When the doors of Indian Trails Library reopen Monday, patrons will see the backbreaking work performed by the 35-person staff over the last four weeks.
They hauled 200,000 books from one part of the building to another, washed bookshelves, dusted book covers and peeled 20-year-old tape from the spines.
They pushed and pulled 120 book-laden carts out of the way of construction workers laying 12,000 square feet of carpet. And then, they moved them all back again.
The heavy lifting to ready the library’s 14,000-square-foot addition was done by the staff to save money. A recent move by the Schaumburg Township Library of its 500,000 books to a new building one-quarter of a mile from its old one was done by a moving company.
Both were wrestling with expansions needed to accommodate growth of their communities.
Indian Trails Library administrative assistant Robin Smith, in dusty jeans and a sweatshirt, admitted, “Everyone is kind of sick of this.”
Their handiwork will be unveiled at a grand opening gala on Nov. 21 with guest authors, storytellers and a mariachi band in the Schoenbeck Road parking lot.
Two years in the making, the nearly $4 million project boosts the library to 44,900 square feet with a new second floor, an expanded first floor, a computer lab, a foyer filled with display cases and a snow-melting system for the sidewalks.
An additional $250,000 will be used to buy more materials, especially compact discs, books on tape and computer software.
The expansion was approved in a $3.8 million referendum in 1995. A state library construction grant kicked in an additional $250,000.
Though the expansion is smaller than the staff wanted, it is a welcome change, said Library Director Tamiye Meehan.
“The first referendum we went for was to double the library, which would’ve been more appropriate,” she said. “But this does help. It adds 50 percent more space.”
Before the library closed in October for the serious construction work, books had been double-packed into overflowing shelves, the audio-visual collection was limited and the foreign language section–the fastest growing–was inadequate.
The 18-year-old building also suffered from a dreary color scheme of browns, golds and oranges, and tinted windows that made it seem like a cave, Meehan said.
In contrast, modern libraries tend to be airy and bright, with comfortable furniture encouraging patrons to stay awhile.
“Libraries are supposed to be more friendly and family-oriented,” Smith said. “We have the easy readers and the youth fiction in a new section with a seating area for students.”
Like other libraries in the northwest suburbs, Indian Trails needed more space as villages grew, said Chris Reading, the library’s outreach director.
“The population has increased so much since the 1980s,” she said. “There are all kinds of multi-family construction, and it’s the responsibility of the public library to meet these demands.”
The Indian Trails district covers all of Wheeling, Buffalo Grove and parts of Prospect Heights. In the past 20 years, the population has blossomed. In 1980, Buffalo Grove had 22,230 residents, which grew to 36,427 a decade later. Wheeling also expanded, from 23,266 in 1980 to 29,911 in 1990.
