The debate as to whether Carrboro needs a library or not has been going on for over 24 years. Now the debate regarding the siting of the proposed Southwest Orange Branch Library promises to go on for another few years. Since the Friends of the Carrboro Branch Library began their endeavor of convincing Orange County government that a town the size of Carrboro requires a library, close to two generations of local young people have gone underserved by Orange County’s library services. The debate currently going on about the rezoning of 210 Hillsborough Road threatens to deprive yet another generation of local youth’s access to knowledge and comprehensive library services – which include computers, tutoring and the like. Orange County is 60th in the state and the state is 44th in the nation for library services. Currently Orange County only serves 47 percent of its population with library services.
Allen Spalt, at the March 22 public hearing, cautioned the Carrboro Board of Aldermen not to let the quest for a perfect library site be the enemy of the good – a library at 210 Hillsborough Road. We have a proposed site which, if approved at the April 12 public hearing, will lead to the county considering a CIP for a 20,000-square-foot library in Carrboro in 2014.
The Carrboro Branch Library has been at McDougle School for 15 years and could be “concealed†there for another 15 years if we do not go ahead with approving this site. Carrboro has doubled in size since the Friends, at [former] Mayor Ellie Kinnaird’s urging in 1987, began working for a freestanding library in Carrboro serving Southwest Orange County residents. I have served on all three Orange County library task forces. That’s a total of seven years studying the
issues. The Hillsborough Road site complies with the 2007 Library Task Force’s recommendations. We could put the library in a field – out of town – which would please some people but which would make it less accessible to the majority of Southwest Orange County residents who live in Carrboro – the most densely populated town in North Carolina.
A library belongs downtown. We have tried the Town Hall and Century Center routes and they have been rejected. Citizens of Carrboro, 210 Hillsborough Road is it. It can be accessed through both Hillsborough Road and Shelton Street. Carrboro Elementary School will be a direct beneficiary. Let’s all try and work together and make it happen – NOW! The interests of a few should not take precedence over the needs of 35,000 people.
Nerys Levy
Friends of the Carrboro Branch Library
Member of three Orange County library task forces