What’s cool and quiet and filled with nothing but books?

Your local library?

Not anymore.

The Athens-Limestone Public Library is much more than books.

It can loan you music, movies and audio books.

It can help your child with his homework over the computer.

It can let you borrow books it doesn’t have and call or e-mail you when the book is available.

It can let you look up articles from home about history, science, health, schools and other topics from thousands of books, magazines, encyclopedias, almanacs and biographies that the local library doesn’t carry but the Alabama Virtual Library does.

It can tell you, through a computer program called NoveList, the title of every mystery that features a lady detective, every western that features a black cowboy or every novel that features a teenage heroine.

And soon, it can let you download one of 1,200 electronic books to your home computer or MP3 player.

And it’s all free.

But one thing the local library can’t do is find more space.

The 10,000-square-foot building at 405 East South St. in Athens can’t take much more, according to Library Director Susan Todd.

So, the Athens-Limestone Public Library Foundation will launch a fund-raiser in October to raise between $5 million and $10 million to build a new one.

In an age of the Internet, you might expect libraries to need less space, but the opposite is true in Athens and Limestone County due to an ever-growing population.

“This library was built in 1970 when the population was about 37,000,” Todd said.

“We are almost double that now. ”

Limestone County’s population was about 65,000 in the 2000 Census,

When the library was built, it had 3,000 books. When Todd came aboard in 1990, the library had 19,000 books, no computers and three employees. Today, the library serves 68,000 people – more than 200 a day – and has 59,000 items, including books, tapes and DVDs; 17 public-use computers; and 12 employees, including seven full time, two part time and three students.

There is not enough storage space for books, DVDs, audio books, computers and other items. Four of the nine summer programs in 2005 had to be held outside because of limited space. There are not enough tables or floor space for the public, especially after school when traffic really picks up.

“At 3:30 p.m., it’s wall-to-wall people,” Todd said.

The public meeting room once used by garden clubs, Boy Scouts and others had to be used for storage and are no longer available to the public.

“Four or five years ago, we did a space analysis allowing for 20 years of growth,” Todd said. “It showed we needed about 40,000 square feet of space.”

That’s the goal for the new building planned by the foundation.

“A 40,000-square-foot building will cost between $5 and $10 million, ” Todd said. “We would like for it to be in a more visible location.”

The library is secreted behind Julian Newman Elementary School. Not easy to find and not centrally located within the population.



People who use the library

You may be surprised by the number of people who come to the library for things other than books.

Eleven-year-old Vanessa Quintana would be unable to see photographs of her family in Mexico if not for the Athens-Limestone Public Library.

Every month or so, she and her mother us one of the library computers to look at a compact disc filled with photographs of their family in Morelos, Mexico.

“I miss them,” said Quintana, a bilingual Reid Elementary School student. “I like to see how they are growing.”

She and her mother giggle, point to the screen and whisper Spanish as they scroll through photos of gray-haired grandmother at the dinner table, aunts mugging for the camera or cousins in navy-blue school uniforms sitting at their school desks.

The Quintanas don’t have a home computer to view their photos from afar, but they can use the one at the library. They can even print the photos for 10 cents a page.

Benjamin Murphy, 20, of Rogersville uses the library to check and send e-mail after work at an Athens nursing home where he is studying to be a certified nursing assistant.

Ervin Hambrick, 36, of Athens uses it for fun and for help in becoming a paralegal.

“I check my e-mail, check out a couple of books and sometimes I come to study on weekends,” said the Calhoun Community College student.

Allen Thomas, 35, of Athens was looking up information on the state’s driver’s license vision requirements on the Alabama Department of Public Safety’s Website.

Jonna Thomas was there with the two boys, 6-year-old Cheviz and 7-year-old Cordell.

“We come here once or twice a week mostly for the kids for school to help them learn,” she said. “They ask to come every day, but I tell them we can’t come here every day.”

Angela Farrar of Athens had five children with her at the library.

“We come here right after school,” she said while they all sat at a large, round table. The children, Ladaija Crutcher, 8, Cameron Turner, 5, Tiara Green, 7, and Tamara Green, 9, come to be tutored in math and reading. “I think it is good for them,” Farrar said.

By 3:40 p.m., the tables are filled up and the rest of the patrons are milling about looking at books and tapes or using the computers.

It’s a full house getting fuller.