By ERIC LINDEN

The six-week referendum campaign to gain a $30 million new main public
library in Oak Park is off and running, heading toward the March 21 vote
on the expansion plan

Oak Park residents can get first-hand details about the library plans
and the referendum campaign at two public forums in the next few weeks.
The League of Women Voters of Oak Park and River Forest will host a
forum on Feb. 29 and the Friends of the Oak Park Public Library will
host a forum on March 7. Both forums will be on Tuesdays, at 7:30 p.m.
and in the Veterans Memorial Room on the second floor of the main
library, 834 Lake St.

Library board president Janet Kelenson said the board, its 24-member
campaign committee and other referendum supporters will make the case
for passing the referendum at the forums and at other upcoming private
meetings with local organizations such as the Nineteenth Century Woman's
Club and and involved constituencies such as neighbors of the main
library.

The basic case for asking voters to approve a property tax hike of about
$160 per year for the new main library is that the current building is
just "way too small," said Kelenson. She and assistant library director
Jim Madigan, who is also an Oak Park resident, said library patrons
regularly have been asking for new, better and more plentiful space in
contacts made by library officials.

"Over the past 10 years, we've found that the library is essentially
loved to death," said Kelenson, who is elected to the library board,
while Madigan is a staff member appointed by the board.

The seven members on the board voted last month to ask voter approval of
the property tax hike needed to undertake the plan to build a new main
library, to make improvements to the Maze branch, 845 S. Gunderson, and
to parking and undertake other improvements for a new library "campus"
at Lake Street and Grove Avenue. The village board gave approval for the
public vote on Jan. 18--but did not take a stand either for or against
the ballot question.

If the referendum passes, plans call for the current main library to be
demolished and replaced with a new three-story building, plus new
parking and a closing of Grove Avenue that would combine with Scoville
Park across Grove Avenue into the "campus." After studying the library's
space on and off for years, officials have determined they would get
more for the money by building a new library rather than remodeling the
current facility and building new on the empty lot next store to the
north that formerly held the Hemingway interim home that last year was
moved to formerly empty land on the northwest corner of Elmwood Avenue
and Chicago avenues.

The library officials in an interview Jan. 27 with oak-park-journal.com
said the main library has space needs across the board: for book
collection, computers, new DVD equipment, comfort for patrons, staff
work areas and space for programs that Kelenson said point to the
developing role of "the library as a community center."

Such activities aimed at the general community include the teen
coffeehouse that includes the popular poetry slam for teens; a
partnership with River Oak Arts, which offers public poetry readings;
new book groups, including a popular one about the Harry Potter books;
the Joseph Randall Shapiro art gallery for displaying local artwork; and
more. To keep, much less expand, those programs that the public has
supported requires more space, the officials said in the interview and
will say in their upcoming referendum campaign.

"There is also a need for small study group areas where people can work
together on a project without disturbing those around them," said a
report from the Citizens Committee for Library Building Needs, a
volunteer group of village residents that  last year recommended that
the library board address an "urgent need for vastly increased and
improved space." The committee did not recommend either renovating the
current main library or building a new one, but did express "concern
that merely renovating and expanding ... the existing structure may not
be adequate to resolve the library's space needs." The library board
unanimously chose the new building option at a meeting last month.

According to Kelenson and Madigan, the renovations would be about 30
percent less costly than the current proposal but would not provide
enough space to address the library officials' and patrons' wants and
needs for the present and future of library services.

The Oak Park officials said other public libraries have faced similar
space and program issues. New libraries have recently or will soon be
built in River Forest, Forest Park, Maywood and Elmwood Park, plus a
bevy of other suburbs from Evanston to Schaumburg. The Oak Park
referendum proponents also said that public libraries have needs that
are different from private libraries, many of which are scaling back on
space.

Oak Park library officials currently have no drawings to display the new
building's design. But in charge of the design work to be done is the
Chicago firm of Nagle-Hartray, which includes three Oak Park residents
working on the library project.

Asked what would happen if the March 21 referendum were to lose,
Kelenson and Madigan were reluctant to consider the possibility.
Ultimately, however, they said Oak Park library patrons would be left
with the status quo on space and programs. And according to the space
needs committee, those "space deficiencies" have led to a cutback on
services, collections, patron use and enjoyment of the library,
productive staff work and other conditions. Officials maintain all those
factors would improve with a new and larger library.

Yet another factor that led to a new library referendum is the age of
the library's heating, air-conditioning and other systems. The main
library was built in 1964, following approval of another referendum, and
the systems have become, Kelenson said, "relatively inefficient."

Soon it will be up to Oak Park voters to decide the merits of the
library's argument. Property owners have voted themselves property tax
increases in recent years to improve facilities for the District 97
elementary schools and Oak Park and River Forest High School and watched
as the village board passed several tax hikes last year to repair and
replace long-neglected public property. Referendum proponents hope the
library's general positive reputation among Oak Parkers will lead to
passage of another tax increase.

Library officials also said they have taken steps to avoid the likely
higher costs that have cropped up since voters last year approved two
new middle schools for District 97.