Kansas: New Plan For $30 Million Wichita Public Library To Go Before City Council on Tuesday

From The Wichita Eagle:

Wichita city and public library officials plan to move ahead on a new state-of-the-art central library, expected to cost $30 million and be constructed on city land at Second and McLean.
The latest library plan will be presented Tuesday to the Wichita City Council. Council members will be asked to authorize the design phase of the building – estimated to cost $1.31 million – which will be financed by the Wichita Public Library Foundation.
The design is expected to be completed by November. The city’s portion of the $30 million project would be $27.5 million. The library foundation is hoping to raise $5 million, including $2.5 million to finance technology components of the building.
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“This building is very different from where we were four or five years ago,” [Wichita City Manager Robert] Layton said. “What I have continually said is that we do an injustice to the facility in calling it a new central library.
“It is very different from a traditional library. We are not just trying to replicate and modernize what we have currently. It is a game changer. It makes us a trendsetter and puts us on the front end of how we pass knowledge on to our children and grandchildren and how they will use that information to innovate.”
Books will still be featured in the new library building, but will be on roll-out shelves and kept in compact storage

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