In the next few months, Newbury Library Station will disappear from its central location at Newbury High School.A modernized, re-booked edition of the Newbury Township…
In the next few months, Newbury Library Station will disappear from its central location at Newbury High School.
A modernized, re-booked edition of the Newbury Township branch of the Geauga County Public Library will appear several hundred yards across the parking lot in the former elementary school, said Newbury Schools Super-intendent Michelle Mrakovich.
It will share the building with a conference room and, it is hoped, a preschool under the auspices of Lake County Educational Service Center.
Not one to waste space, Mrakovich plans to convert the antiquated library facility at the high school into a project-based learning center where students will be presented with problems and shepherded through the solving process using state-of-the-art computers and a three-dimensional printer.
The shuffling of spaces is part of Newbury Schools’ new mission to do more with less — or practically nothing at all.
The elementary school has sat empty for over a year as Mrakovich and the staff cooked up ideas for funding and stirred in some collaboration.
The result is that construction will begin as soon as asbestos testing is completed, she said, adding she hopes to have the new library ready for use when students return from Christmas vacation.
Plans have been drawn up and the library is footing nearly two-thirds of the $300,000 tab to have the space renovated and occupied with all new furnishing and shelves, she said, adding the library board of trustees met recently to discuss the changes.
“They’re very excited,” she said.
R.L. Hill Inc. won the contract to divide the former instructional area into three spaces, which will be a different and positive use of the building.
The “open concept” structure, a fad decades old, turned out to be less than ideal for educating active children.
Once the walls are in place, as well as a castle faade for the children’s section, Geauga County Public Library will send a team, led by a designer, to relocate the contents.
“It’s pretty cool. They take the books off the shelves, put them on the new racks and just move the racks to the new location,” Mrakovich said. “They think they can move all the books in just two days.”
Fortunately, there are not as many books in the stacks as there used to be.
“They’ve weeded out many that hadn’t been touched in decades,” she said, adding they will replace them with new ones.
Besides new furnishings, the library will supply new computers and an instructor for several hours a week to help students learn to use university online programs to do research for assignments.
The project-based learning center will take a little more time, but, using grants and a portion of the permanent improvement levy due to be renewed this year, Mrakovich is confident it will happen.
Geauga County Public Library Director Ed Worso said Newbury Library Station hours will be expanded for public use once the move is complete.
The library board and the school have collaborated on the station for more than 30 years and having a new location will be a big advantage, he said.
“We are all about collaboration,” Worso said.
The library will be putting about $190,000 into providing the station with books, furnishing and technology, he said, while the school district will pay for the new walls and permanent improvements.
With five part-time employees at the station during evening and weekend hours, there are usually two on the desk at any time, Worso said.
The station’s media specialist is available to help residents use the
variety of databases such as Ancestry.com and the academic search program, he said.
“It’s wonderful for the community. It’s going to be a new and inviting space,” Worso said, adding it will include a multi-purpose room for public meetings and storytime.
“We really hope to engage the families,”he said.
