Farmingdale Public Library: News and Notes

The Board of Trustees discussed the library main floor reopening and relocating library activities while the basement meeting rooms get renovations this winter at a meeting Tuesday night.

The library is hiring the same moving company used to bring the collections into the basement when . Library Director Debbie Podolski said it should take 10 days to move the collections back upstairs, five days longer than it took to bring it down.

"The books in the children's room will be reshelved differently and we want the entire collection to be perfect when we reopen," Podolski said.

The moving will begin Jan. 3 and the goal is to have the library reopened by Wednesday, Jan. 12. Due to the Martin Luther King Holiday, the second alternative is to reopen on Tuesday, Jan. 18.

As of Tuesday, the electrician was working on the main floor completing wiring. The library will have a new side entrance, new children's room, an expanded AV space, a reading garden and a family bathroom when it reopens in the upcoming weeks.

"We are moving fast and furious to get everything ready," Podolski said.

Once renovations upstairs are complete, construction will begin in the basement meeting rooms. The board discussed the issue of senior activities that take place in the meeting rooms, which host up to 200 seniors for bingo and other activities a few times each week.

During the basement renovations the board agreed to pay for the seniors to relocate to a temporary location until the basement rooms are finished in March. Other local spaces like , the and were ruled out because they were either unwilling to host the groups or not big enough.

In the upcoming months, the library is looking into security camera options because of the new spaces upstairs and purchasing Fax24 machines to add to the new copy center.