District Library board planning spring grand opening, donor party

The marketing committee of the Belleville Area District Library has been meeting to plan a special donors party and the public grand opening of the new building next spring.
Plans for the two events have been put off from the spring of 2020 when the library construction was completed and the library opened briefly – to be shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the board’s regular, in-person meeting on Oct. 12, marketing chairperson Alma Hughes-Grubbs said at the Sept. 29 marketing meeting, they talked about having the grand opening during National Library Week, April 3-9, and the donor party prior to the grand opening.
She said they plan to have speakers, child participants, history of the library, the Belleville High School Jazz Band, and a strolling buffet at the donors’ event. They plan to invite governmental officials and have printed programs.
Grubbs said there are 39 plaques on the donor wall. They will acknowledge the Friends of the Library and set up a book to sign, she said.
John Juriga asked if they were going to invite the lady in charge of the Library of Congress and board chairperson Sharon Peters said they could try. Juriga said this is the first person in history who is really a librarian and now is in charge of the Library of Congress.
Chairperson Peters said the Library of Congress head was in Taylor with Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and she met one of the Belleville librarians and her daughter. The daughter was invited to visit the Library of Congress and so the trip was made.
Carla Hayden, the first woman in that position and also the first Afro-American in that role, has been librarian of the Library of Congress since 2016.
Grubbs said the idea of a time capsule was brought up again, but no decisions were made.
Mary Jane Dawson suggested the items for the time capsule should be put on display in the glass case so people in the present will know what people in the future will see when they open it.
Juriga suggested they show the history of the building construction.
“I was there every day,” Juriga said, noting he took hundreds of pictures.
Peters said they will keep working on the details. She said the donor event will be in March. The next meeting of the marketing group will be Oct. 27, she said.
“I hope it’s less likely we’ll have to be wearing masks,” Peters said.
In other business at the hour-long meeting, the board:
• Heard reports on the building committee meeting from members who attended. Joy Cichewicz, chairperson of the committee, was not present at the board meeting to report. Dawson said the Walker display items for the wall are now installed in the display area and the League of Women Voters’ display has been installed. It appears when the water is coming into the dishwasher sludge is coming in and they will see if a filter can be put in to fix that. Library Director Mary Jo Suchy said the low flow of the faucets in the restrooms may also be caused by sludge. The HVAC units on the roof have to be drained and so it is being piped down through the building to a first floor drain. The work to increase the air quality has started and plastic sheeting is up in parts of the second floor. It should be done in three to four weeks if all the trades come when they are supposed to, Peters said. The sealer has yet to be put on the bollards, she said;
• Heard Director Suchy reply to a question on the accounts payable item for $1,797.39 paid to T-Mobile for five additional hotspots, as well as $1,722 for five hotspots annual fee paid to T-Mobile. Suchy said the library now has ten hot spots and they check them out to patrons for three days and it shuts down automatically after that. She said they are very popular because they allow for a wireless signal when the electricity goes out and there is no internet. She said they will make them available at the Sumpter Township branch, as well. Suchy said wifi is already available in the library parking lots in Belleville and Sumpter;
• Heard Suchy report that the weather cooperated for Harvest Fest and it was an amazing, fun time in spite of the yellow jackets that hung around. She said those were not the honeybees from the hives on the library roof. She said there was good attendance and many new people explored the library. She reported that 46 people attended the Future Club’s first program on autonomous vehicles and the self-driving car parked in front of the library was a huge hit;
• Heard Suchy thank the Friends of the Library for helping the library purchase a popup tent and banner that the library can use for outdoor programming and festivals;
• Learned part-time youth services librarian Stacia Serafin left to become the full-time youth service department head at the Clarkston Independence District Library. Karen Dubke has been promoted from part-time youth services librarian to full-time. Marissa Lasoff-Santos accepted a part-time adult services librarian position and began work Oct. 5; and
• Heard Juriga comment that the museum is going through a hard time right now. People are thinking of retrieving the historical items they have on loan to the museum, including several on the library board. Peters said she called the Van Buren Township supervisor and told him she wanted to be a part of the discussions on the future of the museum since she is the library board president and the library and museum form the cultural center of the community. Other board members agreed that the museum should stay open.