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

New Canaan Library—Jan. 31, 2023

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.

Inspired by the Mid-Century Modern design movement, the new 42,000-square-foot library includes a “community commons” concourse with a welcome desk, displays of the latest books, art lounge for exhibitions and new café, children’s room, teaching kitchen, Jim & Dede Bartlett Auditorium, “living room” mezzanine, co-working space and business center, private meeting rooms, teen library, event and rooftop terraces and, come fall, newly landscaped library green above Main and Cherry Streets, with the legacy building on the western side of the campus.

Library patrons and supporters have been coming by for months giving the staff their email addresses to help with the move when the time comes. On Friday, those people, as well as groups such as the Exchange Club of New Canaan, New Canaan Rotary Club, Boy Scouts and Service League of Boys turned out and have helped with the move all weekend, Oldham said.

“We’ve had so much support,” she said.

Some of the cosmetic work at the new library—for example, the millwork of wooden casings around the bookshelves—will be put in place in the weeks immediately after the opening. Workers will remain on site in the coming months to do site work—for example, abatement and demolition of much of the existing building, followed by landscaping.

The library will launch a brand new website for the opening, and it will include notes on programming at the facility. One of the early highlights is a March 2 concert from famed pianist Andrew Armstrong and the New Canaan Chamber Music Society, Oldham said. Other programming highlights include lectures on wellness through the library’s partnership with Stamford Health, and Tai Chi and yoga through its partnership with the New Canaan YMCA.

“People are so excited,” Oldham said.