New Library
Roeliff Jansen Community Library, Hillsdale, NY
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The Independent 5.18.07 Letter to the
Editor
The Independent
- June 9, 2006 Recently, the Roe-Jan Community Library received a letter from David Ruede, "a relatively new resident of Hillsdale" expressing his disappointment with our decision to relocate "out of town". Because Mr. Ruede's concerns are widely shared, the Board of Trustees of the library thought it might be useful for us to share my reply to this letter as a means of clarifying the nature of and reasons for our reluctant decision to relocate. I want you to know, I wrote, that most of us on the board of the library would have preferred not only to remain in our present central location, but to do so in an expanded version of our present building. Six years ago, when the board began to consider its options for expansion, that was the goal. Patience Kenny Jackson, the consultant hired by the board, recommended expansion to a 13,500 square foot structure, but gave a range of other options. The board chose to pursue a minimal option of 7,500 square feet, but were advised by both Ms. Jackso9n and the architectural firm chosen for a preliminary study (Best Joslin) that it would be prohibitively expensive and very difficult to construct an addition of that scope to the present building. Among the problems encountered were the need to remove tons of shale to provide far fewer parking spaces than state standards call for, and the need to meet the disability act and fire code standards in what would have had to be a two-story building. This would have been expensive, require staffing for both floors, provide insufficient parking with significant drainage problems, compromise the architectural integrity of the old building, and leave no room for future expansion. The board's subsequent search for a suitable site began with the intersection of Routes 22 and 23 and included every available plot in a widening circle from that spot. It was through this search that the new site, seven-tenths of a mile south of the traffic light was found. Having purchased this land in 2004, at a very reasonable cost, the board hired Best Joslin to develop plans for a new building. With the subsequent availability of the Mount Washington Inn, we hired an engineer and Best Joslin to explore the feasibility of expansion to that site, conversion of the Inn, and even of expansion to the west of the present site. We were strongly advised against all of these alternatives as they would have required us to build a much smaller library for a lot more money. The hard fact is that even with the Route 22 land and some endowment funds in hand, we will need to raise at least $2 million to build and sustain a library that we can operate on something close to our current operating budget of roughly $120,000 a year. To my knowledge, this is the largest non-governmental fund-raising effort ever undertaken in this area. We did not feel comfortable trying to raise more money for less library. I very much share your distaste for suburban sprawl. In that sense, let me point our that the new site - even if it is technically located in the town of Copake (which provides the largest share of our operating funds) - is in many ways more accessible to the core of Hillsdale than the present site. It is not only almost as close to the park and post office, but will have easy access by car and can, we hope, be made pedestrian-friendly both for in-town residents and from the old school should it ultimately become a home for seniors. Except for those who dash across from the supermarket parking lot, I have frankly never seen anyone access the present library by foot, and it is handicap accessible in only a technical sense. We hope to change that with the new site. In the next month or two, we expect to have the final models of our latest building plan ready for public comment. I hope we can gain your advice in the process of making the library as much a part of the core of "downtown" Hillsdale as possible, and of giving the three towns we serve a library and cultural center that can meet the needs of Ancram, Copake and Hillsdale for many years to come. Ned Schneier, president
We are the Roe Jan library computer users. It's just three of us, there are a lot more who also use the computers, but not on a daily basis, like us. All of us go to Taconic Hills CSD. We've been hearing talk about the new library and Carol suggested we write a letter saying how much we use the library and that there's not enough room for everyone to use it at once. We need a new library for the community and for a lot of younger adults like us to meet up with friends, work on projects and play games. We particularly like to play computer games and we can't do that at the school library. They don't like you playing games because it's not school related. What adults don't understand is that for a lot of the games we play, you have to read, and use math and coordination skills, not to mention that you learn to type really fast! Also, at school, we're not given enough time to work in the library, even on school projects. They expect us to do that at home and some students, like us, either don't have computers at home or our computers are really slow and don't have the kind of access they have here. We come to the library to play games, get our projects done and to get ideas from friends. We love the library, but it's way to small and the adults tend to kick us off the computers because there aren't enough of them - it's just really crowded! Adults never ask for our opinion and they just go ahead and make these plans, and we're forced to go along with whatever they decide. For instance, we need soda and snack machines and a place to have events and space to work with other kids. We want some say in what happens with this new library. People always think about little kids when they think about libraries, but they never think about us. Carol Briggs told us about a program they have at the Philmont library where they have a computer game night and they have pizza and soda and they check out new games - we'd be there for that - we'll even stay after and clean up.
Michael Hanselman
The Independent - November 28, 2006- As a child in war-torn Germany I suffered the lack of many things, but what hurt me most was the lack of books. My partly bombed-out hometown had no town library, no school library, no bookstore, and we had no friends who could lend me reading material. My hunger for the written word was so great, that, as a 12 year old, I spent hours trying to decipher the only book that somehow found its way to me, namely Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which, of course, was way over my head. I longed for books, for knowledge to dispel ignorance, for enlightenment to counteract barbarism, for understanding to distinguish between what is the truth and what isn’t, simply for books that kept and treasured and collected the wisdom of the ages, and I found none. When I came to America 50 years ago this year, I discovered the abundance of books, freely available without charge, as many as I wanted, in the many libraries all over the City of New York. Is this a great country or what? It was a gift without compare for an immigrant with limited resources. To acquire things may be important and necessary, but to be able to acquire knowledge and explore new ideas is priceless. This little corner of rural Columbia County has a true treasure in its Roeliff Jansen Community Library. It may be small and cramped, but it has BOOKS, many of them, on the shelves and available from the Main Library System. It has CDs, DVDs, historical information, newspapers, computers to surf the internet, events for children, community fairs, and a dedicated group of people who volunteer their time to sponsor adult and children's programs, raise money for special projects through book sales, shelve and check out books, all to make sure that, at least in this place, there is no room for ignorance. The Library, small as it is, is a depository of culture, a window into the world, an anchor of intellectual focus in this rural area, and it offers activities that have nothing to do with money, but everything with inner enrichment. The Trustees of the Library are working on a plan to build a more spacious place, with more BOOKS, and more opportunities like lectures, workshops etc. It deserves our full support, financial and otherwise. Imagine what life would be like without the stimulation of this priceless institution in our midst! To learn more, go to www.roejanlibrary.org and click on the “From Dream to Reality” button. Carol Briggs, the Library Director, maintains the website and will keep you up to date on what is happening at the little library that wants to grow! Inge Etzbach
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