Meeker Library checks in Mon.

MEEKER — It didn’t make the original goal of moving in February. Nor did it make an August target date.
But the Meeker Public Library will move into its new home Sept. 8. Really.
“You can write it down,” said Mike Bartlett, library director. “We’ll be in.”
The library is moving from its present location in the Fairfield Center, where it has been housed since 1974, to the Fay building two blocks away at 490 Main St. The library bought the building from Jim Fay for $700,000. The Eastern Rio Blanco Metropolitan Recreation and Park District was formerly located in the Fay building, but it moved into a new building in January.
The library relocation has been in the works for a while.
“It wasn’t even a real date, but we originally started talking (about moving) in February,” Bartlett said.
In June, Bartlett thought the library could be in its new location sometime in August. It almost made it.
The library will have a grand opening Sept. 27 to coincide with the annual Fall Festival, sponsored by Mountain Valley Bank, the library’s neighbor on the other end of the block.
The library’s hours of operation will remain the same: 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, and 9:30 to 2 p.m. Saturday.
Library staffers have been moving more than 40,000 books to the new location in stages, one Honda carload at a time.
“We load books onto a cart, then we load them into a car, drive to the new location, then we load them back onto a cart, and then onto the shelves,” said Angie Harris.
But all of the hard work will be worth it, she said.
“It will be really nice once we get everything in,” Harris said.
The new location will give the library an additional 720 square feet to work with, plus there is more storage space in the basement. Each section of the new library, except for oversized or coffee-table books, will be expanded. Sometimes, as in the case of DVDs and young adult books, the space will be doubled in the new location.
“Just about everything is bigger,” Bartlett said. “It’s so much bigger in all of the right places.”
Pearl Ellsworth, another library staffer, can’t wait for the library to be in its new home.
“I’m so happy,” she said. “It will be something I know we’ll be proud of, and something I think the community can be proud of.”