February 28, 2007

Here We Go!

On Sunday, March 11 at 5:00 pm, we will hold a groundbreaking ceremony at the site of the new Library construction project -- on the corner of Post Road and Hecker Avenue.

The ceremony will mark more than five years of planning for the New Darien Library -- beginning with a Long Range Plan in 2001, and working with our Architects, Peter Gisolfi Associates, on plans for the 54,000 sf building that is expected to be ready for occupancy in the Fall of 2008.

More information about the reasons for building a new library, and details of its construction, can be found on the Darien Library web site.

Although March 11 is not the best time of the year to hold a ground-breaking ceremony, it's a great time to start a construction project that will last 18 months, since the sooner we get started, the sooner we'll finish. We'll understand if you want to just keep reading information about the construction project from the warmth of the seat in front of your computer, and pass on the ceremony. But we promise you -- now that we are about to get started -- that we'll soon be bringing you much more information about what's happening and lots of pictures showing the progress we'll be making.

So stay tuned to the New Darien Library blog, and if you have questions, you can ask them by making a comment.

Meanwhile, we'll be out there, shovels at the ready.

Posted by Alan Kirk Gray at 03:27 PM | Comments (1)

December 26, 2006

Telling Our Story

We're going to be making a presentation about the architectural and technology elements of our new building, at the Computers in Libraries Conference in Arlington, VA in April 2007.

Here's the blurb in the schedule outlining our talk:

Session D304 — The Library of the Future 3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Louise Parker Berry, Director, & Alan Kirk Gray, Darien Library
Peter Gisolfi, Managing Partner, Peter Gisolfi Associates, Architects and Planners

What if you were building a completely new library—at a time of accelerating technological change—and had to make decisions about what successful libraries will embody in 10 or 20 years? What are the current trends that will have staying power, and what are fads that will wash away? How do you design a building that will have physical presence and architectural significance and still plan for services and technology uses that library patrons haven’t even begun to think about? After planning for 4 years for a 55,000 square foot library, the staff changed their thinking about important elements of the building after watching technology greatly affect the future of libraries. They are betting on RFID, opting for no circulation or reference desk, predicting most reference activity will be provided online in 5 years and 7x24 online reference services in 10 years, much of it done remotely from the staff members’ homes. Hear their strategies for enhancing customer service and having the library continue its role as the cultural center of the community.

I've attended most of the Computers in Libraries conferences in the past 6 years, and find that I bring home more detailed and useful information from these sessions than from any other conference I attend. In this case, we hope that by discussing our plans, we'll get some feedback along the lines of, "Have you thought about doing __________ ?" That will be useful information if it helps us improve our thinking about some of the ways we will use technology in the new library -- and there are some really bright and experienced participants at the conference whose thoughts are worth considering.

Of course, we're also pretty sure we've made some interesting and possibly innovative decisions about how to use technology in the new building, and we hope that our planning can inform the thinking of others who are in an earlier stage of new construction or expansion.

Posted by Alan Kirk Gray at 12:03 PM | Comments (0)

July 26, 2006

Where Are We Now?

Susan Chaves of the Darien Times wrote an article last week that captures the current status of the project very well. Here it is.

This is the picture that accompanies the article:

Posted by Alan Kirk Gray at 07:57 PM