Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 22, 1993 TAG: 9309240375
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
People converted, that is, to the belief that the Blacksburg Area Branch Library is in dire need of a face lift, rear end rearrangement and side augmentation.
Some 80 people, many library boosters, heard Fitts' explanation of the plans for a library overhaul to be paid for by a $1.88 million bond issue up for a vote in Montgomery County in November.
If the questions that audience members peppered Fitts with were any indication, people take their libraries seriously in these parts. One woman asked if sinks were included in the children's activity rooms; another wanted to know why there was no stage in the children's story room. A man said his favorite part of the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library headquarters in Christiansburg is the reading chairs near windows, and he wondered if the proposed floor plan for Blacksburg incorporated a similar feature.
Fitts, whose Design Collaborative firm has worked on seven library projects across Virginia, explained the key issues of his redesign: a 180-degree reorientation of the entrance of the former lumber company building away from Draper Road and toward the 140-space parking lot; a plan that economizes by renovating and adding on, rather than tearing down and building anew.
The current branch library uses 9,250 square feet of a 12,500-square-foot building. The renovation would expand the structure to a usable 16,000 square feet.
Fitts' preliminary design includes a new air-conditioning and heating system, elimination of the infamous zigzag roof facing Draper (a proposal that drew cheers from the audience) and clerestory windows above a dark green roof to allow in natural light and improve energy efficiency.
The design impressed library supporter Susan Mattingly, and included a feature that could help 11-year-old Lindsay Doyle, who stood beside her at the meeting.
One of the problems in the branch's children's section, besides the lack of space, is shelves that are too high for youngsters to reach. Lindsay, a sixth-grader, has had that experience: ``Some people my age can get to them, but not me.''
Aileen Myers and her husband, the Rev. Herbert Myers, visit the library regularly and were both holding books they'd checked out en route to the meeting.
Standing near the adult fiction stacks that were flooded and damaged by a late-summer rainstorm recently, the retired Episcopal priest focused on the referendum: ``Either vote for it, or when you come to the library, bring an umbrella.''
Lyle Evans said he uses the library branch weekly to read magazines. He liked the idea of improving and adding onto the Draper Road building, rather than demolishing it.
Ken Wooldridge, who is co-chairman of the Friends of the Blacksburg Area Branch Library with his wife, Marion, said their group must now sell Montgomery County voters outside the town limits on the benefits of the bond referendum. The question narrowly made it onto this fall's ballot when the Board of Supervisors split over the issue.
A key aspect of that, he said, will be pointing to the $150,000 included in the bond proposal that would pay to automate all three libraries in the regional system. Checkouts and tracking of books are now done by cumbersome paper records.
Library supporters also must make the point that the Blacksburg branch serves the entire northern and western sections of the county, not just the university town, he said.
``We'll just have to get out and talk to people, respond to people in any questions they have,'' Wooldridge said.
In November 1990, voters turned down a similar referendum in an across-the-board rejection of three separate bond questions. The library renovation, that time, was paired with money for a new Health and Human Services building and a new Shawsville fire station. The two other bond issues dealt with economic development projects and parks and recreation.
Observers said after the defeat that lumping the three county building projects together hurt the referendums. The vote was also complicated by worries over the then-souring economy.
This time, county voters will face only two bond questions: $1.88 million for the library and $2.9 million for the Health and Human Services building.
``This year the library has its own separate voting bloc,'' Wooldridge said. ``We just have to go out and sell it. It's more the face-to-face contact that's going to do it.''
by CNB