Addition planned for the Angola Public Library

The Angola Public Library will be able to offer more children’s and community outreach programs as a result of its expansion project, made possible recently through county funding.

The Erie County Consortium Community Development Block Grant Program awarded $100,000 to the Village of Angola to build a shell for a 1,073 square-feet addition at the rear of the library, located at 34 North Main St.

“We’re very lucky,” said Village Trustee Carole Kin, who serves as the liaison to the library. Angola applied for CDBG funding to expand the library last year, but was denied.

“This year, we asked the residents of Evans, Brant and Farnham to help us by putting (the library expansion project) at the top of their (CDBG) lists,” Kin said.

The library will use the space to provide additional programming for children, tutoring for students and other cultural and educational activities it previously could not hold due to lack of room.

“We would always have to tutor students in the front of the library,” said Kin, who added that the commotion of people coming in and out of the library’s doors distracted students who were trying to study. “Now the kids will be able to concentrate better,” she said.

Similarly, trying to hold children’s programs in the main room was unfair to the people using the library’s computers, noted Library Director Mary Truby. “When you are trying to construct a resume and children are yelling near you, it’s distracting,” she said.

Truby hopes that community groups, such as the Red Hat Society and Evans Garden Club, will use the new space for meetings.

“This expansion is wonderful. Not just for the library, but for the whole community,” Truby said.

Having worked at the library for nearly 40 years, Truby has watched a steady stream of patrons utilize the library.

“This past year, we had 11,128 people walk through our door and 53,796 items were circulated,” she noted.

The library’s nine desktop computers and six laptops are constantly in use. Kin said it is not uncommon to see patrons line up outside the library before it opens as they wait for a computer.

“It’s a wonderful library,” Kin said, adding that the grant will only cover the framework for the addition. More funding, whether through additional grants or community fundraising initiatives, will be needed in the future to complete the project.