For Moorestown's old library, 'time for it to go'

There were gaping holes, missing walls, and exposed I-beams Friday in the old Moorestown Library, where Joe Galbraith worked for 18 years.

But the library's director was "not shedding any tears" for the steel and concrete "bunker" whose demolition began this week.

"I can look back on it with fondness," he said, "but it's time for it to go.

"This," he added, as he glanced around the main reading room of the township's new library, "is our home now."

Airy and spacious, the new building opened in July 2014, weeks after work crews had transferred its many books, CDs, maps, and periodicals from the massive, moldy concrete building that had been Moorestown's library since 1975.

Designed by the Cherry Hill architect Malcolm Wells, renowned for his then-innovative "green" residential architecture, the library's 18-inch concrete walls proved difficult to adapt to the digital age.

The rainwater ponds that Wells designed to help cool the interior brought mold, and the pines placed to provide shade dropped cones that clogged rain gutters. Vines cracked the costly slate roof, which leaked.

"So I'm very happy to be here," Galbraith said.

The number of library cardholders has grown from about 12,000 to 15,000 since the new library opened, he said. "That's pretty good in a town of 21,776."

And attendance at library programs has tripled in that time because "we're just able to do better, more varied programming here than there."

To mark the 100th anniversary of Frank Sinatra's birth, for example, the library brought in a Sinatra impersonator, who put on a concert.

The building holds about 112,000 volumes, including children's books, Galbraith said, along with 5,000 DVDs and 1,500 books on CD. "But we're seeing our e-book collection going up and up and up," he said.

E-book use is free to cardholders, who may also download many of the library's core collection of periodicals.

The library is independent of the Burlington County Library system.

Township officials spent about two years debating what to do with the Wells-designed library. Proposals included using it for the police station and municipal court, or as a theater. But the costs of converting it and bringing it up to code proved prohibitive, and the township chose demolition.

Plans call for replacing it with a small park with grass and walkways.

doreilly@phillynews.com

856-779-3841