dway@heraldsun.com; 419-6654
HILLSBOROUGH — Variously hailed as a fantasy factory for the mind, a portal to a more prosperous future and a personal career flotation device amid current choppy economic waters, the new Orange County Main Public Library was opened to gasps of delight and booming applause on Friday.
Sprawling across 23,500 square feet and two floors, the spacious library boasts rows of public access computers, shelves bulging with books and periodicals, a public meeting room, local history room and specially designed teen area. The new facility at 137 W. Margaret Lane stood in stark contrast to its cramped predecessor in the aging former high school building on West Tryon Street.
The library was dedicated with a ribbon cutting ceremony heavily accented by references to the library’s 100th anniversary year being marked this month. More than 200 people turned out for the milestone event, from elementary school students and longtime library patrons to town, county and school elected officials.
“It’s very nice, and much easier to look around for a book,” said an approving Christopher Brown of Hillsborough.
“I’m actually checking out ‘A Farewell to Arms’ by Ernest Hemingway. A school project,” the Orange County High School junior said.
Brown also enthused about the new library’s location in the heart of the county seat’s renewal area next to the Gateway Center.
“It’s in a better location. It’s closer to the downtown,” and that likely will prompt him to use it more than the two to three times a month he went to the old library, Brown said.
“I like it. I’m really impressed by everything,” said Kristie Myers of Hillsborough. “I notice there’s a lot more computers,” one of which she was giving a test run.
“Just chatting on the Internet with friends,” she said.
“There’s so many places to sit down and relax and enjoy books,” said Stuart Dyer of Hillsborough, a retired industrial supply business owner from New Orleans.
“I’m especially impressed with the space they have for young people. Kids are so tied to the computer and Internet. Maybe this will get more kids coming to the library,” Dyer said.
State Librarian Mary Boone, the keynote speaker at the day’s dedication ceremony, said launching a new library “is my absolutely most favorite part of the job.”
“I am a native of Orange County, so that makes this even more meaningful,” said Boone, who grew up in Chapel Hill, got a degree from UNC and was director of the Chapel Hill Library from 1978 to 1985.
But Boone went beyond the pomp and circumstance of the day to explain why a library is critical to a community’s well being.
“We consider the public library to be a foundation institution,” Boone said. “There is no greater gift you can give to a child than that first library card.”
Seekers can find “anything from auto care to Zen philosophy” at the library, she said. It provides a place for school children to do their homework after school or research a project on the weekends, and gives home-schoolers a treasure trove of knowledge without charge. Seniors can learn to use computers so they can communicate with their grandchildren on social networking sites.
And as the economy remains mired in recession, Boone said, “a great insurgence” has been marked among those using library computers “to apply for jobs, to apply for government services,” to do market plans and cash-flow analyses for small businesses.
“We’re seeing dramatic increases,” she said.
Valerie Foushee, chairwoman of the Orange County Board of Commissioners, extolled the virtues of a public library as a place to “enrich, enlighten and sometimes just entertain.”
The library houses a “great collection of ideas” that provides the means “to prepare society for a brighter future,” Foushee said.
County Commissioner Barry Jacobs spoke of the history behind the movement to build the new library and hinted that plans are being considered to expand existing libraries and to build new ones in other parts of the county.
