Ebooks, Netflix, and Library Building Projects (Part 64, Saratoga Springs Public Library)

Saratoga Springs Public Library wraps up renovation project. (Post-Star, 6/22/2011)

Excerpt:   The library has installed six kiosks, split between the main circulation area, the children's section and the reference section. The Friends of the Saratoga Public Library, a nonprofit that raises money on the library's behalf, contributed $50,000 toward the purchase of the kiosks.

The machines are part of a larger overhaul of the 19-year-old library that began last year and has come to fruition in recent months.

Furniture, carpeting and other fixtures that officials said had grown tired were replaced, while the library's security and inventory systems were updated. All of the library's 200,000 items were re-tagged and inventoried as part of the switch to the new system.

The circulation and information desks were also altered to be more inviting. The desks are now around 3 feet high, which allows children and people in wheelchairs to approach them more easily.
"This is much more comfortable and accessible compared to what we called the ‘Great Wall of Circulation,'" Pulver said, as library patrons used the machines for the first time Wednesday morning.