Donation drives Grafton library improvements

The Grafton public library is about to get a facelift, courtesy of an avid reader and longtime library user.

The late Mary Ann Klug left the library approximately $730,000 when she died, and much of that money will go to update the facility this fall, Library Director Amanda Kloppmann said.

“I was completely blown away when I heard (about the bequest),” Kloppmann said, noting she initially thought Klug was donating several thousand dollars to the library.

When she found out the total, Kloppmann said, “I thought I was going to have a heart attack. It was amazing.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime gift, and I wanted to do a once-in-a-lifetime thing with it.”

That once-in-a-lifetime thing is a renovation of the library that includes updating and replacing furniture and failing fixtures, painting and other upgrades.

To accommodate the renovation, the library will close on Monday, Aug. 24. It’s expected to reopen in early October.

The work will be extensive. While much of it will be done on the main floor of the library, there will also be some improvements on the lower level, where the youth library is housed. Kloppmann said the impetus was failing shelves in the library.

The existing shelving, which date to 1988, is made of particleboard that has bowed through the years.

“We’ve been flipping the boards over to try and straighten them, but when it gets to a certain point it snaps,” Kloppmann said.

“When I got this donation, I thought, this is what we’re going to do with it. It’s going to make a better library.”

The bottom shelf will be angled so patrons can read the book titles without bending over or kneeling, she said.

And the shelving will be on wheels so it can be moved around to accommodate programs or when the layout needs to be changed.

Lighting that’s currently attached to the top of the existing shelving will have to be replaced as well, Kloppmann said.

Unlike the current shelving, which has backs, the new units won’t have a solid back. That will allow light to pass through.

“People have said it was dark, so I’m hoping this will help,” she said.

Then they discovered that when the library was painted in the past, they didn’t remove the shelving from the wall. Instead, they painted around the shelves — and that means a white grid will be left when the shelves are taken down. So the library will also be repainted.

“It just kind of turned into a can of worms,” Kloppmann said. “It snowballed into the lights and the paint.”

The library will also replace its tables and chairs, Kloppmann said. The chairs are from 1988 and are upholstered in cloth, which is difficult to clean, so they’ll be replaced with vinyl ones.

The wood tables will probably be replaced with laminate ones, she said, noting that the computer tables are permanently etched by the movement of computer mouses.

“You can see there’s dirt in the grain of the wood that won’t come out,” she said.

Like the shelving units, much of the furniture will also be on wheels so it can be rearranged to accommodate programming.

“Just imagine, 10 years down the road, if we want to make more study rooms, we can just rearrange them,” Kloppmann said. “We can make our furniture work for us.”

And while the work is being done, the library carpeting will be deep cleaned.

Better signage to help people navigate the library and its collections, as well as changes to make the facility more accessible, will also be part of the work.

The improvements to the library, which were planned with input from library users via a community survey, will take about six weeks.

But the library staff won’t get that time off. Kloppmann said they will be organizing the youth workroom, creating decorations for next year’s summer reading program and going through the storage area to see what should be kept and what should be tossed.

“It’s something we don’t get to do too often because we’re so busy,” she said.

While the library is closed, patrons can use the other libraries in the Monarch Library System.

“There’s 32 libraries they can check out, but we definitely want them back when we’re done,” Kloppmann said.

When the library closes, she said, no fines will accrue on overdue books and the due dates on borrowed materials will be extended until the library reopens.

“If people want to stock up on reading materials, that’s the time to do it,” Kloppmann said.

“I’m not super excited about closing the library for six weeks. I don’t want to do that to the community,” she added. “I think this will be worth the wait.”

To recognize the woman who made it all possible, Kloppmann said she is looking to name something at the library after Klug.

“I’d like to recognize her for what she’s done for the community,” she said.