, which would be done in sections, also would remove the former storefront windows and zig-zag roof on the Draper Road side and replace them with a terrace area for readings and a sloped roof.
The improvements would include a significantly larger meeting room for 120 people, complete with a kitchen, a new air-conditioning and handling system and low-glare lighting throughout.
The children's section, which has some shelves too high for young readers to reach, will be expanded and improved. Children's books account for more than half of the branch's circulation, Brown said.
And, according to Comparin, the new design would include quiet, individual study areas for older patrons not enthralled with the hubbub of story time.
by CNB