In less than two months, there should be plenty of activity at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and West 10th Street in Tyrone.
That’s when the Tyrone-Snyder Library Board of Directors believes the new library will open. According to Chuck Banas, the library board’s vice president, no formal opening date has been set, but it will be announced in the very near future.
“We have waited and dreamed for three years now,” said Banas. “The last thing we want to do is set a grand opening date now and find out that the shelving and installation is not complete or we get another snowstorm. None of us want to have to delay any opening that we set for the library. When we announce that date, it will be etched in stone.”
The news of the progress of the project comes after the board of directors announced the tentative date for the closing on the mortgage on the new library building has been set for Feb. 26.
“We are all very excited about this actually going to be happening,” said Banas. “It has been a long winding three years worth of effort and it now appears that everyone’s hard work is about to become a reality for our area.”
With everything coming together, directors are now looking at the huge task of moving from the old facility on Logan Avenue to the new facility.
“It’s going to be something,” said Banas. “We’re not quite sure how we’re going to do it, but we’ll come up with something. When you’re talking about moving 26,000 catalogued items as well as 5,000 or 6,000 more un-catalogued items, you’re really looking at a monumental move.”
Banas said a number of different ideas have come by the board attention regarding how everything will be moved. Banas said he has even talked with people, who, as children, helped to move the library into its current location on Logan Avenue. He said they wanted their children to be involved in the move as they were.
“There’s really a lot of things being tossed around right now,” said Banas. “It would be nice to have a conveyer belt of children stretching from the old library to the new building helping to move books, but the intersection there by the new building is perhaps the busiest in Tyrone. That’s really a liability issue.”
Regardless of how they will do it, the board has decided to officially close the doors of the Logan Avenue facility from March 8 through March 27 in order to make the move and have all the materials ready for the opening of the new library.
Directors noted the last day library members can check books out of the library will be on March 6. They will not have to be returned until after the new library as officially opened.
The board has also announced that for the first week after the new library opens, there will be an amnesty week where all library books may be returned without incurring any fines.
In other business, the board learned the United Way contribution would be $2,564 this year.
“Although that is good news, like everything else, it is a great deal less than in the past,” said Banas. “With all of the other cuts that we have been hit with, this will be another issue that we must deal with.”
The annual fund drive for operating expenses is now underway. Letters are being mailed out asking for local contributions for the fund drive.
“The funds that are generated under this Annual Fund Drive are used solely for the operating expenses of the library,” said Banas. “We have been cut by the state as everyone knows. We have had to cut some staff positions and back off of some operational hours due to these cuts.
“Our abilities to restore these positions, programs and increase the services that are provided by the new library will depend totally on the success of the Annual Fund Drive,” he continued. “We really need the local support of out northern Blair County residents.”
The next board meeting has been set for March 16 at the old library on Logan Avenue in Tyrone. The general public is always welcome to attend.
