East Columbia Branch Library set to reopen
in 2012, but Brade said it took several years to line up the funding and get the project underway.
“We took the space from the ’90s and brought it to the future,” Brade said.
Lee, who has been the branch manager for nine years, said students flock to the library from Lake Elkhorn Middle School and Cradlerock Elementary School. Before the renovation, Lee said, the branch hosted between 25 and 50 teens a day. Now, she hopes to see at least 75.
“Kids who would just hang around the neighborhood now have somewhere to go and people who care,” Lee said.
Anew designated teen space fills more than 2,000 square feet of the building and features tables and chairs for homework, with a glass-walled classroom and lab spaces next door. Lee said the designated area will allow teens to feel comfortable without fighting other users for space.
The renovations also included creation of four more study rooms, a 26-seat cafe with vending machines, 2,700 square feet of classroom space and an updated children’s area. The passport office’s size was doubled to accept applications and take photos, a major draw for the branch, Lee said.
There will be 74 public computers available and, as at all libraries in the county, free Wi-Fi for wireless internet access.
Brade said the goal in focusing so much on study space was to make the facility a “destination library.”
Nationally, the highest percentage of library patrons is millennials, 53 percent of whom visited a library between 2015 and 2016, based on data from the Pew Research Center. The American Library Association found that in recent years, library systems are shifting their priorities to more than just books, with an increased focus on technology, such as public access computers and Wi-Fi, as well as a variety of programs for patrons.
A Howard County Library System spokeswoman, Christie Lassen, said the same shift is occurring in the county, where branches are offering an increased number of classes; in 2017 more than 338,000 people, up from roughly 307,000 in 2016, attended classes at the branches, ranging from children’s story and song programs to teen Photoshop tutorials.
Next on the library system’s renovation list is the 18-year-old Glenwood branch in Cooksville, where Brade said she wants to add more study rooms and take care of “wear and tear” on the building.
Lee said the renovation is an exciting step forward.
“I tell customers, ‘You’re going to be wowed,’” Lee said. “It feels like you could be in a whole different building.” kamagill@baltsun.com
“We took the space from the ’90s and brought it to the future,” Brade said.
Lee, who has been the branch manager for nine years, said students flock to the library from Lake Elkhorn Middle School and Cradlerock Elementary School. Before the renovation, Lee said, the branch hosted between 25 and 50 teens a day. Now, she hopes to see at least 75.
“Kids who would just hang around the neighborhood now have somewhere to go and people who care,” Lee said.
Anew designated teen space fills more than 2,000 square feet of the building and features tables and chairs for homework, with a glass-walled classroom and lab spaces next door. Lee said the designated area will allow teens to feel comfortable without fighting other users for space.
The renovations also included creation of four more study rooms, a 26-seat cafe with vending machines, 2,700 square feet of classroom space and an updated children’s area. The passport office’s size was doubled to accept applications and take photos, a major draw for the branch, Lee said.
There will be 74 public computers available and, as at all libraries in the county, free Wi-Fi for wireless internet access.
Brade said the goal in focusing so much on study space was to make the facility a “destination library.”
Nationally, the highest percentage of library patrons is millennials, 53 percent of whom visited a library between 2015 and 2016, based on data from the Pew Research Center. The American Library Association found that in recent years, library systems are shifting their priorities to more than just books, with an increased focus on technology, such as public access computers and Wi-Fi, as well as a variety of programs for patrons.
A Howard County Library System spokeswoman, Christie Lassen, said the same shift is occurring in the county, where branches are offering an increased number of classes; in 2017 more than 338,000 people, up from roughly 307,000 in 2016, attended classes at the branches, ranging from children’s story and song programs to teen Photoshop tutorials.
Next on the library system’s renovation list is the 18-year-old Glenwood branch in Cooksville, where Brade said she wants to add more study rooms and take care of “wear and tear” on the building.
Lee said the renovation is an exciting step forward.
“I tell customers, ‘You’re going to be wowed,’” Lee said. “It feels like you could be in a whole different building.” kamagill@baltsun.com
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