Earlier this week, Roni Troman and her son, Mike, dropped by the new Palatine Public Library to work on a school science project, only to find the doors locked.
“Is the library closed?” she said, clutching a half-dozen books she had brought along. “We’re doing an experiment, and we’re trying to get more information.”
Mike, a student at Winston Park Junior High School in the northwest suburb, said he is attempting to learn how the design of a wing changes the force of its lift.
“We want the library open. It’s very useful for things like this,” his mother said. “I guess we’ll have to go to Arlington Heights.”
Dog-eared and tattered like a well-used book, the patience of Palatine’s regular library patrons has been worn a bit thin as they wait for their new $12 million library building on North Court Drive to open.
Several times an hour over the last few days, library users like Troman and her 13-year-old have tugged at the doors of the locked entrance, even pounded, only to be waved away by staff inside.
But the long wait could be over soon, perhaps as early as Saturday, if the library receives a temporary occupancy permit from the village on Friday.
“Our goal has been to get the building open as soon as we can,” said library Director Dan Armstrong, noting that a dedication will have to wait until sometime early next year.
“The delays added up to six or seven months,” Armstrong said. “Our goal was to be finished last April, with two or three months to furnish the library and move in.”
Instead, all the new furnishings and contents of the old library were moved to the new building while contractors applied the last touches and the library staff awaited an OK from village inspectors to open the building to the public.
Among libraries in the northwest suburbs, Palatine’s new building, with its 96,000 square feet, ranks near the top in total floor space, second only to the Skokie Public Library, which contains 101,000 square feet.
Until now, the Schaumburg Township Library held second-place honors in size, with 80,000 square feet, followed closely by Elgin’s Gail Borden Library and the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, each with 76,000 square feet.
Actually, the Arlington Heights library, which has little room left for its bulging collection, will take over the pack by 1996, after it completes a 56,000-square-foot addition and brings its total area to 133,000 square feet.
Arlington Heights already heads another list, with its more than 500,000 volumes, compared with nearly 400,000 books at Schaumburg, 355,000 at Skokie, 246,000 at Elgin and 238,000 at Palatine.
According to the North Suburban Library System, which works to improve services at 540 public, academic, school and special libraries in the north suburbs of Cook County and in communities in Kane, Lake and McHenry Counties, library expansions and remodelings have become common in recent years.
“Libraries are being used more and more,” said Miriam Pollack, the organization’s coordinator of member services. “Circulation is skyrocketing. The communities are developing and people are moving out to new areas from areas that had more sophisticated library service. The patrons are becoming more demanding.”
In addition to Palatine opening its new facility, and the Arlington Heights expansion, the Vernon Area Public Library opened in a new facility in Lincolnshire this fall and the Skokie library was renovated recently, Pollack said.
But books and bricks do not make a library, according to Palatine’s library director.
“What distinguishes a library is its program,” Armstrong said, “and our program is somewhat unique because our emphasis is a little different.”
The library’s first floor has been designed as a popular-materials section and the fiction section, and it is functional for every age group, Armstrong said.
Instead of segregating children in an isolated area of the library, the children’s section is located next to the youth section, which is next to the adult section.
“It will be easier for children to make the adjustment to older material, and it will be easier for adults to sample the young adults’ section. It goes through the entire life cycle,” Armstrong said.
Palatine’s new library also makes use of display shelves, with the books facing out, both in the open stacks and on their periphery.
“It looks more like a bookstore,” Armstrong noted, as he toured the facility with a visitor. “You see more covers,” he said.
“We’re going to do a lot of promotion of our materials, promote the library and learning, conduct story hours, summer reading programs, adult book discussion groups, even a mystery club,” Armstrong said.
Had Roni Troman and her son made it inside the library, they would have found the second floor reserved for information services and nonfiction for ages 9 and up.
“We’ve combined the reference sections and have a broader range of resources,” Armstrong said.
“The information needs of children are more sophisticated today. For school assignments, a student may need to use the adult section,” he said.
“The converse also is true. An adult may be looking for an illustration, a costume from the 19th Century, which would be easier to find in the youth section,” he said.
Armstrong concedes that other libraries have developed similar programs, but they are much easier to do in small towns, he says, where collections are smaller and the finances limited.
“We keep staffing costs lower by combining departments and cross-training staff, using para-professionals and automated technology,” he said.
The traditional card catalog, which no longer exists at the new library, is an example of this change, Armstrong said.
Armstrong, who came to Palatine 2 1/2 years ago after the decision to build a new library was made, said the former library, three blocks away, was just too small to serve the community.
“It was built at a time when it was only a village library, with a population of 30,000. The district now serves over 80,000 and includes unincorporated Palatine Township and parts of Hoffman Estates.” Armstrong said.
“Previously there were 20,000 library cardholders. Now we have 50,000. Our projected growth is to have over 100,000,” Armstrong said.
