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Northeast Branch at Plymouth Mall Closes, Sunday, June 1 at 6:00 PM

by aadl-news

The Northeast Branch at Plymouth Mall will close at 6:00 PM on Sunday, June 1. The Traverwood Branch at Traverwood and Huron Parkway will open on Monday, June 30 at 10:00 AM.

The need for library services in the northeast sector of Ann Arbor was recognized as early as 1965. Land was purchased in 1971 at the corner of Huron Parkway and Nixon Road, but was later sold for the development of the Plymouth Mall. The Library opened the storefront branch in the mall in 1981. This 2400 square foot space was increased by an additional 1200 square feet in 1985. This space served as the branch with several interior renovations and remodeling over the next 15 years.

The library in Plymouth Mall has served the community well as the library has adapted the space to its maximum capacity introducing a program space and computing.

It is a wonderful circumstance in any library system to say that a library is once again too small to serve its patrons. In answer to this dilemma the AADL has built a 16,000 square foot library branch .5 mile to the west. The branch includes 90 reader seats, children's spaces, a quiet reading room, study rooms, computer lab, expanded collections, and 90 parking spaces.

Those serving in 1965 as library officials understood that this branch would be needed someday to serve a growing community and they purchased property in the early 1970's to make it possible. We salute them for their foresight and for their willingness to assure public library services for this area of our community. While the location is different, and decades have passed, the day has finally come.

We invite you to join us on Monday, June 30, at the Northeast Branch at 10:00 AM to mark the transition to the new library building. Children are invited to participate in a "Library Caravan" to move picture books in strollers, wagons, and in book bags to the new building! All patrons, all ages are welcome to walk along.

Josie

Comments

Holds 'ready for pickup' at the Northeast Branch that are still on the shelf at 6 p.m. on Sunday, June 1st will be moved to the Downtown Library. They will be available there at 10 a.m. on Monday, June 2nd. All holds 'ready for pickup' at Northeast while that branch is closed and before the Traverwood Branch opens may be picked up Downtown. This information will also be in the hold notice you receive from us either by email or postal mail.

The Downtown hold shelves are self pickup shelves just like the branches so expect to find your holds in alphabetical order by your last name, just like they were at Northeast.

Interlibrary Loan requests and MeLCat requests that are 'ready for pickup' at Northeast will also be held Downtown. These requests may be picked up at the Downtown Circulation Desk.

If, when you receive a 'ready for pickup' notice, another location would be more convenient for you just let us know by going to http://www.aadl.org/admin/contactus or calling the Renewal Line at 327-4219. We will be happy to send your holds to one of the other AADL locations.

Diane Dahlem
Circulation Manager

Submitted by wfzimmerman on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 1:49pm

A tip of the hat to the Northeast Branch which with its convenient location next to Baskin Robbins was the location of many an enjoyable family outing! It will be missed.

Congratulations on the new building.

How many volumes will there be in the book,CD, and DVD collections ?

Are there any special features of the branch that are available only there and not at any of the other locations? (new equipment, etc.?)

Thank you. We have an opening day budget of 300K that will purchase approximately 15,000 items. We are moving 41,000 items from the current NE collection over yielding a collection of 56,000. That is slightly larger than our opening collection at Pittsfield. The current collection is made up of 32,596 books, 3,664 CD's, 9,550 DVD's, magazines subscriptions, etc. I don't have hard numbers for the new items, but I can tell you that $176,600 will be spent on AV, and the remaining $123,400 will be spent on books. New magazine titles were purchased from our regular materials budget. The allocation decision is based on many factors. We used shelf snapshots (what percentage of items in each category are circulating each day at the current NE), a demographic use study, new shelf capacities at Traverwood, and lessons learned from our two previous branch projects. There will be more of everything, and more choice because we have more space and appropriate shelving for different formats.

Special features, apart from the building and the furnishings, include 10 new MAC based game stations for children with 30 new games for a wider age range plus touchscreens. The 24 public Internet stations are a new, more powerful model with a new server farm behind them that will offer faster, more stable performance, simpler startup, consistent support for sound with easily accessible headphone jacks and better support for USB drives. These new systems, the kids stations and the platform for Internet, are being launched at Traverwood, but will be spread to all other AADL locations over the next fiscal year, July-June 2009. There will be WiFi in the building with power and ethernet near each table. Traverwood has a laptop bar near the vending area, too.

