New Warrensville Heights library branch should inspire East Cleveland to take another look. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4/22/2012)
Excerpt: Tracy Strobel wants the Warrensville Heights library to be the community's new McDonald's.
This $9.75 million building -- with preferred parking for energy-efficient cars -- opened Saturday afternoon.
A digital recording studio sparkles in the teen section -- welcoming adolescents to lay down poems, music and, perhaps, intergenerational histories. Almost alone in the nation, the library boasts a gigabyte of broadband for pin-sharp distance learning. Vending machines dispense coffee and snacks for consumption alongside the magazines and newspapers.
Instead of the classic librarian shush, patrons will be coaxed to linger.
Strobel, deputy director of the Cuyahoga County Public Library, wrote the "plan of service" in the summer of 2010 after two town hall meetings that attracted more than 400 residents and eight smaller focus-group sessions.
Construction started a year ago, the fruit of former Warrensville Heights Mayor Marcia Fudge's acquisition of the 16 acres where the old Zayre's department store once stood. The central idea was to revive the suburban community with a new center, and, critically, a place where young people might go.
The branch library -- with free Internet, books, classes and summer camps -- will serve as an anchor. A new YMCA next door will open next month.
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