By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
At last week’s meeting, the Wood County District Public Library gave its approval to spend up to $49,595 to move the book drop to Court Street.
The book drop is currently located on Oak Street across from the former senior center. Library staff started considering how to handle the book drop once the city began work gutting the center, a former post office, to build a new city building. The building’s historic façade will be preserved.
Library Director Michael Penrod said city officials assured him that the library would be allowed the retain the current book drop on Oak Street if that’s what they wanted and the parking lot could be designed around it.
But Penrod said when the library was renovated, it was set up to have the book drop on Court Street. So, he proposed the move.
This will require eastbound drivers on Court Street to cross traffic so the driver can deposit books, and then cross to get back in the eastbound lane. This is in adherence to the city traffic code, he said.
The staff is eager to have the change made “so then they don’t have to haul books through children’s department and play dodge with two-year olds,” Penrod said.
The library has received an estimate of $45,000 to make the move, $5,000 of which in planning costs has already been paid.
Trustee Becky Bhaer made the motion that the administration could spend up to $49,595 on the project. Anything $50,000 or more would have to be put out to bid.
The project is not extensive, Penrod said – “a bunch of new concrete and two holes in the wall.” The interior space is already set up.
In other business, Penrod reported that the Library Foundation’s Novel Night will again be an e-mail appeal. At the point when planning began, organizers did not think they’d be able to gather 150 people in the library’s atrium in late July.
“Novel Night is critical to us to maintain the ability to buy the new books and materials that our patrons have come to expect,” Penrod said. Last year the virtual appeal raised $70,000. The past it has raised more than $140,000.
This money supplements the tax dollars the library receives, he said.
Also, he said the roof of the Bowling Green library will be repainted. The work is still under warranty, so it will not cost the library anything.