We look forward to seeing you at Traverwood with your family.

Josie

Submitted by aditya on Sat, 05/31/2008 - 11:14pm

Hi Josie, could you tell us roughly what all has to happen over the 29 days between the Plymouth Mall branch closing and the Traverwood branch opening? Thanks.

Aditya,
Well, I can surely try! We have to bring closing NEB into the sequencing of opening Traverwood. We have learned from our other projects that in the last month of finishing a new building that if something can go wrong, it surely will. We decided to give ourselves more time on this move based on lessons learned. The first thing that will happen will happen tonight after closing. All of the items left on the Hold shelves will be moved Downtown and integrated into the Hold shelves there. Tomorrow, we begin the process of working to get the phone system transferred over to Traverwood. The timing on completing this step is completely out of our control, and unpredictable. Next, we separate what is going to Traverwood and what is not. We will have movers who specialize in moving libraries move the collection after it has been sorted and labeled. Material will be moved in a couple of weeks. After the collection is moved and placed in Traverwood, we bring all of the new material, which is stored Downtown, and shelve it with the NE collection. While the material move is happening, AADL staff set up all of the technology in the public areas and the work areas at Traverwood. Staff from the NE are working at Traverwood at this point getting everything organized and ready to open on June 30.

We are not providing dropboxes at NE during this transition. We realize that this is an inconvenience, albeit short in duration. Hopefully, the outcome, Traverwood Branch, will be worth the aggravation!

I am sure that I am leaving things out, but roughly this is what will be happening.

Josie

Submitted by willow on Sun, 06/01/2008 - 4:15pm

I certainly enjoy the large library branches, but I truly think there is something special about libraries in mini-malls that makes them an accessible part of the community, instead of an institution in and of itself requiring a special trip. There is something wonderful about the possibility of someone who might not think of "going to the library" stumbling into the library one day while out and about, and discovering free access to the world of books, media, computers, research databases, and programming that the library offers. I hope that AADL keeps this in mind and will one day bring back mini-branches.

Submitted by wolverinemama on Mon, 06/02/2008 - 10:05am

We LOVE the AADL and actually considered it as a real factor when considering a move out of the district last year. We are also really looking forward to the new and improved NE branch. Just a question though--if you will already have staff on-hand, busy setting up the new facility, why not provide a drop-off box during the transition period?? It would be a major convience (and gas-money saver) for all the folks up this way.

Submitted by glutey on Mon, 06/02/2008 - 10:15am

I agree that having a drop off box for returns at Traverwood during the month of transition would be a great advantage to locals in the NE area and save on gas. Otherwise, we have to drive downtown just to drop off a book. Please advise if that is feasible. Thanks!

Submitted by wkung3 on Mon, 06/02/2008 - 12:01pm

I agree to have new holds at down town library. But the drop box should stay to be reasonable, fair and convenient to previous and new borrowers in NE area. Thanks.

I appreciate that this is an inconvenience, but we won't have staff on hand who can empty and process the material coming through the drop. Processing the dropboxes is full time work at the Library. The technology and equipment that is needed is being disassembled and moved, too.

Material can be returned at any library location, and it is not necessary to pay to park Downtown to drop off material. The lot next to the library is free if used for 10 minutes or less, and there are two free parking spaces on William at the south side of the library next to the external drop box slots reserved for short term library use. Parking is free at all other branch locations.

Josie

I don't see why $ should dictate the lack of a drop box. Certainly the library can pick up the books and take to another branch to "check in". With $300k budget surely you can find a few bucks to operate a drop box. If we drop them somewhere else, it will still be a full time job there too. The only additional cost would be trucking to the other location. In the days of $4 gas, it is better for one truck to drive downtown, then 100 cars!

I understand your consternation, but it is about cost. Time is money, and we are working hard to close a building and open one, too, without additional staff. Again, I understand that this poses an inconvenience, but try to think of it in terms of the work required to send a truck out multiple times a day to empty the drops. Our trucks run twice a day now. Servicing a drop would require trips at least every two hours.

I am sorry that this decision poses such a problem for some of our patrons, but there won't be a drop box at the old NEB during June.

Josie

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