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

DATE: SUNDAY, May 21, 1995                   TAG: 9505220008
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV18   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE LOOK OF THINGS TO COME IN BLACKSBURG

It also won't be long before library supporters begin making the rounds of civic groups to display drawings of the project and explain a $300,000 fund-raising drive designed to help pay for it.

These renderings, prepared by The Design Collaborative of Virginia Beach, depict the renovated library from two perspectives. The first, showing the future entrance, is from what is now the rear parking area.

The renovation will reorient the former lumber-supply store - it has served as a library since 1980 - toward that direction. Patrons will be able to park in the main lot or in the side lot along Clay Street, across from the Blacksburg Police Department.

The second drawing shows the area that now is the library's facade at 400 Draper Road. It will become the rear of the renovated building. The zigzag roof will be removed and the structure extended toward Draper, ending in a terrace at the back. To save money, the Library Board eliminated the brick wall around the terrace that's depicted in the rendering. But the wall is one of the items that can be restored through donations.

The Huckleberry Trail will be extended and landscaped from its current terminus near the intersection of Miller and Harrell streets to Clay and Draper, diagonally across from the Blacksburg Municipal Building.

The expansion will increase the size of the building from 14,000 square feet to 16,000 square feet. But it will increase the amount of usable library space inside by 6,750 square feet, or nearly 73 percent. That's because 9,250 square feet of the building is actually used for library operations. The 4,850-square-foot balance has been used by the county for storage.

Once construction begins, there will be an 11-month building period, with expected completion by early in the summer of 1996. Details of the schedule will be worked out in a preconstruction meeting this week. During construction, the library will remain open.

The Montgomery County Friends of the Library has set up a speakers' bureau to send representatives to civic groups. The library boosters also will hold a fund-raising event once a month, beginning in July. To contact the Friends of the Library about the presentations, call Phyllis Talley at 953-2514.

The Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library Board of Trustees, which oversees the three-library system, is banking on the fund-raising drive to pay for furnishings, part of the construction cost and other items not covered by the $1.88 million in voter-approved bond money.

For more information on the fund-raising drive, contact Jim Johnson, chairman of the Fund-raising Committee, at 951-3020. To make a donation, send a check to the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library Foundation Inc., P.O. Box 641, Blacksburg 24063-0641.