The shelves arrived this morning, 7 am! This is the first time I've gotten to see the new shelves. Wow.....so nice and the wood grain is beautiful! It took about an hour to move all all six shelving units into the library. Our carpenter (and his wife) did a great job slowly moving the units into the building, one by one.
I couldn't stand to look at that bare wall yesterday, so I'm very happy today to see all the richness of the wood return. Honestly, there is no comparison of metal shelves verses wood shelves. Wood is number one with me, and has always been the theme for our historic Colfax Public Library.
Luckily, we were able to move the Internet computers about 12 inches so our carpenter had plenty of room to work without bumping into customers. If customers don't mind the mess and noise, they are welcome to come in and use the public computers. Not the most ideal situation, but it works for now.
This is just phase one of our changes happening here at our library. The electricans started upgrading the electrical in our entire building this week. The windows on the third floor level will soon be uncovered and the windows will be reglazed, with storm windows added. Our library will also have the front (east) window totally replaced and the side windows (south) will all be reglazed, asbetos removed and storm windows added. No more cold winter drafts for the librarians to deal with! I'm also hoping the new window work will solve the problem with lots of wasps that find their way into our library in the fall and spring.
Lastly, the building will receive a new roof, which will help with water leakage during the winter/spring. Old buildings are wonderful, but they also come with lots of problems!
The shelving project was completed last Friday, and the library staff was ready to put all the juvenile books back on the new shelves. It truly was an exciting moment for all of us here at the Colfax library.
First thing we realized was, yikes, we have more book space! After getting all the books back on the shelves, we ended up moving and re-moving the books around to even out the shelf space. You know, the wood stain blends in so well with the existing wood that most people who come in to the library don't even realized we replaced the shelves! Don't you think they would notice the strong varnish smell??? Well, we librarians notice it every day! Can't wait until the smell subsides.
