Library’s children department closed amid flooring work

Mike Wolanin | The Republic Zoe Barnsfather helps a patron checkout books at the Bartholomew County Public Library in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, May 30, 2023.

The Bartholomew County Public Library is set to officially kick off its summer reading program tonight, despite one possible complication — namely, the children's department will be closed for the month of June due to flooring construction.

Services from the department have been relocated to the library's DVD area on the main level, said library director Jason Hatton. A limited amount of materials from the collection will be available during the closure. Families can also take advantage of other library resources, such as the Hope branch, the Bookmobile and digital materials.

"We know the timing is awful," said Hatton. "When the schedule came out and it was determined that this was when it needed to fall, that the children's department would be closed right in the middle of summer reading, we all definitely groaned."

However, he felt optimistic that the closure will not have a major impact on operations and programming. Staff are doing what they can to address the issue, such as setting up tents in the library plaza for outdoor events and holding some programs off-site. For instance, tonight's Summer Reading Kick-Off Party is being held at Mill Race Park from 5 to 7 p.m.

Hatton estimated that the children's department will be closed for about a month.

"It just kind of depends on how quickly things go," he said. "They’ve really been moving very quickly with carpeting, so I’m hopeful that it really won't take that long, but there's tile work to do, and the tile work definitely takes some time. Obviously we have to time to move the materials out and then to move the materials back in again too."

Once the children's department is finished, the plan is to work on the nonfiction section, followed by fiction and then the DVD area, which would be the final piece of the flooring project. Hatton said that while the work is moving fast, the estimated completion date is still September.

Another project of note — which will affect access to the children's department once it reopens — is the library's work to replace its aging elevator, which stopped working on March 24 but has since been fixed. However, the library still plans to replace the device and has contracted a company for this project.

The contractor has done measurements on the elevator, and the library is waiting on drawings, which will need to be approved before materials can be ordered, said Hatton. It will then take about 14 to 16 weeks for the materials to be manufactured.

Hatton estimated that the installation will occur in October, though he added that this is a rough guess. The work is expected to take about a month.

"Many pieces are staying, but they basically have to tear the whole thing apart, from what I understand, and kind of put it back together again," he said. "So it takes a while. And also we have some things we have to do in the elevator room with other mechanical pieces. So they said plan on a full month for install."

The existing elevator is "fully functional" and there have not been any more issues with it, said Hatton. Some patrons have been using it, though he added that the library is not advertising it as open and have no guarantee on how long it will continue to work.

"If there were any safety concerns, I would have it turned off," said Hatton. "I ride it. I have zero safety concerns about it. But it is still a 50-plus-year-old elevator, so we’ll be very excited when we have the new elevator installed and everybody can have complete confidence in it."

He said that the library is continuing to work under the amended operations plans it put in place when the elevator initially failed, such as closing off meeting rooms on the lower level and shifting library events to the main level.