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Large crowd attends library opening in Cortland
By HILARY CRISAN
CORTLAND
Judging by the size of the crowd gathered for Saturday’s grand opening of Warren-Trumbull County Public Library’s new Cort-land branch, the death of printed books and magazines has been greatly exaggerated.
A sizable group of seniors, parents and children showed up for the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new facility — which also embraces new technology.
The library board of trustees joined Karen Murphy, Cortland branch manager, to introduce the community to its new library after a flag-raising ceremony by Girl Scout Troop 213.
The land on which the facility sits was purchased in 2001, and construction of the 10,636-square-foot building began in late August last year. The total cost of the project is about $2 million.
Cheryl Bush, public-relations manager for the libraries, said it was completed under budget. There was a library levy in 2006 that allowed the facility to be built.
“The whole library system had a levy on the ballot that included a promise of a new facility for Cortland’s branch when the appropriate amount of money was saved,” she said. “We waited until we had the money saved up, so the board had planned for it and budgeted for it over the past several years.”
A dedicated youth-programming area including two computers for teens and four for children, all with Internet access, and two early- literacy stations for children as well as story times and other special programs are among the new features for this branch.
Bush said there’s a vast amount of children’s programs to encourage the youth to read. “Especially preschool programs, because that’s when children are learning to read,” she said. “It gets them in the habit of coming to the library and finding books that they want to read, because when they pick out the book, they are more likely to look at it and want to read it themselves.”
Meeting rooms that accommodate up to 40 people, space to increase the number of computers from five to 12 and to increase the parking from 32 to 80 (compared with the previous Cortland space), and energy-efficient geothermal heating and cooling systems also are among the new features of the building.
The new facility does not just hold print books and magazines. The library also has embraced technological advances including e-books and readers such as Nooks and Kindles.
“The library has always adapted throughout the years,” said Bush. “We added movies on VHS, then movies on DVD; we added magazines, and now electronic books are just one more way that we’re adapting to what people want. We offer electronic books through our library; if someone goes to the library website, they can download a popular, current released book onto their own device for a borrowed period, and when the time — usually two to three weeks — runs out, then the book just disappears off their device.”
This means that there are no late fees for digital books, which can encourage Kindle users to download their e-books from their own homes.
E-books also are available for Sony Readers at the new facility.
Murphy also commented on the use of e-readers. “There is no decrease in circulation of books and media,” she said. “People like the option.”
The first Cortland branch, opened in 1977, was housed in a retired bookmobile in Willow Park. The library later was relocated to a rented house, then to its former building, which opened in 1984 at 212 North High St.
That facility was about 4,000 square feet. But with the rising number of users — 46,826 last year, it became too small to operate.
“The library has simply outgrown the building’s capacity,” said James Wilkins, director of the library system. “The new building will allow us to increase our collection of books and multimedia and also provide more space for programming.”
The staff also grew — there are two new part-time library specialists as well as one part-time library monitor.
Library trustees are Franklin Manios, James McFarland, Lynn Miller, James Duff, Donald Emerson Jr., Lillie Johnson, and Michael McGee.
Murphy and Manios, board president, cut the ribbon. State Rep. Tom Letson of Warren, D-64th, and Mayor Curt Moll also attended.
The celebration included steel-drum music by Panyard; children’s story time with Madonna Chism Pinkard, community- relations director at 21 WFMJ-TV; and self-guided tours.