A ribbon cutting ceremony marked completion of construction on Rushville’s new public library.
“It’s been great,” said Library Director Charlene Copeland about the new building, which opened in mid-June even though a few details still needed to be completed. Those were finished within the past couple weeks.
Copeland said the library has new shelves, new chairs, and new computers. It has a portioned-off multi-purpose room so guest speakers can give presentations without disturbing people in the reading areas.
She also likes its location between the community’s schools.
“We get a lot of after school traffic that comes and hangs out and does their homework and uses the computer and uses the wi-fi,” Copeland said.
The building cost $1.6 million. $400,000 was raised locally and the rest came from the state of Illinois.
Allied Design Consultants, Inc. of Springfield designed the building. The firm’s Todd Hannah said the raised ceiling above the centrally-located circulation desk gives the building a nice visual appeal.
He said it’s also an efficient building.
“It’s a building that has very low maintenance and energy costs are very low as well,” he said.
It’s now up to the city council to decide what to do with the old library building. Mayor Curt Lunt said it has historic value because it’s an old Carnegie library. But it’s small and it would require modifications to make it ADA compliant.
