Around Town

‘We Are So Excited’: ‘New’ New Canaan Library To Open Feb. 14 [PHOTOS]

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The “new” New Canaan Library is on track to open to the public at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 14, officials say. 

Executive Director Lisa Oldham said she’s feeling “unbelievably excited at this incredibly wonderful new community asset for New Canaanites.”

“We are so pleased to resume service in our new space,” Oldham told NewCanaanite.com. “We all do it because we are devoted to library service, to our community. And we are so excited to be opening our doors and welcoming the community into this wonderful new space.”

Planned for years following wide community input and unveiled publicly in early 2020, the new library has been taking shape since last summer, with a new main entrance along Maple Street between South Avenue and Main Street. The library’s whole team, staff and board members, will be out on the floor on “opening day” to help provide directional information and talk to patrons about the new building and “make sure people can find everything they need and learn everything they want to learn about the building,” she said.

Around Town

Q&A: Inside the ‘New’ New Canaan Library [PHOTOS]

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Three years after its public unveiling at a Board of Finance meeting, the new New Canaan Library is just weeks away from opening. We put some questions to Executive Director Lisa Oldham as this major milestone for the community approaches. New Canaanite: The public opening of the new library is close. What is your target date for that and how are you feeling now? Lisa Oldham: I am hoping to have some information today [Monday] that will help us to make the best decision we can on getting the balance between our desire to re-open with the remaining work to be completed.

Who Knew: Yes, the New Library is Going to be Spectacularly Bonkers

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‘Who Knew?’ is sponsored by Walter Stewart’s Market. 

“The years past have seen the establishment and subsequent growth of our library until it has long since outgrown its accommodations and has thus been seriously handicapped in its attempted work.” —Henry W. Saxe, ‘Relation of the Library to the Community,’ in the  Jan. 30, 1913 New Canaan Advertiser

In 1913, a time capsule was placed under the cornerstone of the New Canaan Library, to be opened “one hundred years from now” when, as leadership then anticipated, our town’s needs would outgrow the footprint of the building they’d just begun. 

New Canaan has grown from almost 4,000 souls to over 20,000 in 109 years. Moreover, the information-seeking landscape has been wildly, dramatically altered. Right now, you’re reading your morning paper on a tiny, handheld computer that also serves as a portal to all the world’s information. You’re also not wearing pantaloons and reading by kerosene lamp; if you are, I salute your freaky-deaky choice.

Government

Town Approves $46,000 Contract To Replace Part of Maple Street Sidewalk Opposite Library

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Town officials on Tuesday approved an approximately $46,000 contract with a Stratford-based company to replace parts of a sidewalk on Maple Street across from New Canaan Library. The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously in favor of the $45,908 contract with Dalling Construction. 

Some of the sidewalks on Maple Street between Main Street and South Avenue “are not part of the library construction project but should be done,” according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. “They have not been done since the Center School parking lot was installed,” Mann told the selectmen during their regular meeting, held in Town Hall and via videoconference. “It’s a concrete sidewalk with an asphalt overlay. So the library has to take care of the north side of Maple Street and a portion of the south side of Maple Street around the Center parking lot entranceway.