If you've already read part 1 in this series , you're already caught up on the history of the downtown libraries. If not, I encourage you to check it out. It's a bit long, but there's so much history to our institution!
If you'd rather just read about the library from our staff members' perspectives, please read on. Since we're celebrating the Main Library's 20th anniversary, I reached out to several staff members that were working here in , and I received some great memories, stories, and reflections. The Main Library closed for a whole month. There was much work putting books in Dewey order at Ben West and moving them onto large wooden book carts, which were then shrink-wrapped. After the wooden carts moved to the new Main Library, there were multitudes of numbered, wooden book carts all down the main aisle of Non-Fiction.
There was much animated discussion of Excel spreadsheets and how many shelves were needed for each Dewey Decimal section. All hands on deck helped shelve books from the wooden carts onto the new shelves; we sometimes worked in 'book brigades', akin to bucket brigades.
One staffer commented, 'I just cannot put one book on the new shelves until every book is in proper Dewey order on this wooden cart! There was inevitable readjusting of books on the new shelves, once we learned how much space each Dewey area needed.
Eventually, all was well! I was able to meet and talk to the late Mrs. The books are fascinating! We were proud of our new building and of our customer service! Attire was dressier than it is now. We loved to give tours; most patrons were impressed! There was a group of musicians from the Symphony standing on the balcony, and as they stepped out to play the fanfare that had been written by Schermerhorn, we could see that the backs of their tuxedos were covered in limestone dust from where they had been leaning against the new building!
