By Joyce DeWallace, Contributing Writer
Shrewsbury – Moving the Shrewsbury Public Library to its new temporary new home is no small feat. Thousands of books have to be transported. All the computers and electronics have to be disconnected and then reconnected. Furniture, files and fixtures have to travel the 2.2 miles from 609 Main St., the center of town to south of Route 9 into the former early intervention preschool building behind the Irving A. Glavin Regional Center at 214 Lake St. The library staff and American Interfile and Relocations of Bayshore, N.Y., a professional library moving company, are hard at work to make the transition to a space less than half the current library’s size.
The move is necessary while the library undergoes renovations over the next two years. Voters had approved a measure to expand and renovate the library in a ballot vote Nov. 5, 2013. The town will receive approximately $8 million from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners for the project. The town’s portion, $13.3 million, will be funded through a debt exclusion. Supporters have committed to also raising $1.75 million through fundraising endeavors.
Earlier this year, State Senator Michael O. Moore, D-Millbury, and Representative Matthew A. Beaton, R-Shrewsbury, had brokered an agreement between the Shrewsbury Public Library and the Executive Office for Administration and Finance’s Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) for a temporary lease of the Glavin Center. The facilitation of this agreement with the state will save the town approximately $300,000 in costs associated to the library renovation, according to the legislators.
The new temporary library will open to the public at 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26. For more information visit http://www.shrewsbury-ma.gov/LBC.
Photos/Joyce DeWallace
