There’s a good reason that Howe Library is called Hanover’s “community living room.” Save for the schools, the library is the town’s most active building. On any given day, over 700 people of all ages pass through the library’s doors.

Taking advantage of The Howe’s resources is an expectation of Hanover residents. It’s an expectation that was foremost in the minds of the Library’s construction committee, professional staff and Trumbull-Nelson, the Construction Manager, as plans were drawn for a $5 million expansion and renovation project that reaches to every corner of the 30-year old building at the corner of East South Street and Currier Place.

On the surface, the plan made perfect sense. First, move a large house that occupied the site for the Library’s new wing. That was done in 2003. Next, build the new wing. Then, relocate services to permit renovation and refurbishment of the original building. Most important of all: Complete all phases of the complex project while the Library continued normal operation.

On any given day, over 700 people of all ages pass through the Howe’s doors.

Ground was broken in May 2004 and work began. For two months, work proceeded as planned. Then, as Marlene McGonigle, the Library’s director, recalled, “The schedule was turned upside down.”

The problem: Some 300 glue-laminated, pre-stained southern yellow pine beams (some as long as 30 feet), columns and rafters plus 150 steel connections for the new wing, coming from an over-booked manufacturer in Maine, were unavailable for installation.

It was crunch time. Suspending work would be costly, not to mention creating a delay that would make on-schedule completion all but impossible. “Instead of having the new wing enclosed and moving on to renovation, the project became a staged process of moving that affected construction, staff and the community,” said McGonigle.

That sounds easy until you think about shifting thousands of volumes and maintaining services that address the needs and interests of children, youth and adults.

“It worked because we all set out to make it work. We had to play put-and-take between old and new areas,”said McGonigle, a professional librarian who came to The Howe in 1994, charged with the responsibility of analyzing the need to expand a building that opened in the mid-1970s with a planned capacity of 70,000 volumes over a 20-year period. In 2000, The Howe had become home to over 86,000 print and electronic titles, plus over 210 periodicals.

Except for 2-3 days when normal operation was suspended to permit installation of carpeting, teamwork among staff, volunteers and construction workers turned problems into opportunities.

“The efforts of Dave Stanley, our superintendent, and the cooperation of our key subcontractors made it happen,” said Todd Thompson, T-N’s Project Manager. “One thing I’m proudest of is the construction team’s willingness to find creative solutions to scheduling challenges. Flexibility on everyone’s part was essential.”

At every level, the operational phrase was “business as usual.” Said Thompson, “(Subcontractors) Defiance Electric and Economy Mechanical were committed to doing whatever was necessary to keep the mechanical and electrical systems running while they modified existing systems and installed new components.”

“We had to understand the ramifications of each piece of work, to install and fine-tune and eliminate interruptions in the library’s services. And, we recognized the need to CLEAN repeatedly to maintain a reasonable environment for the staff and patrons.”

In October, when more than 1,700 community members overwhelmed the grand opening of the "new" Howe Library, here’s what they found:

• Overall floor space has increased from 18,000 to 30,000 square feet. It’s a seamless expansion created by Gerrit Zwart, the architect who designed the existing building more than 30 years ago—Trumbull-Nelson was the Contruc-tion Manager then, too.
  
• The Library’s capacity is now 100,000 items (print and electronic), envisioning growth of the collection at a rate of about two percent annually that will meet needs for another 20 years.
  
• The three main desks—Information, Children’s and Circulation—reflect Trumbull-Nelson’s signature craftsmanship. “They each have curved elements and are constructed of rift sawn red oak, a somewhat unusual cut of a common species, that required much of the desks to be veneered in an unusual manner,” said Thompson.
  
• The youth area, including a new teen area with wired study carrels, has doubled in size to 6,100 square feet.
  
• Shelving and display areas have been expanded by 25 percent.
  
• The number of public access computers is doubled from 16 to 32.
  
• The Aldrich Room, previously used for periodicals, is now a quiet reading room. Plus, there are three new areas designated for study and tutorial use.
  
• A gallery that bridges the old and new areas is a venue for monthly art shows featuring area artists and photographers.
  
• The entire building is air conditioned and has a new energy efficient boiler. All windows are new and have a low energy efficiency rating.
  
• The building has proper access for patrons with special needs.

The Howe continues as Hanover’s “community living room,” carrying forward Emily Howe’s prayer “that this library may prove a blessing to this community to the remotest generation.”

Since the 1970s, when it moved to its current site, the Howe Library has been a virtually unique partnership of the Town of Hanover and the Howe Library Corpor-ation. It’s a Town department with operating expenses funded by tax dollars while the non-profit Corporation raises funds for programs and collections—and the funds that made the expansion-renovation possible.

The Library has been a community resource for more than a century. It was made possible when Emily Howe Hitchcock followed the advice of her husband, Hiram Hitchcock (who built the original Mary Hitchcock Hospital in memory of his first wife), and gave her family home on West Wheelock Street to the town for the library that served Hanover residents for 75 years.

In appearance, today’s “new” Howe Library serves over 200,000 patrons each year and bears little resemblance to the original building.

In spirit, The Howe continues as Hanover’s “community living room,” carrying forward Emily Howe’s prayer “that this library may prove a blessing to this community to the remotest generation.”