 Hi, good evening everyone my name is Angela Mills I work for the town of Amherst in the town manager's office I want to welcome everyone to the community forum on the new schematic designs for the Jones library. This meeting is being recorded and the video of this meeting will be uploaded to the town of Amherst YouTube channel and I am now going to turn this over to our library director Sharon Sherry. Hi everybody thank you Angela. So we have two attendees in the audience right now, and I don't mean to call you out but I was wondering if you would like to be invited into the room. And we can have a conversation, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to see you so you don't have to worry, you know if you're in your, your bunny slippers and your pajamas that's totally fine. But I'm, I could go over the schematics floor by floor and then you know answer your questions it could be more of a conversation. If that interests you. If you could hit the raise your hand button. I'll let you into the room and we'll just have a conversation. If you're not comfortable with that that's totally fine too. There's no pressure. And even if you don't want to be let in what I'll do is I'll go, you know floor by floor and then ask for your questions. So if any of you are interested we just had a third attendee pop up. If any of you are interested in just joining us into the room. Again, we won't see your faces. That way we could have a conversation if that interests you. If you could raise your zoom hand will let you in. Otherwise you can just sit back right where you are. I'm not seeing any takers and that's totally fine. If you change your mind, raise your hand and we can let you in. Okay, I'm going to share my screen now. So, one of the things that I wanted to say before I get into this is, if you have seen this presentation before, there's not a lot of different things that have happened with this most recent, the final schematics. You can find this document in its entirety on the Jones libraries website and eventually it will make its way to the town's website. What I have done is I've done some color coding to kind of help you while we're on zoom, because the font is teeny teeny tiny. So I'll just, here we go. Let me bring you to I decided I thought I'd start with the site plan so that you could see the grounds with what they're looking like. And one of the things I should say is, this is just really a rough draft. We, the building committee, the trustees, the garden committee, no one has really taken a deep dive or any kind of dive at all actually to the grounds. So, so take what you see here with a grain of salt this is this is a first stab. So starting over here on the right hand side of your screen this is amity street. And this will be the front entrance the amity street entrance. You'll see it's accessible so there is only one entrance on this level for the public and so everybody will be able to come in through the front door. You can come along here to the side. This is the driveway it will be upgraded and improved driveway slash parking lot. The parking spaces that remain are going to be a combination of handicapped spaces and vehicle charging stations. There also needs to be a space for the library's van so that we can do deliveries to the to the branches. This is also here so right here is the existing side entrance where it says MLS. That stands for Massachusetts library system. They are the folks who provide us with the daily statewide delivery that's where we get our interlibrary loans. And so that delivery van. Many of you may have seen it parked outside the library it's called optima optima delivery van. They'll come in through this entrance. And back here where it says FedEx and UPS. So FedEx and UPS folks are going to end up coming through this entrance. It is an existing door right now. That's going to be for our new materials, because it'll it'll go right into technical services. You will also notice that there are accessible walkways there will be accessible walkways, all around the building. And also in the this gray here those are, it's paved or stone, I think stone paving, possibly it could change to a different material but it's hard scape so so the plan is to have lots of seating back here so people can, you know, sit and enjoy the nature. So here is the CVS parking lot. So, so this is basically the CVS lot entrance, which is on a different grade from the amity entrance. This will bring you into the garden level the ground floor of the library. And this, this new entrance here will be very, it'll be open and and light and inviting and completely handicapped accessible. So any of you have questions about the site plan. I can't see you so because I'm sharing my screen I can stop sharing my screen so that I can see you do any of the attendees there are four, four people with us now. Can I answer any questions about the site plan. Okay, seeing none. I'm going to share my screen again. So let's go to this is the ground floor or the garden level. So the orientation has changed a little bit and this is the color coding I pulled out my magic markers just to make it easier to, to explain where the different rooms are. So, so now that we're oriented differently. The amity of the CVS parking lot is back here now. The amity street is up here. So on this floor the ground level the only public entrance is through here that that was the new light and inviting entrance that I was talking about. So, let me kind of. I have been calling this floor, the after hours suite because many of these rooms will be available to the public after after the libraries has closed so it's an after hours space. So this is the Woodbury room. It's big enough for to seat 200 people and it does have an attached kitchen at coat room and storage space. These right now our restrooms. This right now is the Burnett Art Gallery one of the things we have asked the architects to do is to flip the location of the art gallery and the restrooms to make it more visible. Over here is what is now the Amherstrow it will now be on the on the ground floor and available after hours for for the public to reserve. Over here is friend storage so that's where they'll keep their books for sale. Up here so all of this is in the front of the building it's all undergrade there's there's no windows. This is all maintenance facilities storage, a workroom so that, so that our folks can, you know, fix things when they when they break. The look of this floor is special collections it's all in yellow, and the special collections department