Bartlett Public Library getting 'sleek,' $1.5 million renovation

A $1.5 million renovation over the next nine months will add conference rooms, a new area for teens and more windows - all without expanding the Bartlett Public Library.

Director Karolyn Nance also hopes to avoid closures during a project expected to last until March 2016 and bring noticeable changes to the layout of the roughly 30,270-square-foot building north of Bartlett and Stearns roads.

The library district will use reserves to pay for the makeover, tailor-made for residents, who, in a survey, said they wanted more rooms to study or meet privately, Nance said.

"It just looks sharper," Nance said of the designs. "We're still keeping that comfortable feeling because that's one of the things that we really have going for us in this library. But with the windows and the glass, I think it's just going to be really sleek."

Starting the first week in July, the project will begin with clearing out outdated furniture.

Step into the lobby and administrative offices are "going away, so the good things come to the front," said Mary Jane O'Brien, adult and tech services manager.

The offices will be relocated to the rear of the first floor, so the popular materials collections - DVDs, best-sellers, "all the hot items" - greet patrons, Nance said.

All along the southern side of adult services will be a new teen area, conference room and a quiet reading space with magazines and more comfortable seating, according to plans by Dewberry architects. The library also will get more electrical outlets to charge smartphones and computers, a spruced-up garden with new benches and a fountain, and an updated heating and air-conditioning system.

Teens currently are confined to several booths in a tight corner on the first floor. That space also will be converted into a conference room.

To make way for the changes, the library will move almost floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and weed out unpopular titles for a book sale June 19-21. The proceeds will go to a Friends of the Bartlett Library fundraiser for a $9,500 gazebo, where concerts and outdoor programming will be held, Nance said.

Employees did have some concerns about condensing the adult collections, she acknowledged.

"But I think if you look at every library, that is just a fact that we have to address in order to stay current and meet the needs of your patrons," Nance said.

The results from the two-year-old survey - more than 1,900 responded - showed patrons view the library as a place to express creativity. To that end, on the second floor's youth services department, a new arts and crafts room with provided supplies will be connected to a storytime room.

The last major update came in 2011 when the library redid the circulation area. Before that, an addition was built in the late 1990s.

Nance hopes the facelift will attract patrons without a library card.

"We thought we could get more nonusers into the library if we could create what they were looking for," she said.