I had the opportunity to watch the Library Board meeting on 10/20. The “Trustee Training: Core Values of Librarianship Webinar Overview” presentation which was what I was really interested in seeing got deferred to a later meeting because the Library Project update went long.
Karen Harkness, the city’s Director of Community and Economic Development, gave a presentation that was listed on the agenda as a Library Project update but was more about Appleton’s strategic vision for downtown in general.
We’ve got multiple housing going in downtown. Gabriel Lofts is already open. The apartments in Durkee Street behind Heid Music will open summer of 2021. The pink building next to the history museum that used to be a bank is also going to get turned into apartments.
The area around the library is ripe for development, and a developer who does a lot of mixed use buildings is looking at the southeast corner of Washington and Oneida street where the old hotel used to be.
The library is a big draw and gets 400,000-500,000 visitors a year. They do want to keep it downtown because they believe it is a big component of the arts and cultural life of the downtown. ecosystem.
Although they didn’t have time to get to the Core Values of Librarianship presentation, we did get a brief update on the library’s plans to switch between different levels of being open. They’ve created a bunch of different signage that they can switch out when they move between levels of openness.
Health recommendations have also now been updated to allow quarantining of library materials for on 24 hours as opposed to the 96 they had been quarantining them for. [As an aside, I seem to recall one of the alderpersons mentioning that they were going to be passing out candy for Halloween but was having it sit for two week after having purchased it and prior to passing it out. I wonder what they think about quarantining things for only 24 hours.]
There was also an update on the carpeting project. 2020 did turn out to be the perfect year to replace carpeting. The carpets on the second floor and the kid’s section have been updated. The last time they were updated was in 1996–24 years ago. Maybe one day we’ll actually get to enter the library and see these new wonders.
You can check out the entire Library Board meeting here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=756794&GUID=E92BF6EB-C398-4249-8FA0-583D86765CCE&Options=info%7C&Search=&Refresh=1
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