Say goodbye to the 65-year-old Moorhead Public Library on Feb. 5. (Photo/LARC.)
It’s see you soon
Nancy Edmonds Hanson
It’s time to bid a fond farewell to the building that’s housed the Moorhead Public Library for some 65 years.
As library staffers prepare for the big move into their brand-new headquarters in The Loop downtown, generations of patrons get a chance to bid adieu to the one-story, once-modernistic facility at 118 Fifth St. S. All are invited to the “Farewell to the Library Party” on Feb. 5 from 2 to 7 p.m. – a chance to share memories of the venerable facility in a “history harvest” and to enjoy cake and refreshments, take in presentations on its past, and pick up bargains at a used book sale staged by the Friends of the Library.
The afternoon, says library director Megan Krueger, offers a chance for members of the community to reminisce about the role the building has played in local life. Those tales will be collected by the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County to become permanent parts of the institution’s saga. “Bring your photos, documents and stories about the library and its role in local life,” she says. Historical society staff will be on hand to help record stories and preserve them for for future generations.
Krueger says the library’s 16 staffers are busy sorting out their offices and work areas, choosing what to take to their new quarters and what will be digitized and preserved in pixels. “Our goal is to take as little paper as possible,” she notes.
A moving firm experienced in the particular challenges of relocating thousands of yards of books will be engaged to move the many, many shelves of ink-on-paper volumes in the library’s collection. Its electronic gear, including the computers that are always available to the public, will also come along. Desks, tables and chairs that have accommodated patrons for so many decades, however, won’t be making the trip. Says Krueger, “All of the furnishings at The Loop will be new. That simplifies the move to some degree.”
The physical move is expected to begin in early February, with the eventual reopening in The Loop anticipated in early April. In the meantime, the director says, the present facility will remain open, though on restricted hours.
The moving period coincides with the AARP Foundation’s annual Tax-Aide program, during which AARP volunteers offer free assistance in preparing tax returns. That won’t be disrupted at all, the director assures: “We have taken their schedule into account, and we’ll be open right where we are now throughout that period.” Services are available at the library from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays.
The library, now part of the Lake Agassiz Regional Library, opened its doors in a classical revival-style building downtown at the corner of Sixth Street and Main Avenue in 1904. That Carnegie-funded facility was left behind in the move to the present building in 1961. Its original home, which had been build with a $10,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie, was torn down and replaced by a parking lot in 1963.
The library’s farewell event is a highlight of Giving Hearts Day. The full schedule of its events can be found at www.larl.org/events.
