Surrounded by Cardboard

As closing day nears, our space is shrinking.  Deliveries cannot be made to the renovated building, so they have been arriving at the Mini B. and we are gathering up our boxes to ready for packing.

Currently we are waiting for the go ahead to enter the renovated building and begin our set up work there.  There are still some issue unresolved, but we are still moving forward.

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Shelved

Murphy’s Law has struck again.  Due to a collection of circumstances beyond our control, the completion of the building renovation process has been delayed.  The issues are not major, but do impact when we can take occupancy.  Because of this, our closing dates have now shifted.

We will now close the Mini B. at 5:00 pm on Friday September 2, 2016, celebrate Labor Day and then get to work. 

Our grand re-opening is now rescheduled for Tuesday November 1, 2016, normal hours 10 am - 8 pm.  Much like going back to the future to the Mini B., there is a certain symmetry to returning to the Library in November.  November will be 31 years from when the Library moved from the Mini B. location to the building initially.

This week in the building our shelving old and new went up. 

It’s funny how it looks like miles of shelves with the shelves empty.  I’m sure this is why Library Land always deals in “Shelf Feet.”   We take each collection (fiction, non-fiction, picture books, large print, etc.) and a ruler.  Then we count how many books are in 1 linear shelf foot.  We do this at least 5 times in 5 different locations within the same collection and average the numbers.  This becomes the basis for our collection’s space need.  We can then take the total number of books we have in the collection and divide that number by the average number of books in 1 shelf foot.  This provides us with the number of linear shelf feet we need to house those books.  Optional is to add a certain percentage for growth or, a little easier, before doing the division subtract 2 – 4 from the number of books in 1 shelf foot to account for 2 to 4 books room for growth or change, or if you are nervous that you might have really, really fat books in places! 

After doing this initial math*, and knowing the total shelf feet needed, we can then divide this number by the length of shelves and know how many shelves are needed.  This can be carried out to how many stacks, etc.

We’ve run these numbers a lot.  So we know the before and after pictures are going to be striking.  Before we know it, we’ll be posting those pictures here!

 Thank you all for your patience our busiest times are still ahead.

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(*To all the kids who say – I’m not going to be a mathematician.  Who would ever need to know this in real life?  I bet you would have never have imagined this much math in a library!)

 

The End Of The Chapter Is Near

The end of the Mini B. chapter of our renovation adventure is near.  In truth, it is coming up quicker than we anticipated.  The Mini B. will close to the public at the end of day on Friday, August 26, 2016.  That’s two weeks!  We are now planning a grand re-opening on Monday, October 24, 2016.

Our original thought was to be able to overlap our stay at the Mini B. some while we were trying to set up the new/old space across the street.  We had a perfect plan and were all excited (and it did not involve closing in two weeks.) … Then we realized that it would be pretty impossible to put books on shelves in one building, when those very same shelves were holding other books across the street in a different building.  As Homer Simpson says, “Doh!”

So we revised our plans.  Then coordinated with the town and the movers and revised our plans again.  The moving process is a complex one.  Beyond the obvious: packing boxes, moving boxes and moving furniture, moving and setting up a library is like moving a setting up three distinct businesses.  First, we are an office.  Like all offices we need to set up desks, files, bookkeeping.  Second we are like a retail store; we need to build our shelving, stock our shelves and label our shelves.  Last we are a tech center with computers, faxes, phones, WiFi, copiers and printers and all the various wires and gadgets that make all this equipment talk to each other and the outside world.

We will try our best to keep this blog and the website updated with our progress!  Many of you have told me you are willing to come help and I have my list in hand.  If there is something you can do and the timing can work, I will not hesitate to call.  Sometimes though, the logistics are such that it is quicker to do things at that specific moment and keep the train moving forward more quickly, then to call in the cavalry.

We all thank you for your support and patience!

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Almost...

Busy.  That has been the word of the summer.  The Mini B. has seen almost double the traffic since winter.  Not surprising since our Summer Reading Program has been going strong. (By the way, youth are so far ahead of the adults in the Read to Feed Challenge, it’s almost embarrassing!)

For the next week or so at the Mini B. we will be wrapping up summer and trying to tie up the current loose ends.  For the next two weeks, Librarians will be working on setting things up so that the plates keep spinning as we prepare and move back across the street.

The renovation is almost done.  As I type this finalizations of the electronics, blinds and door hardware are being completed inside.  While outside, the parking lot is being repaved and the handicapped ramp created.  Next week shelving is scheduled to arrive and be installed.

We had hoped that shelving would have arrived sooner, but circumstances in their manufacturing did not allow for it.  So, we are currently running about two weeks behind schedule.  Frustrating for all of us!  However, really, it’s kind of remarkable!  Only two weeks?  That’s really pretty good. 

Within the next week or so, we are planning on being able to announce when we’ll be closed, when we’ll re-open, and anything to anticipate in-between.   We will definitely be in the new/old building this fall!

More to come, very, very, very soon!

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