Steel Frame building and progress on Maplewood Cemetery site

At our last Feasiblity Committee meeting, most of our discussion focused on the possibility of a new library facility built on land leased from Maplewood Cemetery.

The Library Trustees have opened negotiations with Maplewood Cemetery to lease approximately 5 acres of land for 99 years. Everyone seems to think the lease is a good idea, now it is a matter of working out the details into something that could be presented at a Town Meeting.

We also started discussing some specifics of the possible building. Right now we are considering a 10,000 square foot building. A rough floorplan indicates that 10,000 square feet would provide adequate library space, although we had to remove some features that were included in our previous plans; such as the local history room and large meeting space.

One intriguing idea is being considered, which would be to purchase a pre-engineered steel frame building. These buildings are sold by a company that comes to the site and erects a building shell on a concrete slab, and you then have your own contractors install all the interior walls, heating and plumbing systems and so on.
Steel frame buildings can offer some significant savings over custom designed buildings.

The next step is for the committee to get cost estimates for everything other than the building shell so we can evaluate what the savings would be.

Do you have any experience with or opinions about pre-engineered steel buildings? It is not typical for a library to choose this sort of construction, so if anyone has input, we'd love to hear it!

Feasibility Committee Meeting Tonight

The Library Feasibility Committee will be holding an open public meeting tonight at the Fire Station, at 7pm.

I am hoping that members of the committee have read the comments posted on this blog and will take them into consideration in their planning. I do not know what is on the agenda for tonight's meeting, but will be interested to hear if any more has been discussed about the'Library-in-TownHall' proposal.

Interesting Article in today's Boston Globe ...

Happy New Year!
I just wanted to share this article from today's Boston Globe, that a couple people have already sent to me ... Check it out!

"As the economy sags, library use is booming. But will the services people want survive the budget cuts towns fear?"

Libraries have been changing for years, repositioning themselves to attract patrons in a digital age. In recent years, libraries have expanded their DVD collections, opened Internet cafes, attracted children with video game hours, and even used technology to let people download music and video.