Library service continues during remodel project

The floor under the previous children’s section has been knocked out by Blews Construction workers. An expanded stairway will be put in below.

With gaping holes in the floor and knocked out walls, remodeling of the Whitman County Library is well under way. The $1 million project is three weeks along. The project will add an elevator for handicap access and other changes and is expected to be finished in about five months.

In the interim, library staffers have moved with some equipment across the street to the back and second floor of the U.S. Bank building.

The temporary, smaller space on the first floor holds four public computers and roughly 2,500 books. The bulk of the library’s books, 48,000, remain in a corner of the old building.

All library books are still available for checkout, said Library Director Kristie Kirkpatrick. Patrons can request a book at the library’s temporary desk in the U.S. Bank building. Once a day, staff members will go into the library building to fill book requests.

Kirkpatrick said the library has seen fewer people in their temporary quarters, probably because they have canceled adult programs while construction is underway.

“I think we’re getting our regular flow, but people just aren’t staying,” she said.

Roughly 14,000 people per year traveled up and down the stairs to the library basement, Kirkpatrick said. Children and adult programs have been located there. The new elevator will help ease this traffic, she said.

“For a public building, it just needed to be done,” she explained.

Of the $1 million cost of the project, $650,000 will be paid by a USDA loan, with funding made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Another $115,000 came from a Washington state grant. The rest has come from donations and fund raising project.

Kirkpatrick said squeezing the library office into the second floor of the U.S. Bank has been challenging.

Accessing the bulk of library books once a day, or trying to sort their mail in a smaller space has been hard for staff.

“The move was stressful,” she admitted.