August 2003
Friends Book Sale during the Urbana Sweetcorn Festival
The Friends of The Urbana Free Library will hold a book sale on the front porch of the library from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 23. If the weather is nice, the sale will extend to the street in front of the library. The Sweetcorn Festival book sale will be the last Friends book sale until the spring of 2005, when the library’s expansion and remodeling project has been completed. In the fall of 2003, the spaces currently used for sorting and storing books will be taken over for construction purposes, and the new book sale spaces will not be ready until library expansion is complete. Book sales have been an important source of library funds for many years. These fund raisers have supported our summer reading programs and pay for many, many new books. (Watch for “Friends of The Urbana Free Library Book Sale” bookplates inside the front covers of many of our books.) Because we are losing all of our book receiving, sorting, and storage space, we can no longer accept gifts of used books until the spring of 2005.
No Gifts of Used Books Until Spring 2005
Over the years, many generous people have donated endless thousands of used books to the library. These gifts have made it possible for the Friends of the Library to raise over $100,000 for the library in their book sales. Unfortunately, due to our construction project, we will lose all of our space for receiving, sorting, and storing used books this fall. At the same time, the empty Lincoln Square store we have used for book sales has been leased. The Friends of The Urbana Free Library book sale at the Urbana Sweetcorn Festival on August 23 will therefore be the last sale until the end of our building project in spring 2005. Because we cannot hold book sales for the next 18 months, we are no longer able to accept donations of used books. If you have used books to donate, we recommend you take them to the Champaign Public Library, which also holds used book sales. We will continue to accept all materials suitable for our Archives collection, including anything about east-central Illinois or genealogy. Please call Jean Koch, Director of Archives, at 367-4025. And if you are interested in donating new books to the library collections, please call Keran Harrington, Head of Acquisitions, at 367-4057.
August 2003
Monthly Events 5
(Tu) — The Friends of The Urbana Free Library. Monthly meeting. Archives. 7:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Construction Coordination
The library’s remodeling and construction project is amazingly complex and requires endlessly careful cooperative work between a large number of construction firms, local utilities, the City of Urbana, and The Urbana Free Library. Every Thursday morning at 10:00, all the managers associated with our construction project meet to be sure that everyone knows what is coming next, that all of the stages of construction take place in the correct order, and that problems involved in running a library while it is under construction are resolved. There are also many meetings to deal with special problems, which occur particularly often when workers are squeezing modern mechanical systems into older buildings. Recently, for example, our architects, engineers, plumbers, HVAC specialists, city staff, and library staff met to discuss how new piping can be installed in our 85-year-old furnace room and the hallways nearby. A key person in the entire project is the general contractor’s site supervisor, who works nearly full time at the project, making sure that everything is done correctly and that the project doesn’t fall behind schedule. The fact that our architects are located two blocks from the library, and all of our engineers and contractors have headquarters in Urbana, Champaign, and Rantoul, makes the smooth coordination of the project far easier.
9 12 13
(Sa) — The Urbana Free Library Staff at Market at the Square. Parking lot at Lincoln Square. 7:30 - 11:30 a.m. (Tu) — The Urbana Free Library Board of Trustees. Monthly meeting. Archives. 7:30 - 9:00 p.m.
(W) — The Urbana Free Library Staff at Neighborhood Nights. Wheatfield Park. Exorna (Irish). 6:30 - 8:00 p.m. (Sa) — The Friends Summer Book Sale. Library Front Porch. 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. (during the Sweetcorn Festival)
23
August Programs for Children
Our Summer Reading Program for children continues through August 31. You can sign up through August 9. “On Location” programs for August include “The Urbana Free Library: Construction Tours,” “Hit the Trail,” “Read to the Dogs,” “Bubble Blast!,” and “Teddy Bear Picnic.”
Market at the Square and Park District Neighborhood Nights
Sign up for library cards, register for summer reading programs, pick up library freebies, or just stop and talk with us about what’s new at the library, when you attend community events in Urbana this summer. We have a table at the Urbana Market at the Square on the second Saturday of each month. You can also stop by for live music and join us at the Urbana Park District Neighborhood Nights held on Wednesdays throughout the summer. Check the “Monthly Events” column on this page for dates and times.
