Duane Hicks
After months of groundwork at the site adjacent to the Memorial Sports Centre, the form of the future Fort Frances Public Library and Technology Centre is starting to take shape, with steel girders now being erected there.
Community Services manager George Bell said Monday that the foundation slab has been poured, and all the electrical and plumbing “roughing” that goes into it has been completed, with work entering its next phase.
“We hope to have the steel up by the end of the week,” Bell noted, adding that “quite a bit” has been erected since late last week.
The steel work is being done by the crew which also is doing it at the new school on the Robert Moore property, and has been going back and forth between the two sites.
Bell said residents can expect to see wooden trusses put up starting next week, and a roof built in the following weeks.
He added that with winter on its way, the construction crew obviously wants to get inside as soon as possible.
Also at the new library site, the parking lot curbs have been poured and the granular ‘A’ material put down. Paving may take place next week (weather permitting).
Bell said the new facility hopefully will be ready to move into next May or June, although there still may some work to be done, such as brickwork on the exterior.
But the preparations haven’t been limited to the site work.
Among many other things, library board chair Joyce Cunningham said she and chief librarian Margaret Sedgwick, who were at a library symposium in Toronto last week, have been busy looking at purchases for the interior of the new facility.
“We’ve been doing a fair amount of work visiting sites, and talking to people about both furniture and the technological equipment that’s going in there,” Cunningham noted Monday.
“We met with some furniture vendors when we were in Toronto last week to get some ideas of furniture,” said Sedgwick.
“The colour samples just came in from the architect today, so that was exciting to see what colours he’s planned, what carpeting, what flooring, and so on,” she enthused.
Sedgwick also said the self-checkout units for the new library will be coming in soon, and that staff will have to start tagging the whole collection to be compatible with the new system.
“That’s a very big project, and we’re glad we’re starting that so early,” she remarked.
Cunningham said self-checkout will be efficient for library patrons, and also free up staff so they can provide more help to patrons.
Cunningham and Sedgwick also got to compare notes with other libraries from across the province while in Toronto last week.
“There’s a great deal of building going on in Ontario right now,” noted Sedgwick. “Everybody is looking at everybody else’s website, and seeing what’s going on.”
“They’re very excited. Many of them have been checking out our website and looking at the progress,” echoed Cunningham, referring to http://library.fort-frances.com, where photos of the library site can be found.
“There’s a great deal of excitement about not just the structure, but the opportunities that are going to be offered to the whole community,” she added. “It’s an exciting time for libraries right across the province.
“We’re so happy that we’re in a position now to jump on board and be part of that action, that development, that’s going on.”
“People coming in the library, they’re getting more excited all the time when they see that steel structure going up,” agreed Sedgwick.
Cunningham noted that, in talking with others, it’s clear libraries are being viewed more and more as a centre for community activities while taking advantage of technology to better provide services to users, including those online.
In the meantime, the library board and staff have been planning for the big move in the spring.
“We’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking about that, and talking to other librarians who have gone through the process and how they organized it and what methods they used for the most efficient way to do it,” said Cunningham.
“We’ve got some help from other people who have moved,” noted Sedgwick. “There’s lots to think about.”
This past month marked one year since the “Building for the Future” campaign’s “Drive for 35” phone blitz, which aimed to raise $35,000 and bring the library campaign to its goal at that time of $750,000.
But with community support, they exceeded that total by more than $75,000.
In fact, the overall campaign brought in more than $850,000 for the new library and technology centre, and Cunningham said the “extremely successful” campaign is still seen as impressive by others.
“When we were in Toronto and spoke about that, everybody was overwhelmed,” she remarked. “I was on a panel, and mentioned it, and they were unbelievably surprised a small town could do that.”
Sedgwick said pledges and memorial donations continue to come in.
While funding (consisting of provincial and federal dollars, as well as that locally raised) is in place for the construction of the new library and technology centre, any more money will be used to buy extras, such as new furnishings.
“The furniture budget is going to be tight,” Sedgwick said. “We have to find out prices—shelving and so on—before we can decide what we’re taking from here [the current library site] and what we can buy new.
Those who still would like to make a donation can drop by the library.
