Big Changes on the Drawing Board for Omaha Public Library

LINK

Link to September 17 Omaha World Herald article, "Omaha libraries at a crossroads".

Excerpt:   If Omaha Public Library officials have their way, some major changes are coming to the city's library system.

Among the ideas proposed in a library planning report:

• Omaha's flagship library would leave its downtown location and move closer to the middle of the city, into a new building at or near Crossroads Mall at 72nd and Dodge Streets.\
• The Swanson Library at 90th Street and West Dodge Road would be closed, replaced by the new Crossroads-area main library.
• The current downtown site could be sold to a developer for a high-rise building.
• A smaller branch would be built elsewhere in downtown Omaha, probably near Joslyn Art Museum.
• Two new suburban libraries would be added: one near the Village Pointe shopping center near 168th Street and West Dodge Road, the other near 180th and Q Streets.

Don't grab your library cards and look for those new facilities quite yet, however.

None of those projects has been approved, the library's executive director, Gary Wasdin, said in an interview Thursday. In fact, the city is still waiting for a consultant to finish cost estimates later this month.