is made up of a reading room, and this is where patrons would come to do their work. There is. This is the workroom so this is for staff to, you know to process incoming collections. And right here these two rectangles, one is for the Civil War tablets and one is is a special collections exhibit space. We've asked the architects to rotate both of these 90 degrees. So that there was an entrance here and an entrance here. And the thinking is so that each of those spaces could be used after hours. And it would be very inviting people could, you know, I think that a large portion of this wall could have windows so we can see right into what's going on in those spaces. So that that's very exciting. And then all of this in the back this is all the special collections climate controlled storage space, it'll have the compact shelving. Over here in the pink that's our technical services department. They're really important department they take care of processing our, our new books and you know stickers and cataloging and things like that. And also one of the things that you'll notice on all the floors is there is a central stairway and a central elevator, the architects were able to get rid of the front the existing front small elevator. So when they did that, you'll see how it how it affects each room, but we were able to gain space additional space and in all of the rooms. So I have two elevators to maintain into the future, which is really exciting. I think, I think that's everything that I wanted to highlight on this floor. So I'll stop sharing for now. And is there any, are there any attendees that would like to ask me questions. I'm going to zoom hand, and it doesn't have to be now I'm happy to answer the questions after I've done all the floors. Not seeing any takers. Let's go up to the first floor. So again, this is to orient everybody this is where the CBS lot would be. And down here on the bottom of your screen is the Amity lot, the Amity Street entrance. This is where the public will enter the building, everybody will go through this door. I could mention again, this is the parking lot. Let's go into the building. So, so this pink these pink spaces here are considered part of adult circulation borrower services. The integrated materials handling system is going to be all in this front space. And the reason it's being located there is because we need to have an exterior drop, so people can return their items, as well as an interior drop. And the machine with it has a conveyor belt and what it does is it reads. It reads the RFID tag for each item. It slides it down the conveyor belt and it spits it into a bin, whether it's nonfiction or fiction kids teams, it's that kind of a thing. So the shorter the conveyor belt, the better, because you know it will need maintenance over time so so we needed to we need this machine to be as small as possible. So it really needed to go here. They're, they're just were not other places for it to go. As you walk into the building, the circulation desk you'll be able to see from the entrance now I think that's really exciting. And this, this chunk in pink is the AV collection. You know, in, in, in library talk. It's a, it's a format that seems to be fading right now. The world is going digital streaming and so it's very possible that this collection will get smaller and smaller, as more of our collection becomes digital. So the beauty of this and the beauty of the NBLC grant program is, is the importance of flexibility and so here you've got a space that right now will be to house our extensive AV collection but at some point it could be used for a different purpose. Here and this orangey kind of space is the teen room. This is the current, it's the fiction stacks area, there's large print is in this room now. It's, it's basically two stories high. If you've ever had a chance to look in this room, walk in the room and look up and you'll see really beautiful vaulted barrel vaulted ceilings. That's going to be the location of the teens. Back here in the blue, this is a part of the nonfiction collection. Our nonfiction collection is so large that we had to split it into into two different floors, but the nonfiction collection really lends itself to to that it can be separated by two floors. And so if you don't find what you're looking here. There are a set there's a set of existing stairs so patrons can go up here to get to the second floor to see the rest of the nonfiction collection, or they can come around here to the that central staircase or that central elevator. So here are these three spaces, this one in the green is a group study room. We've got more of those on the second floor that I'll show you so that that's reservable by the public. And you know it's basically a, it's a fishbowl it's a lot of glass, but it's, it's a place where you can have zoom meetings you can have tutoring sessions. The technology will be in that space and you'll be able to reserve it. Coming over here there are bathrooms over here and the janitor's closet so two of these bathrooms open out into this central circulation space and when I, I say circulation I mean you know people mingling and walking around. There is, this might be the family restroom that opens into the children's room. So speaking of the children's room as we walk this way. So, so the children's room is located where it is today. So they're, they're going to get the whole West Wing, which I love to say. So they're going to get a part of the, the original 1928 building that's in the front where the grades five and up room is. And this is the picture book room right now. And then this will is all in the new edition. This where their circulation desk will be nice bright open area easy to get to and a, and a work room for the staff, as well as a children's activities room so this is the space. You know, the sky's the limit, you know, story times can happen there. The craft activities can happen that happen there. Performers can happen there. You know the kids won't have to have to do their thing in the Woodbury room anymore. So, I think, I think that's everything that I wanted to say about this floor. So are there any attendees that have questions about that floor. If you can raise your zoom hand, or not, I'll go up to the second floor. So on the second floor. Okay, so on the second floor, you'll either come up through that main staircase or the main elevator. There's also the historic staircase that when you come in from the Amity Street entrance it's right there that will remain so you'll be able to come up