The Edgartown Public Library building on North Water street has a view of the Chappy ferry slip, ferns hanging in the arched front windows and very creaky floors — the product of 112 years of foot traffic, story times, movie nights and book browsing.
“I know when someone walks in,” circulation manager Elyce Bonnell said Friday, standing behind the circulation desk that faces the front door. Even with her back turned she said, sometimes she can tell who is coming in the door by their foot pattern.
But on Friday afternoon the last book was checked out of the old brick building, ending its long life as a library. The last patrons walked out into a snowy evening, and then the heavy front door was locked just after 5 p.m.
In a few weeks the new Edgartown library will open again about half a mile away, next to the Edgartown School. The old Carnegie building will be handed over to the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust, which will renovate and repurpose the historic library as a maritime history and visitor center.
“We are happy and sad at the same time,” library director Lisa Sherman said Friday. “This is where my library career started. It’s surreal to have a last day.”
“It’s got such a personality,” she added. “It’s just this living, breathing thing we’ve all been taking care of...we’re so attached to it.”
Beginning next week the library’s collection of 40,000 books, books on tape, DVDs, CDs and other items will be boxed up and moved by National Library Relocations, a company that specializes in quickly moving entire library collections. Color-coded tags marked furniture and boxes destined for the new library. The staff was responsible for packing up all the pens and rubber bands, paperwork and paper cups for after-school lemonade.
As she packed and talked with patrons Friday, Ms. Bonnell, 31, recalled that she grew up going to the old library. So did her mother and her grandmother. Her son Isaac Lefebvre, 8, is an after-school regular and had a hard time when he realized Friday was the last day, she said, though he recently rated the new library “infinity” on a scale of one to 10.
“It’s going to be awesome but it’s just sentimental,” Ms. Bonnell said. “I’ve come here my whole life.”
The brick building, small by modern library standards, has served as the town library since it was built in 1904. Caroline Osborn Warren, who came from an old Edgartown whaling family and owned the house next door, donated the land for the library. The building was financed by steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who donated money for library buildings in thousands of communities around the country.
The original building was 800 to 900 square feet, reference librarian Nis Kildegaard said, and comprised the front two rooms, the entrance and a small office. The arched windows in the front rooms and above the door feature yellow glass at the top with a sunrise pattern, a tribute to Mr. Carnegie and his belief that libraries represented the dawn of knowledge.
The front rooms were open reading space then, lit with gas lights. Books were kept in an office behind the librarian’s desk, and patrons consulted a pamphlet that listed materials available to check out.
One of the front rooms most recently housed the historic collections, the other large print books. A 1906 plaque in one room was dedicated “in perpetual memory of the founders and fathers of Edgartown” and another remembers Florence Mayhew Swallow, who founded the first Edgartown Public Library in 1891.
On Friday, library regular Skip Petersen of Vineyard Haven was stationed nearby with The New York Times and a crossword puzzle, part of her regular library routine.
“That’s my favorite chair, over there with my fern over me,” she said, gesturing to a blue chair by the window. A sticker on the chair indicated it was bound for the second floor of the new library.
“This is the very last afternoon of 112 years being in this spot,” Ms. Petersen said. “The only thing certain in life is change,” she added.
In addition to the books, pieces of the old library will also move over to the new building. The ferns hanging in the front windows will make the move, as will the town’s art collection, appraised at $350,000.
“A piece of continuity,” Mr. Kildegaard said. “To go to a brand new place, it’s neat to see something familiar. The whole staff is thinking about ways to make the new library warm and inviting.”
Over time, Edgartown outgrew the library, despite additions in 1938 and 1975. The new library will more than double the library space to 15,000 square feet, and offer far more room for technology and meeting space, including a state of the art conference room.
At the Carnegie library the bathrooms are not ventilated, the wireless is slow. The tangled wires in the crowded IT room on the lower level “looks like something out of Hogwarts,” Mr. Kildegaard said.
Part of the most recent addition was found to be structurally substandard (consider the weight of books) and metal reinforcement beams were added about 10 years ago. And with the sale of the Warren House next door the library lost its parking lot. The new library will have dedicated parking and is located near two bike paths and the bus line.
On Friday, library staff and patrons balanced excitement for the new building with nostalgia. In the lower level, children’s librarian Debbie MacInnis made popcorn for after-school visitors. The kids arrive hungry after school and Mrs. MacInnis has found a favorite butter-free microwave popcorn she buys by the case. Newman’s Own lemonade is the beverage of choice ever since she read about arsenic levels in apple juice. On Friday it was served in mugs because the paper cups were packed.
“There will be popcorn in the new building,” Mrs. MacInnis told Sasha Kagan as she handed her some popcorn in a white paper bag.
“There should be a snack section,” Sasha, 10, suggested.
The new library will have a dedicated building for children, laptops available for use instead of desktop computers, and a separate area for young adults. Mrs. MacInnis is excited about the rubber floors, which will be easier to walk on all day.
As Sasha found a book and settled in behind a computer, Mrs. MacInnis sorted through drawers, finding puzzle pieces, spare Legos, and an old library promotional poster featuring children now grown up.
“I’ve been sitting here for 39 years,” she said. Her desk was painted yellow by a car painter, and “much to my pleasure it’s going with me.”
She unearthed a pile of superhero stickers, remnants from a program that encouraged children to try eating strange or different foods. Every few years the library throws a Harry Potter scavenger hunt featuring some of the unique things Mrs. MacInnis has collected, such as Tyrannosaurus Rex slippers that roar. The downstairs room would become magical in the dark, decorated with twinkle lights and little electric candles.
“How that’s going to work over there I don’t know but we’ll see,” Ms. MacInnis said. “Obviously we’ll make it work...it’s going to be very strange.”
The last afternoon wore on. Music by Tom Petty and the Rolling Stones played by the circulation desk — unusual for the library, but this wasn’t a normal day. There were cupcakes and doughnuts and pre-move bustle: staffers looking for more boxes, asking for supplies, discussing arrangements.
“See you in three weeks at the new library!” Sasha said as she left with her family. Just before closing, Kenny Ivory settled in a chair in the magazine room and waited to be the last person to check out a book.
“It’s sweet and sour,” Mr. Ivory said. “It’s the last cozy little library on Martha’s Vineyard.”
He, like others, praised the staff for making the library great. On Tuesday movie nights Virginia Munro makes desserts to go with the movie.
“They all go above and beyond here, it’s amazing,” Mr. Ivory said. “The people are part of your extended family.”
As 5 p.m. neared Mr. Ivory stepped up to the circulation desk to check out the last book on the last day: Fatal Voyage by Dan Kurzman. No special significance, Mr. Ivory said, as Ms. Bonnell held up the book and Ms. Sherman took a picture.
The staff stayed behind for a meeting to talk logistics.
“Don’t lose any Bernard Cornwell books along the way,” one patron said as he departed.
A few hours earlier Luke McCracken, 19, home for spring break from Loyola University Maryland, was reminiscing about after-school visits.
“Were the video games over there?” he asked Ms. Sherman, who remembered him from long before he was a tall college student.
Mr. McCracken imagined himself in the distant future walking by the old Carnegie building. “I’m going to be like, man, that used to be the library. I’ll say, remember when that was the library.”
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