Ellsworth Public Library officials have come up with a new preliminary plan for how to renovate the building to be safer and more user friendly.
And they are hoping that this proposal, unlike another renovation plan that voters rejected a decade ago, will get enough local support to come to fruition.
The library, which is owned and funded by the city, consists of a former house that was built in 1817 and a three-story addition completed in 1991. This original section, known as the Tisdale House, was given to the city for use as a library in 1897.
The building needs roughly $5 million in upgrades, which would include a small addition on its northwest corner to improve safety, accessibility and services, according to library officials.
How the improvements would be paid for has not yet been decided, according to Sarah Lesko, the library’s director. Library officials plan to meet with their counterparts at City Hall in the coming months to discuss funding options and to develop a plan for raising the money.
Among the top priorities are creating a new main entrance facing State Street that could be used by patrons with disabilities. The current main entrance, in the Tisdale wing, is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, so visitors with wheelchairs or other mobility assistance have to use the rear entrance and take an elevator to reach the library’s upper two floors.
Library officials also want to consolidate, move and expand the current youth rooms away from the main entrance, and to increase available meeting space. Other changes sought by library officials are upgrading the building’s fire safety protections, having an ADA-accessible bathroom on the main floor and improving plumbing in the bottom floor.
Lesko said preliminary plans call for building the new main entrance where the circulation desk is located, between the Tisdale wing and the 1991 addition. That would require moving the circulation desk to the right of the new entrance as you walk in, which would create a domino effect of reorganizing much of the building’s interior layout.
“We have the opportunity to make the entire space better for our patrons,” Lesko said. “We want a cozier, more comfortable space.”
The Tisdale House portion of the library is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and so can’t undergo substantive changes to its design. But library officials hope to move children and youth books from that area and instead use it as meeting space, a reading room and to house large-print books and periodicals.
The children’s area would be moved to the first floor of the existing newer wing, where a large 700-square-foot room would be built as an addition. Lesko said the library’s programs have grown significantly in the past couple of years, and that at times the existing children’s area can be packed with visitors. Weekday afternoons, the after-school rush and Saturday mornings are especially busy, she said.
“At these peak hours, we’ve reached maximum capacity,” Lesko said. “The kids’ area cannot be centered around the front door. To me, it’s a safety issue.”
The addition would include, on the second floor, an additional meeting room and, on the bottom floor, storage and staff office space. Other expected changes would include moving the fiction section from the main floor to the second floor and genealogy from the second floor to where the current meeting room is located on the bottom floor.
Lesko said the library also would like to upgrade its computer systems, have more private spaces where patrons can work on laptops and more places for them to plug in and charge devices. Information technology has advanced by leaps and bounds since the library was last renovated 34 years ago, and the types of programs and services patrons seek also has expanded significantly.
Lesko said that, as a municipally owned library, it is not eligible for many grant programs that are open to nonprofit libraries. The library could pursue a capital campaign and raise funds on its own, and likely will request direct federal funding. But she said part of the funding equation would likely have to include financing by the city, either through a bond issue or direct property tax revenue, in order to make all the desired improvements.
“We’re really in the exploration stage,” she said. “This is a big project.”