The Free Library This Month at The Urbana Free Library
Construction News
Our contractors have made really visible progress during recent weeks. The new addition is framed, the floors are installed, the hole for the elevator piston has been drilled, and masons are working on the walls. New components of the building are delivered almost daily. On the third week of July, our contractors made a new connection to the water main on the north side of Elm Street. Installing the water line went relatively quickly, but replacing the pavement took longer, and we ended up blocking through traffic on Elm Street for about a week. Thanks for your patience with the awkward access to our book return bins, and thanks to Busey Bank for being so goodnatured about access to its drive-through tellers being limited to people approaching from the west.
LIBRARY TELEPHONE NUMBERS Circulation (renewals) ............ 367-4057 Adult Reference Desk ............ 367-4405 Children’s Question Desk ...... 367-4069 Archives ................................. 367-4025 Documents Center ................. 384-0092 Administration ........................ 367-4057 UFL Foundation ..................... 337-1601 TTY for hearing-impaired ....... 367-4405 HOMEPAGE & ONLINE CATALOG urbanafreelibrary.org LIBRARY HOURS Adult and Children’s Departments 9 AM - 9 PM Mon-Thurs 9 AM - 6 PM Fri-Sat 1 PM - 5 PM Sun Archives 9 AM - 5 PM Mon-Sat 1 PM - 5 PM Sun
Sprinkler Systems
Our new water service to the library is necessary in part because the remodeled and expanded building will include a complete sprinkler system. Sprinkler systems require high-capacity water delivery when major fires break out. (Also see the Construction News article on this page.) While sprinkler systems are vital in large modern libraries, particularly to ensure life safety, librarians have also learned to be wary of sprinklers, since faulty activation can do a great deal of damage to books. To prevent damage to our irreplaceable Archives collection, the sprinklers in that part of the library will have a special fail-safe activation system to prevent accidental discharge. Special thanks are due to the City of Urbana for undertaking the additional cost of providing an extra high level of protection for this important collection.
Photos by Lynn Ward
(Upper photo) Employees of Roessler Construction laying concrete block on the main floor on the south side of the library. In a few weeks, the block wall will be covered with limestone to match the original 1918 library building.
The new water line is the last (Lower photo) Steve Menard of Imperial Concrete piece in the complex puzzle of measures the Elm Street area to be repaved after underground connections to the installation of the new water line to the library. Note the old paving bricks that still survive beneath the streets of library, which will sit demurely downtown Urbana, along with the few bits of ancient among the flowers and ivy, while trolley track that still lurk under Main Street. stealthy snakelike subterranean pseudopods slip surreptitiously beneath the surrounding scenery. Our contractors and local utilities have worked to reroute electric lines, gas lines, telephone lines, cable lines, water lines, storm sewers, and sanitary sewers. There are enough new manholes around the library to provide secret clubhouses for half the fourth graders in town. For more pictures and up-to-date information on construction, check our website, urbanafreelibrary.org.
This Month at The Urbana Free Library Vol. 28, No. 8 • August 2003
Construction Coordination
A typical construction coordination meeting on July 17. Starting on the left with the man in dark glasses and moving clockwise around the table, the people present include Leo Quinlan (Roessler Construction’s site supervisor), Mark Roessler (Roessler Construction), Chad Smith (Roessler Construction), David Burton (Isaksen-Glerum, architects), Tim Morgan (T’nT Mechanical, HVAC contractor), Urbana Mayor Tod Satterthwaite, Tony Martin (Krut’s Electric), Fred Schlipf (library director), Danny Roy (T’nT), Riley Glerum (IsaksenGlerum), Doug White (GHR Engineers), and Pat Pioletti (City of Urbana).
Photo by Lynn Ward
The Urbana Free Library Foundation
201 South Race Street Urbana, Illinois 61801-3283
Name
Address
City
State
Zip
Phone
Date
e-mail
FAX
All contributions to the Foundation will be used exclusively for support of the Library and Library expansion. The Urbana Free Library Foundation is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. ❑ ❑ ❑ Donation enclosed in the amount of $ . (Make check payable to: The Urbana Free Library Foundation) Please do not acknowledge my name/gift in Library or Foundation publications. I would like to receive information about remembering the Library in my will and/or other forms of planned giving.