On the second floor of Lakeforest mall, in a storefront next to Sears, children have a place to curl up with a good book and adults can look up bus schedules and print job applications with the help of librarians. The temporary Gaithersburg Library location will have to make do for a bit longer.
The renovation project for the Gaithersburg Library, a 28-year-old building at 18330 Montgomery Village Ave. that closed in May 2010, is now a year behind schedule — construction will be completed in spring 2013.
While library officials say the interim branch, which opened in December, and other full-service libraries in the county are meeting the community’s needs, Bob Hydorn, the board president of the Montgomery Village Foundation, said residents are not getting the same service.
“It is great we have something, but it is not the same,” Hydorn said.
At 3,000 square feet, the interim library is about 10 percent the size of the main branch and holds about 13 percent of the materials — about 29,000 volumes compared to about 226,000. Although visitors can search the card catalog on computers, there is no general Internet access.
“I’ve heard a couple of comments, [such as] ‘we just don’t have what we need when we need it,’” Hydorn said.
Barbara McClayton, the library’s branch manager, said the library is meeting many residents’ needs and visitors are thankful it is available, although she does sometimes hear that the location is too small.
The county on Oct. 19 approved Henley Construction Company Inc.’s $14.6 million bid for the project. Construction will begin in a few weeks.
Because a stormwater management permit submitted by a county engineer for the site was denied twice by the county Department of Permitting Services because it was not filled out properly, the construction process was delayed, said Eric Carzon, business manager of Montgomery County Libraries.
Irma Sheon, president of Friends of the Gaithersburg Library, said she is happy to see a construction schedule set, although the community had expected to see it begin much earlier.
“I think we have to be positive and now we have something to be positive about.” Sheon said. “Of course, no one wanted such a long delay in getting started, but that is life and bureaucracy and the real world.”
The interim library is issuing an average of one new library card each day and more than 12,000 residents visited the library each month this summer, McClayton said. That is more than those who visit some of the county’s smaller library branches, she said.
That is low compared to the number of people who had visited the Gaithersburg Library before it was closed for renovation. In fiscal 2009, the branch had 562,182 visits; that averages to about 46,850 visits monthly.
To get to a full-service library, residents can drive about 4.5 miles southwest of the Gaithersburg Library to the Quince Orchard Library or about five miles northwest to the Germantown Library.
That presents a problem for residents who do not have cars or senior citizens who have trouble riding the bus, Hydorn said.
Those libraries have seen visits decrease by 25 percent and 32 percent, respectively, from fiscal 2010 to fiscal 2011.
Countywide from fiscal 2010 to 2011, library visits decreased by 33 percent, from 8.7 million to 5.7 million, and circulation decreased by 16 percent, from 12.1 million to 10.1 million, Carzon said.
The decrease is not due just to the closing of the Gaithersburg Library, but also due to the closing of the Olney Library in December, along with other budgetary cutbacks such as a 13 percent drop in library hours and a 45 percent materials cut, Carzon said.
The Olney Library will not open until at least summer 2013. That renovation project was also set back because of a delay getting building permits.
Before the Gaithersburg branch closed, it employed 15 full-time and 11 part-time employees. The interim location has one full-time employee and eight part-time employees. In fiscal 2011 the county saved about $1.47 million from the staff reduction, Carzon said.
The renovations on the Gaithersburg Library, which will take 18 months to complete, will double the size of the building; add a computer lab, media preview area and program room, more program space for children’s and young adult services, and Internet and Wi-Fi; and replace mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, and interior furnishings.
Meanwhile, the empty library is an eyesore to the entrance of Montgomery Village, Hydorn said.
“Once construction really starts at the library, it will feel like the library is coming back,” he said.
The community is counting on the schedule to stay on track, Hydorn said.
“But I won’t cross that bridge until I see it happen,” he said.
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