Library Alters Plans After Public Comments

By Brent D. Wistrom, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.

Jun. 27–After a rush of public comments, the city’s library board has scrapped plans to close branches in some of Wichita’s poorest areas and instead has proposed expanding locations in underserved parts of town.

Under the proposal the Wichita City Council will discuss in a workshop today, the Maya Angelou Branch Library near 21st and Hillside would be expanded, and the Planeview Community Library in Colvin Elementary School would be replaced with a larger location a few blocks away from its current spot off Ross Parkway.

Altogether, the proposal calls for four larger, better-staffed branches to open within 15 years.

If the public and council embrace the idea, construction would start in 2011 with a new Central Library the size of the Von Maur department store at Towne East Square.

That’s 120,000 square feet, compared with the current 89,700-square-foot Central Library that Wichita built nearly four decades ago at Main and William downtown.

The new plan differs from the controversial proposals presented by hired consultants last month that called for closing several libraries that serve the city’s poorest areas.

Instead, the library board relied on more than 600 comments people submitted to the library board and The Eagle.

That means the board hopes to build a large library downtown with better parking. They look to improve the Maya Angelou Branch Library. And they want to keep a facility in the Planeview neighborhood of southeast Wichita, where a 12-year-old began circulating a petition to keep the library just a day after the plans were unveiled.

Council member Jim Skelton, who received several hundred of those petitions, said that although the plan calls for Planeview to be closed, the new library that would be built in its place is just a few blocks away and would have more to offer.

“It may meet our needs better,” he said. “I like what I see here.”

Library board president Tim Moore said most board members disagreed with closing Angelou and Planeview branches from the start and that they listened closely to public comment.

“We don’t want to turn our backs on anybody that needs library services,” he said.

They will continue to listen to feedback when the new plan is presented at district advisory board meetings in July.

Later this summer, the library board will make any necessary revisions, vote on the plan and forward it to the City Council for a final vote.

Solid cost estimates on the new libraries aren’t yet available, but chief librarian Cynthia Berner Harris said the new plan would likely cost between $44 million and $50 million.

Erin Albright lives just a few blocks from the Rockwell Branch Library near Ninth and Edgemoor, which would be closed under the proposal.

He said that sometimes he has to wait more than an hour for Internet access.

“If you don’t have a computer, where else are you going to go?” he asked.

He said he would trade the convenience of a nearby branch for a larger location with more computers and a wider selection of materials.

Standing at the door of the crowded Westlink Branch Library near Central and Tyler, Kenneth Long said a larger regional branch on the city’s west side may be a good idea.

“Right now,” he said as he looked at the six or seven people waiting in line to check materials out, “it looks like they need a bigger one.”

Steady wants, changing needs

In 1965, planners designed Wichita’s Central Library to hold 450,000 items, Berner-Harris wrote in an e-mail. At the end of 2005, the library had 669,119.

“At the time this facility was built, even the most visionary library leaders could never have envisioned the way that the business of delivering library service would be changed by technology and the expansion of information formats,” Berner Harris wrote. “A title purchased at one time as a hardcover book may now be added to our library collection in as many as nine to 10 unique formats.”

The increasing demand for Internet access has also cut into the library’s storage space, she said.

Moore, the library board president, said part of reaching more people in more ways will have to include hiring new librarians to serve larger populations.

“We make due with what we have,” he said. “Certainly, if we’re going to expand our efficiency and meet the public’s needs… you can’t do that without more people.”

Reach Brent D. Wistrom at 316-268-6228 or bwistrom@wichitaeagle.com [mailto:bwistrom@wichitaeagle.com].

THE CITY’S PLAN FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES

The city’s library board today will recommend building four large regional libraries and closing several neighborhood branches in a City Council workshop.

The workshop is open to the public. It will be in the council’s board room on the first floor of City Hall, but it won’t be televised.

The plan will be presented at District Advisory Board meetings in July, revised and voted on by the library board and then forwarded to the City Council for their approval. If approved, here’s the timeline for construction:

LIBRARIES OF THE FUTURE

2011: Build a 120,000-square-foot central library somewhere in or near downtown.

2013: Expand Westlink Branch and close the Orchard Park Branch.

2016: Open a branch near Pawnee and George Washington Boulevard and close Planeview and Linwood Park branches. Open a regional branch in far east or northeast Wichita and close Comotara and Rockwell branches.

2021: Expand or remodel Alford, Angelou and Evergreen branches.

Source: Wichita Public Library

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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