
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, September 15, 1994                   TAG: 9409150057
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

$300,000 MORE TO BE RAISED FOR LIBRARY

Blacksburg library supporters want to raise up to $300,000 to supplement the $1.9 million in borrowing that Montgomery County voters approved last year.

The fund-raising drive is in the planning stage. The money would go toward paying for extras, such as new furniture, that library officials cut from the bond referendum price tag last year to make it more politically palatable.

At the time, library supporters were keenly aware that 54 percent of county voters defeated a 1990 bond package that included $1.4 million for the Blacksburg library.

Last year, with an improved economy and a better-organized publicity push, 62 percent of county voters approved the sale of $1.9 million in bonds to expand the Blacksburg branch and fix its leaky roof. That figure included $150,000 to computerize all of the branches' checkout and card catalog systems.

On July 25, the county Board of Supervisors approved the sale of the general obligation bonds, to occur this fall. Most of the $1.9 million in bond proceeds will pay to nearly double the usable space in the branch library at 400 Draper Road.

The supervisors delayed the bond sale to prevent a larger county tax increase in the spring, when it approved the first rate change in three years.

County officials expect construction to begin early next year, possibly with an April groundbreaking.

With the fund-raising drive in the works, book boosters heard more good news this week. Supervisor Joe Gorman announced Monday that the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library has been awarded a $109,000 federal grant to help complete the renovation and expansion of the Blacksburg branch.

Montgomery-Floyd was one of five libraries across the state awarded the federal Library Service and Construction Act grants through the Library of Virginia, said Karen W. Dillon, director of the three-branch system.

That money, along with whatever comes in through the fund-raising drive, will pay for new furniture, improved handicapped access and other features not covered in the bond referendum. "There were some basic needs that weren't funded," Dillon said.

by CNB