If, as the song lyrics say, “waiting is the hardest part,” it got a little harder for Galesburg Public LIbrary Director Noelle Thompson, when she had to delay the planned April 1 opening of the new library, two years and more than $20 million after construction began.
But, the big day finally came, and many were waiting at the facility’s entrances for the clock to strike 9:00 a.m. Wednesday.
Thompson tells Galesburg’s Morning News on WGIL at least it’s still got that “new library smell.”
“People are going to be, I think, delighted to have both that new smell, and then that familiar smell (of older library books),” said Thompson. “That’s kind of what we’re hoping to capture with the full building, is the new and the familiar.”
Thompson says the structure is, of course, new; but the services, from internet access to books, will be very familiar. She says some of those regular events and activities will be brought in throughout the next month.
Would you believe Mayor Peter Schwartzman hasn’t really seen the new library before now?
“I’ve kind of held back,” said Schwartzman. “I walked through it before it had really been fully built. But, I wanted to wait. It’s kind of like you can see the ice cream, you see the cake in the window, but you want to wait for the right time to take a bite.”
Schwartzman tells Galesburg’s Morning News on WGIL he had been in the library for a few pre-opening events, but didn’t really take a look around, saying he wanted to see it as the rest of the public would.
The mayor, by the way, says there might be a way to open the library on Sundays, but he hasn’t discussed it with library officials yet, as a response to federal funding soon to be gone paying for broadband internet for low-income residents.
It was, at least in part, a remarkable effort by the Galesburg community to help raise the money needed to help build the library.
That’s according to Laurie Muelder, president of the library’s Board of Trustees – who gives credit to the library’s Foundation for making it become reality.
“We needed to have a foundation, so that it’s clear to various people, particularly people on the City Council, that the money that’s set aside for a future library cannot be used as operating money year to year by the public library,” said Muelder. “So, the foundation was set up, and we moved the money that had been left to us to build a new building, into the foundation.”
More than $4 million in donations large and small helped cover what was needed after a state library grant was awarded. Those names are inscribed on various rooms in the library, and on bricks outside.
Muelder describes the new library as a facility that goes beyond her expectations.
