Committee finalizes expansion guidelines
After several months of public meetings, the 22-member Library/Museum task force held its final session this past week, producing what it calls “guiding principles” for the planned expansions of downtown’s Central Library and Riverside Metropolitan Museum. The key recommendation calls for separate expansions of both facilities, with enough space for each to meet their needs.
As part of the recommendation, the panel urged the city to expedite funding and approval of the expansions and also emphasized its desire to see the Chinese Memorial Pavilion remain in its current spot, which we’re glad to see.
The city’s Board of Library Trustees has already endorsed the guidelines with the museum board set to vote on the matter July 8. The guidelines will then go before the City Council for review on August 12.
Recently, two opposing viewpoints concerning the existing library building appeared in The Press-Enterprise (one | two). Though both articles make good points, it should be no surprise that we agree with Steve Lech in that demolishing the current building would be akin to demolishing the original Carnegie back in 1965. It shouldn’t have been done then — and it shouldn’t be done now.
Related
- Riverside Press-Enterprise – Riverside Library/Museum Task Force finalizes guidelines (June 26) | Trustees endorse task force’s ‘guiding principles’ for library, museum expansions (June 24)
Previous
- RaincrossSquare.com – Task force favors separate library, museum expansions (June 2008) | Library-museum task force convenes (April 2008) | Library should remain downtown (July 2007)
Sources: Riverside Press-Enterprise
I like the library’s architectural features. The grounds of the library actually look a lot nicer than they used to. I would prefer the library remain as it is and not be torn down and replaced by some postmodern building, one that looks like the Interdisciplinary building at UCR. Buildings used to have function.
I agree with the previous comment that the current library should not be torn down, but some sort of renovation/improvement/expansion needs to take place for the library to be a world class library.
The inside (description based on my last visit to the library) is beginning to look crowded, with computers looking out of place, walls and ceiling looking faded and out of date, and much of the second floor’s scenery (and theatre room) looking untouched and dull.
However, given its architecture, it has always been a comfortable place (as a high school student) to go and get work done without the distractions of the outside world.