New library not fancy, just friendly

It is just a building, a nondescript one between a park and a community center.

It is not fancy or glamorous. Although it is not ugly, it is certainly plain.

It is sensible.

The new Centennial Hills Library, set to open Saturday at 6711 N. Buffalo Drive, near Deer Springs Way, is the first new library the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District has opened since 1997.

The county's population was about 1.1 million then. It is just under 2 million now. When the last library opened, the Internet was still kind of new and DVDs weren't mainstream.

Which means that today's libraries are a whole different animal.

"This was built from the ground up with the understanding of where technology is," said Daniel Walters, the district's executive director.

This northwest library has an adult computer area, separated from the rest of the library. There have been complaints that children can see things adults are doing on the computers because the rest of the libraries have computers right in the middle of things. What the adults sometimes view, while legal, is not always child friendly.

The new library also has a family computer area. It has a homework help center. It has a self-check-out and check-in system, not unlike what you might find at the grocery store. That system will eventually be used in all the district's libraries to cut labor costs.

The new building is environmentally friendly, too, with special windows, air flow systems and irrigation.

It has wireless Internet access, which means patrons can bring laptops and sit in cushy chairs along the back wall.

It also has tables with electrical outlets, meaning phones and laptops can be recharged.

It's also got books, 110,000 or so. They mostly came from the Green Valley Library, which was shut down and given to the Henderson Library District. That library will be renovated and opened in a few months, Henderson officials say. The deal between the two library systems came about after the Henderson district expanded its boundaries to match the city limits.

Those attending the Centennial grand opening won't see a grand marble building or a fascinating facade. What's there is sensible. Practical. The library is basically a 40,000-square-foot box, the size of a smaller grocery store.

"It'll make it much more efficient," said Tammy Gieseking, the branch manager.

Gieseking came to the new library from the Green Valley location. Most of the staff did the same.

She said the computer labs will be the most popular areas. Kids can do their homework in the homework lab, and adults can reserve time to browse Web sites. That's popular right now because so many people are looking for jobs.

These days, she said, "they have to have a computer for that."

The library will also have an art gallery, a used book store and a vending machine area, just like most libraries.

It will also house, for now, the district's central operations center, which is where items are processed for shipment to other libraries when patrons request them. That happens about 500,000 times each month.

Eventually, that operation will be moved to the next new library planned to open in a couple of years at Rainbow Boulevard and Windmill Road. When that happens, the 13,000 square feet it uses at Centennial will be available for expansion. Walters said that could happen in three to five years.

Having that extra space was all part of the plan, he said.

It also became part of the plan to essentially pay for the $20.5 million building with cash.

That's because voters in 2003 soundly defeated a district proposal to hike taxes to pay for $50 million in construction projects.

It was a devastating defeat. But Walters said it led to a sensible solution. District officials basically kept the operating budget constant and saving what extra money came in through the valley's growth.

"This will be one of the few libraries in the country that goes up being paid for by the operating budget," Walters said.

It also came in on time and on budget.

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.