For the first time in what seems like a long time, the Lamplighters, Radford’s “friends of the library,” are looking for books. Construction had shut down use of several areas of the library for the past few months, notably the community meeting room where books had traditionally been stored in anticipation of the Lamplighters’ quarterly book sales. With no space to store books, the library has for months been unable to accept donations for the sales. A good number of potential donors have been turned away, some of them left angry, but there was very simply no place, no place at all, to store donated books. All of that finally changed last week, barely in time for the next scheduled book sale to be held February 6, 7 and 8 during regular library hours.
Now, the old kitchen and break room has been turned into a book storage room and shelving in there awaits donated books. If you’ve been holding back, if you were turned away, if you’ve had a fit of New Year’s cleaning and want to unload some boxes of books, the library is now ready to receive them. No longer will donated books fill one side of the newly pristine meeting room: these older volumes waiting for a sale will now have their very own place.
The other good news is that while a few finishing touches remain to be completed on the new annex, the cleaned up, expanded meeting room has been cleared for public use. The larger space sports a dividing curtain/wall that can make the room work for one very large meeting or two smaller ones. You will be able to book them beginning right now. The small story time room will no longer be used for public meetings, but will now be reserved only for library programs. When the entire project is finished, there will be a small conference room that very small groups will be able to use on a first come, first served basis, with library and City of Radford meetings taking precedence. With the bulletin boards back in place and the meeting room reopened, the library expects to return to full service any week now.