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Fairfield Woods Library Hopes for Facelift

FAIRFIELD, Conn. – Deputy Town Librarian Nancy Coriaty will tell you that libraries serve a different purpose now than they did decades ago. But the Fairfield Woods Branch Library still looks about the same as it did when it first opened 43 years ago.

As a group of town leaders saw Thursday, that’s becoming a problem. Coriaty and the Board of Library Trustees led a group around the library to make a pitch for possible renovations — or even reconstruction.

“This building does not provide flexibility,” said Kenneth Best, an architect hired by the trustees to look into possible changes at the branch. “Whatever the library wants to do, there are barriers there that prevent them from doing it.”

The Fairfield Woods Branch Library is the busiest branch in Connecticut. The building last year served more than 260,000 people, who took out 322,000 books, CDs and movies, Coriaty said. Its 19,000 square feet make up about a quarter of the Fairfield Public Library system.

The building itself, located at 1147 Fairfield Woods Road, was built in 1969. It has not seen a major renovation since 1990, when the town added about 4,000 square feet of space.

One problem with the current building is access for the disabled. Much of the library is not compliant with the standards of the Americans With Disabilities Act. For example, the library's entire mezzanine is inaccessible to anyone with a wheelchair or a walker, because its only access points are narrow stairways.

Getting to the library’s lower level is a problem also. The basement elevator was installed 43 years ago. It includes an old-fashioned grate instead of a modern door, and can only be accessed by a small vestibule on the main floor.

“The staff doesn’t even use the elevator,” Coriaty said. “We put our stuff in it to send it down, but none of us want to go on it.”  

The library also has had problems with leaks. The 30-year warranty on the roof expired five years ago, and since then water has dripped through the ceiling and the windows during rainstorms. Coriaty said the branch lost an entire collection of antique books because of leaks on the mezzanine level.

Best said the library’s current state is bad for heating costs as well. In many spots, the only protection from the elements is the library’s stone walls. “There’s no insulation, or hardly any,” West said. “So the building is incredibly energy inefficient.”

Another big issue is space. Just fitting in the books and other items is proving difficult, Coriaty said, and many sections have to be combined. For example, the young adult section and the large-type books for seniors get about one set of shelves each, directly next to each other.

Coriaty said she would also like to see room for more open learning spaces in the children’s section. “When kids come in here, we want them to fall in love with the books, but we also want them to have a space to learn,” Coriaty said.

For now, the Board of Library Trustees will need to decide what type of work it would like to see done at the branch, especially whether it would be a renovation or a full rebuild. After that the Board of Selectmen, Board of Finance and Representative Town Meeting would decide how much to spend.

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