The "Plan" is coming together

We have been working through almost 3 months of construction, but we are beginning to see the light - literally - signaling the end of this phase. Here's a pretty good idea of what the Main Street entrance will be like when it reopens in a few weeks:

Those little cleats above the new windows will hold a metal sunshade. There's only a very little that needs finishing on the exterior besides the shade. A little bit of paint work and we're set.

Here's what it looks like from the inside on the second floor - no carpet yet, but the ceiling grid is going in today and you can get a general idea of what the view will be like sitting in what will be a nice new reading area.

Here's another view from inside looking basically straight east.

Downstairs, the Friend's Book Store is getting a remodel. Here's what it looks like at the moment. The new enlarged foyer is visible beyond. The new foyer area will help us keep a more stable temperature in the front area of the library.

It's happening!

Robots will be replacing us in libraries! Sure, this article says the intention is to relieve librarians of "menial" tasks but that's only to get their foot in the door. We all know that our robot overlords are just biding their time, gradually insinuating themselves into our everyday lives. Before you know it, we'll all be scurrying around like rats in the rubble of our meat-bag civilization as the robots take over.

OK, maybe I'm getting a bit carried away. This is actually a really interesting technology. The robot could search the stacks at night, and help us humans find mis-shelved and lost items in our stacks. The Hutchinson Public Library has well over 250,000 physical items. It takes a considerable amount of time to keep the shelves in order. It is also very time consuming to look for items that didn't get checked in properly.

I'm looking forward to this step towards Skynet myself.