What's new?

The Swan is moving forward with its new building project. King & King Architects have presented the new building plans to the Village and County Planning Boards, and, after analysis, both those Boards have given their approval.

The architects have met with the Building Committee and with the staff to iron out all the details of the plan. They have completed the plans and the plans have been sent on to four contractors for bidding. Soon the contractors will submit their bids to King & King, and once the bids are organized, King & King will present them to the building committee to look at.

The plans have also been given to NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) to see for which incentives the library might be eligible for the energy saving measures taken as part of the new building planning process. They have done energy modeling as part of their analysis, and made recommendations for custom measures the library can take to reduce energy costs.

The Library also applied for a building grant under New York State's Public Library Construction program. The New York State Education Department will announce the winners in that grant process, and amounts awarded, most likely sometime in March. Once the grant winners are announced, the library must begin construction within 180 days of receiving that award. (We hope to start sooner than that, but are constrained by some of our other funding sources.)

Meanwhile, we are working hard to get the library collections in order to make it easier to move when the time comes. Brianna Reagan, our AmeriCorps worker, has cataloged the archives for us, so we have finally got a complete list of what is hiding in the attic archives. She is engaged now in doing the same thing for the back hall local history files. This is proving to be a re-organizational task, as many of the back hall files were inconsistently labeled to begin with.

I am very thrilled to announce that both Brianna Reagan and Jeanine Lowe are attending library school this semester. Swan has long prided itself on mentoring new librarians, and we feel privileged to have two of our co-workers working on getting their library degrees at the same time! Congratulations to both of you! Both Brianna and Jeanine are continuing to work at the Swan while getting their Master's in Library Science.