The State Library of Ohio is unpacking millions of books, documents and records after being forced to move from a Columbus building that was scheduled for demolition because of its condition. The two million books, documents and records have been moved along with library staff, and the way the library has been doing business will change in its new home.
Since it was established in 1817, the State Library of Ohio was in state-owned facilities, including the Statehouse. In 2001, it moved to the Jeffrey Mining Corporate Center just north of Columbus. In the last twenty years, the building had developed water leaks and mold, and the agency had to find a new facility. State librarian Mandy Knapp said funding was requested in the state budget last year.
"We asked for $500,000," Knapp said in an interview. "Not only did they not grant that money, but we also sustained a cut. But we still needed to move our facility."
So the library had to be split between a climate-controlled facility in Gahanna for its collections and offices in a state-owned building in downtown Columbus for staff. The state spends $339,800 a year to lease the Gahanna building. But Knapp said it's no longer an open-stacks library that people can just walk into, as they could in the old building.
“We are moving away from the model where you have to come to Columbus to use our materials, to really focusing and honing in on a digital-first model where we will digitize larger sections of our catalog," Knapp said. "This is more going back to an older style of library called a closed-stacks library, in which the items you request and then someone retrieves them for you."
Digitized resources can be accessed immediately. But for non-digitized material, people will have to contact library staff and request what they want, and then schedule an appointment in the downtown office to view it. The agency plans to open a reading room to view printed materials or microfilm in the staff office building in December. For those who were hoping to browse library resources because they aren’t certain what they’re looking for, Knapp said there's help available.
"We have a highly trained research staff at their disposal that they can discuss. They can email them. We have a chat service," Knapp said. "We are currently getting our phone system back up and running, but I would encourage anyone to give our reference staff a call. These are trained professionals. This is what they would love to do."
Knapp said she's heard concerns from a small number of people about the change in public access to the library's collections. But she said a survey of State Library card holders showed the overwhelming preference was for digital materials over printed ones. And she noted most government information is published digitally, and sometimes it’s the only way it’s available. Knapp said the library also plans a publication portal with items only the State Library has, such as reports from state agencies, printed speeches of the governor and election maps.
But the State Library of Ohio isn't part of the Ohio History Connection, which used to be the Ohio Historical Society. It manages historic sites and museums and houses official state archives, and also administers state historical markers and preserves state founding documents and historic artifacts. The State Library maintains government publications, but also administers grants to libraries for services such as summer reading programs. It also does interlibrary loans and other services, and distributes specialized audiobook players for visually-impaired, dyslexic and print-disabled Ohioans.
