A lot of what’s new at local Hennepin County libraries came to light at the celebration of who’s old – though he doesn’t look it. Ernie Batson, a librarian at the Northeast branch, retired, and they had a party for him.
Lois Porfiri, at one time the branch’s lead librarian, visited from her current assignment at St. Anthony where the library facility recently re-opened after total renovation and reconfiguration within the same space. A planned re-opening celebration in December was canceled due to treacherous weather (dignitaries coming from all over the metro) and will likely be rescheduled in another season.
At Batson’s celebration, Porfiri shared that her other branch, Southeast, is soon to undergo planning and total renovation as well.
New at Northeast: The patron experience supervisor (new-speak for head librarian) since July 2016 is Aaron Lundholm. His credentials include being the children’s librarian at Roosevelt library before it closed (Batson was in charge there at the time, and that library has since re-opened).
Lundholm most recently served at the downtown Central Library’s Teen Tech Center as coordinator. He and his colleagues, previously working as the Teen Tech Squad, went after and received a grant from Best Buy. With in-kind support it was a total value of $450,000 to open the center in 2013. It’s been so successful, in June 2015 an article by Zekriah Chaudry on threesixtyjournalism.org predicted it would be expanding to other libraries. He quoted Lundholm, “Rather than just playing video games, we challenge them to learn to make their own games.”
St. Anthony Library
St. Anthony Library’s heart is the children’s area, where the Friends of St. Anthony Library donated a Lego table, a light table and a mirror where kids can line up a group of figures. A magnifying glass with various bugs in plastic, and other discovery tools are hallmarks of Hennepin County libraries modeling the Early Literacy Traveling Team. “Two year olds learn from handling materials, and discovering what you can do with them,” said Lois Porfiri, head librarian.
Storytimes, by the way, will start January 11 and continue every Wednesday, at 9:30 a.m. for babies and 10:30 a.m. for families.
In the re-configuration, a former hallway became the meeting room, enlarging it to hold 10 more people. The tables have wheels. They got a new white board and projection screen.
There’s a net gain of one additional computer. They’ve found the winter afternoon sun to be a challenge in using the computers, even though there is new film on the front windows, light streams in.
That’s good, though, for the west side by the windows where people can come to read newspapers or other periodicals in the warmth. Beefy end tables contain outlets and USB ports for plugging in laptops.
The inside book drop is behind the central desk, tucked into the children’s area.
Overall, the setup has better sight lines to and from the central desk, and more space for the collections – for example, the holiday collections are all out on the floor where they used to be rotated seasonally.
The St. Anthony library in the St. Anthony Village Shops shopping center, 2941 Pentagon Drive, is now open noon-8 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, closed Sundays.
The Northeast Library, 2200 Central Ave. NE is open 9-5 Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday 9-5, Noon-8 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Below: Feature from the St. Anthony Library: Magnifying glass and Lego table. (Photo by Margo Ashmore)