Beck-Bookman Library expansion announced

The need for expansion at Beck-Bookman Library in Holton, both for additional meeting space and more room for its children’s area, has prompted the library’s board of trustees to purchase the house and lot located immediately north of the library, it was reported.

Librarian Candee Jacobs said the board of trustees met Monday morning to discuss purchasing the house and lot north of the library, located at 420 W. Fourth St. in Holton, so that those two aspects of the library’s service to the community can be expanded.

“We’re in the very, very beginning stages of planning,” Jacobs said. “The expansion will not happen right away, and we have no idea when it will… We just know we need more space.”

That need for space was confirmed by Rita Ent, president of the library’s board of trustees. Both Ent and Jacobs said that when it came to expansion, the only option that library officials would not consider was moving the building.

“It’s within walking distance for so many,” Ent said. “It’s in a perfect location for our community, and we felt like moving it was not even an option.”

According to an advertisement appearing in today’s Holton Recorder, the board noted that the library is “a vital meeting location for our community,” and that because of “space constraints and challenges in our current building,” the purchase of the house and lot north of the library was approved during the meeting on Monday.

The library’s meeting room is often requested for group and organization meetings, Ent said.

“Over the years, the demand for meeting rooms in the community has really increased,” she said. “People call the library to reserve the meeting room, and we have to turn people down because we don’t have the capacity, or the meeting room is already booked. Very few places in the community offer that service for free, and that’s a service that we want to provide and continue to make it free.”

Expansion is also necessary to accommodate children’s programs at the library, Ent said.

“Or children’s room is very small, and we’re noticing this especially when we have our children’s programs,” she said. “We are just overpacked.”

The need for expansion has been on the library’s agenda “for the past several years,” Ent noted, but the library has been “landlocked” until the house and lot came up for sale. Ent did not disclose the purchase price of the house and lot at the present time, but noted that its value would likely be greater for the library than for anyone else looking to purchase the property.

“Our first step was acquiring the land,” she noted.

Ent also stated that the house will be demolished in the near future to make room for library expansion.

“That’s already been lined up, and we’re just waiting on the demolition company and their schedule,” she said. “We want to clean up the lot, and the neighbors are looking forward to it, too.”

Library officials said they plan to provide “opportunities for community input to assist our decision-making process,” the advertisement states. For more information, contact the library at 364-3532.