those stairs as well. So if you come up this way, this is going to be, these are the adult reading rooms, these are, you know, the classic quiet, quiet spaces where you can read the newspapers, or your John Grisham and you can work everywhere that these are going to be really gorgeous, gorgeous spaces. Here in this green, this is another one of those quiet study rooms. Yes. Here in yellow. This is all ESL and the literacy project. So these are two classrooms. And these are one, two, three, four ESL to the rooms and and Lynn wine trumps office. There's lots of seating and the collection will be located here so it's nice that people who are learning to speak English when they they come into the Amity entrance or even to the ground level. They come up through the main staircase or the main elevator and they just walk down that hallway and there's ESL. The first clue is fiction and nonfiction. So this is the rest of the nonfiction collection, so people can come up these stairs from the first floor, or they can come up the main staircase or the elevator. The reference desk is here. We're seeing the computers. Lots of seating in all the window spaces. And these three rooms here, these are staff offices. What we're, and what we are looking for what the MVLC was looking for with staff oversight of the building as much as possible. So with staff offices here they'll be able to see what's going on in that space. These are the restrooms for the second floor. And in pink. This is the administration suite it's me and the business manager it's also the receptionist so this is where folks would come to get library cards or reserve meeting rooms whatever you do now when you come to the office. I think. I think that's everything that I wanted to point out on the second floor. Does anybody have questions. Raise your zoom hand, or you can hold. I'll go on to the next floor. And here is the top floor. So, what's exciting about this floor is that the, the existing small front elevator has been removed. And when that happened, the architects needed to bring that, that main elevator up another floor. And in order to do that it literally meant adding, adding another floor to this to this third level. You would get it minimally from Dammity Street. But so you would come up this elevator, or these stairs, or these existing stairs, walk down this corridor, and you would go into either the Goodwin room, which is where this is the exact same place it's the boardroom now it will continue to be located there. So the difference is because special collections will be large enough. This boardroom will be available to use by the public. Not after hours though because it's on the top floor but that will that will help satisfy the meeting groups need in town. And then this blue space is the staff lounge. So I think I think that's all the floor. Can I do any of you want to come into the room, or do you just want to raise your hand and ask, ask questions, what didn't I talk about I've, I can say this stuff in my sleep and I think I take it, I take for granted what I know. So it's very possible that I skipped something and, and no question is dumb. So please ask away raise your hand. In the meantime, what else can I say this video has been recorded people will be it will be posted to the town's website. So people will be able to watch it. As far as next steps, right now this set of schematics and the full, the full packet is what you can see on the library's website right now it's not color coded it's all black and white. So that is going out to two different cost estimators. And so we'll be able to get an updated cost estimate. And then beginning of August is when we'll start design development and that's when things will get more serious more engineers will start to get involved and you know walls will be fixed and eventually furnishings will be decided and so we'll definitely be able to get more public input when it comes to finishes, whether exterior or interior, you know, do you love pinks or, or purples or do you prefer cool greens and blues. You know we want to hear all that and you can, you can drop us a line you can let us know how you feel on the libraries website. We're like five or six different ways to tell the building committee, what your ideas are one of them, one of the ways is anonymous so you can click on it's just a public comment form and I'm sorry I'm not prepared I don't know where it is exactly, but it's on the website, specifically on the building, the building project portion. So if you'd like to say something anonymous, you can. Does anybody have any questions yet. Angela, do you have any questions I suppose you can, you can walk through these designs as well as I can. It's interesting to see how much space getting rid of that one elevator has kind of opened up so many of those communal spaces, it's, it's a great thing. It's a really great thing. We were able to give more space to the special collections storage room. The automated materials handling system space, as well as PC Dr Hanks office space was able to get a little bigger. So yeah, that's pretty nice on top of the fact that we won't have to pay any of its fees. That second space. So I'm always intrigued looking at the, at the year background about how the exterior of the current library becomes an interior part of the new library. Oh, I love that you're saying that and I'm sorry I didn't point that out on the third floor. I meant to, I meant to say right now there, the architects are showing seven, seven different arrays of it's the sawtooth roof. On one side of the tooth, it's a set of skylights all the way across. And on the other side, it's the photo botanical panels. And so there are seven arrays of those. And certainly the skylights will bring in so much wonderful light on the second floor. That will really be lovely. And on top of that, like you said, in many of the spaces. You can see now for example in special collections and in the reference room you can see the original stone wall on the inside of the building will be maintaining that as well. I think that will be really pretty. Any other questions from the attendees. Come on, I know you have questions. Going once going twice and I'm going to let you all go and have the evening and I really appreciate you guys being here even if you didn't ask questions that's totally fine. You can reach out to me or any member of the trustees or any member of the building committee if you have more questions, but I really appreciate you taking the time to be here. Have a great night everybody. Thank you.