Funding sought for county library expansion

By Diana GonzalesSpecial to LIVE!Efforts are under way to expand the county library to better serve the county's growing population.The 8,800 square foot building at 300 Spring St. was constructed in 1965 when the population in Val Verde County was about 25,000. Now, 40 years later, the county population has nearly doubled, yet the library structure remains 8,800 square feet.Commissioners Court on June 12, acting on a request by Precinct 1 Commissioner Ramiro Ramon, unanimously voted to appoint a core committee comprised of County Librarian Willie Braudaway, a library staff member, the county treasurer, two commissioners, and two library board members to look for ways the county can come up with the estimated $4 million it will take to pay to enlarge the library by more than 11,000 square feet.Commissioner Ramon volunteered to chair the committee and Precinct 3 Commissioner Beau Nettleton offered to serve on the panel.Last year, Commissioners Court requested proposals from area architects to renovate and enlarge the existing library structure. Four companies submitted plans. Commissioners Court looked over the proposals and selected the plan prepared by Bill Hidell and Associates, based in Carollton, near Dallas.According to the company website, www.hidell.com, Hidell has been in business for more 50 years and is credited with the successful completion of more than 100 educational facilities, state-of-the-art athletic facilities, ultra-modern municipal facilities, and churches. Following his firm's selection, Mr. Hidell made a presentation to Commissioners Court detailing his company's plans for the expansion of the county library."Projected cost for the expansion is $4 million. Plans are to add on to the existing building. So, the size of the library will be doubled and there will be parking spaces added alongside Pulliam Street," explained Willie Braudaway, who was appointed county librarian last October. "Commissioners Court saw the plans and gave their okay and now a committee has been formed to see how we're going to fund the expansion. My understanding is that Hidell has helped other libraries with the grant writing and fundraising. I think it would be a really good idea to invite Hidell to meet with the committee because the company builds libraries."She and the rest of the library staff are pleased that Commissioners Court is moving forward to enlarge the library.To those who wonder why the library needs more room, Braudaway answers, "We need space for meetings and for more books and shelves, and other library materials. We need quiet areas; we need places where people can be noisy without disturbing the quiet areas. We also have so many computers, we need space around them. There are 13 public access computers, a computer classroom, staff computers, the card catalog computers, and computers just for students and children to use. So, we just need space. We are on top of each other!"Expansion also is necessary to accommodate special presentations, added Braudaway. "When somebody has a great idea about doing something interesting at the library, we have to really wonder how much publicity to give it because of the numbers that might fill our space. Here's a case in point:"We had Joe McDermott here recently to do a musical reading show for children. We could not do a huge promotion saying, 'We're bringing Joe McDermott!' because we can't handle more than maybe 60 kids at a time. So, the Alamo Area Library System coordinator called me after the presentation and asked how many people came to the program. I answered that we had a really good turnout. 'We had about 50 kids and 30 adults.' There was silence at the other end of the phone line. I said, 'That doesn't sound like a lot, does it?' She answered, 'Well, Carrizo Springs had about 260 people.'"So, if I want to have more people, I have to go and rent another venue - the Paul Poag Theatre, the Kress Building, or the Little theater at the high school - in order to accommodate large groups. That costs money. That money comes from the Friends of the Library or from grants and donations. There is no money in the County's library budget for that."On Friday, when Joe McDermott was here, he was up in the front. We had to move all the tables, chairs, magazine racks, and plants out. This made other parts of the library kind of unusable for folks that are just coming in to use the library. We could hear McDermott all over the library because he needed to use speakers. Of course, he's having a loud program with the kids because they're in the library and it's fun to yell and scream in the library. While he was performing, people couldn't get to the audio-books and the Spanish collection to check something out because that was where he was."McDermott asked, ‘Is this a real problem?’ And I said, ‘Well, frankly, I want people to be inconvenienced because I want people to see how much we need a bigger library.’"I think the most telling thing is that this building was built in 1964-65 the population in Val Verde County was about 25,000 and it's an 8,800 square-foot building. Here it is 40 years later, the population has almost doubled, and the library is still 8,800 square feet. And even doing this, it is not enough space for our size population. The new library will be 19,858 when it's all done. New construction will be 11,058 square feet."The newly formed committee, headed by Commissioner Ramon, will meet soon to look for funding sources to help pay for the expansion.Note: To learn more about what the Val Verde County Library has to offer, check out the library website: www.vvcl.org.Questions or comments? Contact Diana Gonzales directly.