North Liberty Community Library celebrates completion renovation, expansion

By Pat Shaver

NORTH LIBERTY — Readers in North Liberty now have more room to browse, read and hang out at the city’s library.

The growing library recently finished a major renovation. The library, located in the North Liberty Community Center, 520 W. Cherry St., expanded from 6,500 square feet to 18,000 square feet.

An average day at the previous library brought in about 400 visitors. With the renovations, the library now brings in an average of 600 people.

In September, the library hosted an open house for the new building, said Dee Crowner, library director.

“Within the next 10 years, I think we will have to expand to 30,000 square feet, and there is space to expand,” she said, adding that there is space to expand the current building on Cherry Street.

Ms. Crowner remembers the library in the late 1980s having an annual budget of $35,000. That has grown to about $600,000, she said. In 1987, she said, there were about 1,800 residents in North Liberty. Now, there are about 16,000.

The renovation cost about $3.38 million. The city of North Liberty contributed about $2 million and the rest came from a year-long fundraising effort by the library.

“We were totally out of space. We wanted to do more with programs but we had no space,” Ms. Crowner said.

With the change, the library also made a bold change, doing away with the Dewey Decimal system and going to a subject based system. Ms. Crowner said it is similar to a book store set-up.

The North Liberty Community Library has evolved with the growing population and has also been challenged with the advancement of technology. Instead of an area with desktop computers, the library has laptops that people can check out and use anywhere in the facility. It also will offer self check-out.

“People feel more comfortable than they did at the old library,” she said.

Previously, the library did not have library cards for users. Patrons would give their name and it would be entered into the computer system when they checked out items. Now, people need to use a library card, she said.

“You don’t have to come out of the house to visit the library anymore. But you should come get your library card, and you do want to come to see what we offer,” Ms. Crowner said.

The library was first located in the building with the old city hall. In 1997, it moved to the community center, which houses the North Liberty recreation facility, NLTV and the aquatic center.

The library also benefits from its location.

“People who would never use the rec center but use the library are now using the rec center and people who would never use the library but use the rec center are now coming to the library,” Ms. Crowner said.

Along with the books, the library has about 3,000 DVDs to check out and a collection of cake pans that bakers can borrow. Ms. Crowner said the library’s pet guinea pigs, Ramona and Beezus, are also attractions.

Ms. Crowner said there were efficiencies used in the building process, including converting a gym floor from the rec center to table tops and having the Iowa Prison Industries build furniture and fixtures.

Iowa Prison Industries (IPI) is the work arm of the Iowa Department of Corrections and consists of manufacturing, farming and private sector work programs. Each business is self-funding and, since 1996, has returned over $10 million in revenue to the state’s general fund for education, taxes, family support and room and board. Prisoners from both the men’s facility in Anamosa and the women’s in Mitchellville helped build shelving and furniture for the library.

The library has 11 employees on staff and a pool of 40 volunteers. For more information, visit www.northlibertylibrary.org.