ASHLAND – A $900,000 renovation and remodeling project at the Ashland Public Library is expected to be completed early in July with visible changes that will be apparent to any visitors. However, the biggest change — a new cataloging system — may be a little less obvious.
As part of the first major remodeling project in more than three decades, the library is getting a cosmetic makeover including new carpet and paint, new furniture with outlets and pull-out desks, more energy-efficient lighting, and book sections are being moved and rearranged.
Library Director William Rutger said the goal of the project is to create a community atmosphere that encourages people to stop and stay in the library, while also meeting the needs of patrons who just want to grab what they want and go.
“I recognize some people are grab and go, but I really wanted to create an environment where people wanted to make it a destination for the day,” Rutger said.
The project was made possible by two generous donations. In 2005, Ines Page left $600,000 to the library for improvements and in 2014 the estate of Nancy Stockwell gave $700,000 to the library. Both women will be remembered in some way in the newly remodeled building.
During the renovation, the library is continuing with normal operating hours with a selection of new release items set up in the Large Meeting Room in the library’s basement. The main entrance is closed so visitors can enter through the rear entrance to visit the “Express Library.”
The library closed for remodeling on May 2 and the expected date for reopening the library is the second week of July, although, as Rutger reminded, with any construction project, timelines are always fluid. But the director is optimistic that they will be able to meet that deadline.
“We’re not doing major construction, in terms of knocking down any walls, and that’s when you get into a lot of surprises,” Rutger said.
Library Design Associates of Columbus is responsible for the majority of the remodeling project, and BCU Electric of Ashland is handling the electrical work.
Besides the obvious visual changes, another significant change will be the rearranging of the library’s space.
“I think the biggest impact for folks who are used to the library now is we are changing the children’s department up to the front of the library,” Rutger said.
The area formerly occupied by the periodicals and the genealogy section will now be the children’s area, complete with a storytime room and a play area, similar to what many fast-food restaurants have. SoftPlay, a North Carolina-based company, will design and build the structure.
“Play is an important part of literacy because you’re using all your faculties to learn and navigate the system so by having one in there, we can accommodate some of the younger children and also when it’s rainy they can have somewhere they can come in and play, have a storytime or a program and go away happy,” said Adrienne Shores, Coordinator of Community Services for the library.
The genealogy records have been moved to the second floor Mezzanine level and periodicals will be in the former children’s area.
“I’m excited because when you drive by you’ll see the hustle and bustle of the library activity and not just the big stacks through the windows,” Rutger said.
Another major organizational change is the creation of a centralized service desk. Formerly there were three desks: a circulation desk, an adult services desk and a children’s services desk.
“You can take care of all your needs at one stop and we move around for you, you don’t necessarily have to move around for us,” Rutger explained. “The customer service element was what motivated us to look at the space and say ‘How can we do that?’”
The director said employees are getting the chance to test this out in the library’s temporary space in the basement.
“Everyone is sharing one space and it’s giving everybody an opportunity to do a lot of cross-training because we’re using this time to really teach those who are not familiar with one area that area and doing a lot of peer-to-peer instruction, so it’ worked out really nice,” Rutger said.
In spite of the smaller space and fewer items available, Rutger said checkout volume has remained steady since the Express Library opened. Shores said one thing that has worked to keep numbers up are the introduction of “Binge Bags.” Library staff are filling bags with a variety of items which customers can check out, without knowing what might be inside other than being sorted into categories for Youth, Adults and Families.
Although most of the library’s catalog is out of circulation during the renovation, patrons can place a hold on an item and staff will fulfill those requests through the Serve All Ohio interlibrary consortium.
Rutger said part of the new layout of the library is an effort to focus in the library’s collections, specifically the nonfiction. The director said people seemed to be intimidated by the former method of shelving and cataloging the nonfiction books.
“All of our nonfiction collection has been relabeled under what we’re calling a ‘Dewey Lite’ system, where we use the Dewey Decimal system but before that number actually comes categories, which we’ve called ‘neighborhoods,’” Rutger said.
Under the new system, the library’s nonfiction books are grouped by subject, or “Neighborhoods,” and the content within each Neighborhood is grouped by “Streets.” The traditional Dewey number is essentially the house number, Rutger said. Ashland is one of the the first libraries in Ohio to adopt a “Dewey Lite” system.
The “Dewey Lite” system allows the library to group items together which may seem to be related or of interest to similar groups of people, but were separated under the traditional Dewey system.
“Now we’ve been able to bring those similar topics together under one umbrella,” Rutger said.
In addition, the fiction will be categorized by genre and shelved alphabetically by author within the genre.
Rutger said that new signs will play a major part in making the library easier to use and more friendly for patrons.
“By reshaping stuff it’s our hope that it will be treated more like a retail environment, where it’s welcoming and you don’t need to know the magic code to figure it out.”
Doing away with or changing the traditional Dewey Decimal catalog system is sure to raise some eyebrows, but Rutger believes he and his staff are ready to handle any questions and that this change will be better for everyone.
“We used the timing of the construction to do this because we knew it was going to throw everyone for a loop,” Rutger said. “So when you come in it will be a new library with a new organizational scheme, it’s going to be a whole new experience that we’re packaging together.”
