Wellington County will hold a public open house in Palmerston next spring to provide local residents with an opportunity for input into planned renovations at their local library.
Renovations to the Palmerston branch of the Wellington County Library, as well as planned upgrades to the Hillsburgh library, were deferred until 2015 and 2016 respectively, to help the county limit spending in the 2013 budget. About $2 million has been budgeted for the Palmerston upgrades, while $4 million is earmarked for the Hillsburgh project.
Minto councillor Ron Elliott asked county councillor Mark MacKenzie about the status of the Palmerston project at the Nov. 5 Minto council meeting.
“Is that going to be on the budget for next year and is that going to be started?” wondered Elliott.
MacKenzie replied a recent inspection of the building revealed, “There are some issues there that need to be addressed, whether the future of the upstairs is decided or not, we have to do those.”
A structural inspection of the building completed earlier this fall included a long-unused theatre on the upper level of the building.
“(There’s) lots of interest in the project overall, including the theatre, but beyond the engineer’s report no decision has been made about the exact renovations that will be required. We do know that accessibility requirements will play a significant element in the project,” said chief librarian Murray McCabe at the Sept. 26 county council meeting.
“The public meeting is basically for input to see what they’d like done over there,” MacKenzie told Minto council during his quarterly report on county issues and activities.
Usage figures
MacKenzie also noted in his report that over 400,000 books and materials were circulated between the library system’s 14 branches last year. He also said there were over 4,000 users of free wireless internet service at the various branches in the month of September alone.
“It’s growing so fast. It’s one of the services that we provide now and it’s well used,” MacKenzie commented.
“Where it gets used a lot is students – they’ll come and socialize and do their homework,” added Mayor George Bridge.
Councillor Dave Turton said the usage figures were encouraging.
“We hear a lot of comment about why the county is putting so much money into the libraries all over the county,” said Turton. “That’s a good thing, all these books that are moving around, and I think that’s a really good statistic to get out into the public.”
– With files from Kris Svela
