Tim Dunn/CapeCod.com.
HYANNIS – While preparations continue for a major renovation and restoration project to the Hyannis Public Library, officials running the Main Street facility have been collecting input from the public.
The Hyannis Public Library Board of Trustees held a Community Vision Session on Tuesday, led by Rick Fenuccio, the president of Brown Lindquist Fenuccio & Raber Architects, who have been contracted for the job.
“We have a meeting of citizens who, along with the Library trustees and staff, are looking to the future and who would like to involve the community in planning for the new millennium of the library,” said Library Director Carol Saunders.
“Libraries have changed, life has changed, everything has changed, so we need to change with it.”
Fenuccio informed those in attendance that the session was not going to lay out specific design plans, but was instead going to collect ideas from the public. He began the session with quote depicting the importance of having a “great library” in a community.
“I’m going to start with one little quote because I always think it’s good to set the stage on where things are. It says ‘Bad libraries build collections. Good libraries build services. Great libraries build communities.’ I’m not the writer of that, but I thought that it kind of embodies that great libraries are now community-based centers, they’re de facto community centers in many villages,” said Fenuccio.
“I think in Barnstable and on the Cape we have this tradition of village centered libraries. It’s a pretty unique situation. If you travel around the country there’s not too many places that have smaller scale pocket libraries in communities.”
Tim Dunn/CapeCod.com.
The decision to renovate followed the board’s assessment of the internal and external needs of the building.
As for the restoration of certain areas of the building, the board views the future of the library as a community center that will be the cultural, social, and intellectual hub of Hyannis.
Board of Trustees Chair Linda Bennett said deficiencies on the inside and outside of the building have been found over several months. She adds that the brick Twombly Wing, added in 1974 and refurbished in 2008, has the most problems.
The front building at the library, the Ora Adams Hinckley building, dates back to 1865. The Eagleston Wing, located to the right of the main entrance, was added in 1938.
The board had originally been gathering public input on the facility through on online survey at hyannislibrary.org. That survey ended on April 12.
By TIM DUNN, CapeCod.com News Center
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