Laconia – Renovation work in the Laconia Public Library Sums with a household meeting on Monday evening.
The Gale Memorial Library building of the Laconia Public Library is located on Church Street in the city center.
Napoleon Bonaparte Gale, a local banker who died in 1894, in his part of his assets, which was left to the city in his will, to build a park and a memorial building in which there would be a public library and a historical museum. This building was built around the turn of the century and dedicated to June 9, 1903, almost 122 years before this script.
The building, which was built in the architectural style of the Romanesque revival, has a masonry with a rock face, heavy arches and wide roofs. The builders used both Deer Island and New Brunswick Granite, oak paneling and stained glass windows.
A supplement to the building was built in 1957, designed by Prescott & Erickson and built by the Rolfe Camp Company. It created enough space for a children's room, an auditorium and a work area for library staff. In 1972 stacks were added on the second floor.
When the addition of 1957 deteriorated, a successful fundraising campaign in 2003 led to another renovation in which the library turned into the building that it is today. It is a large, historical building that is sometimes considered among the city's “crown jewels”. The renovation of 2005, which was also tied up, was successfully completed. This bond retired this year.
Almost a year ago last summer, the city councils presented a bond of $ 300,000 in order to finance the necessary maintenance projects in the library. Work that has been completed included the reprining of mortar connections on the centuries -old facade of the building, the replacement of a skylight, the repairs on the roof and a chimney that is located on the south side and the window cladding of the structure.
The total costs for the renovation costs amounted to 360,000 US dollars, and a large part of this sum was intended for repairs to granite features on the facade. The second largest part of the project had to do with repairs on the roof.
The library director Deann Hunter informed the city councils that around 115,000 US dollars of the bond project had been carried out, mainly outside the masonry and roofing. You have another 101,000 US dollars in additional roof work and plaster.
“The remaining fund will surely be spent before the end of the project,” said Hunter. “The funds are used for additional masonry repairs. However, these repairs concentrate on the interior of the tower, which needs some work, as well as on repairs and painting and re -completing the building scraps.”
A total of around 216,000 US dollars of the bond of 360,000 US dollars have spent a total of around $ 360,000.
“The vast majority of the funds are mainly used on the building envelope,” said Hunter. “The roof, masonry, to ensure that everything is in the form. The project continues, we are not really surprising and hope to continue and go through our project list.
John Moriarty, a trustee of the library, said the project would not be called “postponed maintenance” because it deals with problems when they were created. You are very aware that the slate roof is 122 years old and you have spent around 200,000 US dollars for small repairs. At some point, probably not in the next five years, this could be a problem for the library. The additional addition of 2005 is approaching the end of its 25-year life expectancy, so that the library there is a new roof there in about five years.
“We are trying to expect that we will be standing in the next two decades,” said Moriarty. “We try to be as proactive and not reactive as possible with this special treasure.”
In other companies, the library has served around 109,000 people in the past 11 months, and the circulation is still 93,551. Laconia -Teenager read over 1,200 hours last year during a summer reading program in teenage programs, and the library has so far made around 200 Outreach deliveries to home -bound customers.
“This is definitely before last year,” said Hunter.