Reading, reimagined
Library will keep collection available through major renovation
GREENWICH — It will be anything but a slow summer at Greenwich Library as construction is slated to begin on a major reimagining of the central branch on West Putnam Avenue.
Starting in late July and continuing until the end of 2020, the library will go through a renovation, touching on every floor of the building. The work will not increase the library’s footprint, but it will bring huge changes, including a reorganization of the space, a new auditorium, a new entrance, a new café, a black box theater and improvements throughout the facility with the addition of more study space, a reading room, a learning lab and more programming space for children.
Work is slated to begin the week of July 22 when the CDs and music scores on the second floor are moved offsite. In midAugust, many collections, from large print and young adult to world language materials and the library’s DVD collection, will be moved to new, temporary locations in the building. That will only start a continuous series of moves and shifts that will continue as the construction requires.
Greenwich Library Deputy Director Joseph Williams compared the shifting to a giant Jenga puzzle, with the work done in stages at each floor, culminating with the final stage at the children’s section.
“All areas of the building are being touched,” Williams said.
Library users will notice a major change right away when in the week of July 22 the main staircase at the center of the library, connecting the first and second floors, will be temporarily closed so the CD area at the top of the stairs can be moved. That is expected to last until September. Elevators and the enclosed stairs will be available.
During the week of July 29, the construction staging area in the parking lot will be set up and construction work will begin starting weekdays from 5 a.m. until 3 p.m.
While the library will remain open throughout the planned 15 to 16month work schedule, there will be some disruptions for patrons.
“The staff has been working so hard on figuring out ways that we can not inconvenience our patrons and still make available the collections and services that they are accustomed to,” Greenwich Library Director Barbara OrmerodGlynn said Monday. “That’s not to say there won’t be interruptions or inconveniences along the way.”
That includes the possibility of noise while the renovation work is ongoing and there will be times when pieces of the library’s collection will be moved offsite and made inaccessible. That will happen on a staggered schedule and only for short periods, officials said.
OrmerodGlynn said the amount of the collection that has to be moved around is “quite substantial” in order to complete the work within the 16month timeframe.
“Some of the collections we’re keeping on site are some of the more heavily demanded collections,” Williams said. “Some collections will not leave the building. They’ll just move to different areas. It also depends on the length of time things might have been off site that we’re not opting to keep on site. Our teen collection and young adult collection had been originally slated to be in an area that will be under construction for eight months so we’re able to move them in the building to a different site.”
When collections are moved off site, the library will work with its branches in Byram and Cos Cob, the Perrot Memorial Library in Old Greenwich and other libraries to make materials available through interlibrary loans. Staff also will work to promote the library’s substantial digital content during the renovation to meet patrons’ needs.
Williams has put together the plan for moving the collections and said they do not expect to have any group of materials off site for longer than three or four months at a time.
It will fall to the library’s Director of Communications Kate Petrov to keep the public informed. New posters are going up next week throughout the library to explain the initial phases of the renovation work. There is a web page at www.greenwichlibrary.org/reimagine/ to show off the plans in full including project updates and a video showing what the changes will look like once complete.
Petrov encouraged people to sign up for Greenwich Library’s weekly enewsletter at the website. The notices will include advance announcements about what collections are being moved and when.
The most immediately affected area will be the Baxter Courtyard by the Cole Auditorium, which has already held its last event. That area will become the new entrance to the building and is where the construction will be at its most noticeable.
“This is after all a renovation, so most of the work is interior,” OrmerodGlynn said. “There’s just a very small percentage of it that’s exterior work and that’s in the Baxter Courtyard.”
Iconic touches including the library statue, named Andre, will be preserved and returned.
While there could be an occasion when the library might be closed for a day or two, such as when the new staircase, which will rise from the new entrance to the firstfloor lobby, is installed sometime next year, OrmerodGlynn said the facility will remain open throughout the project.
“Everything else is shortterm renovation,” she said.