Visitors — and there are expected to be thousands of them during the opening weekend — will get a long-anticipated look at what some local officials have already hailed as a marvel of design and innovation.
The $64 million project is changing the face of a section of East Third Street downtown, and library officials hope it will provide game-changing opportunities for the community.
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Here are some of the most interesting facts about the size of the new library, as well as the (smaller) facility it replaces.
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Size and Age
Space and parking. The old building was 130,000 square feet in size. The new facility is 224,000 square feet. And the facility offers 120,000 square feet of public space, four times the amount (30,000) in the old building.
Was replaced once before. The old library was built in 1962, replacing a building constructed in 1888.
Amount of steel used. The new library was constructed with 660 tons of steel, as well as 1,000 cubic yards of concrete.
Abundant natural light. The old library had 300 window panes. The new building has more than 1,000. The inside of the new library will be flooded with natural light since it has 23,000 square feet of exterior window glass, compared with 8,000 square feet in the old facility.
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Sit. Learn. Play.
Library officials weren’t kidding when they said the new library would have more of everything.
Want a place to sit? The old building had 310 chairs to park in. The new library will have 1,652.
Blazing fast internet. The new library will have 135 computers with Internet access, an increase of 175 percent from the old. The Internet also will be fast: 1000 MB/s (gigabyte), compared to the 200 MB/s it was before.
All of the collection will be on display. In the old library, just half of the Dayton Metro Library's collection in circulation was available for browsing. The library had to keep books in a basement storage area and bring them up when people requested them. In the new facility, the complete collection will be out on the shelves.
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Miles of shelves. The new library will have nearly three miles of fixed shelving, holding more than 335,000 volumes of materials.
The library will have 2,210 pieces of furniture, not to mention six commissioned pieces of art, including the Fractal Rain installation that weighs 1,000 pounds. It will also have 3,768 prisms and 389 Swarovski crystals and hangs down from the ceiling.
| By the Numbers | ||
|---|---|---|
| New | Old | |
| Meeting rooms available | 23 | 5 |
| Maximum occupancy of largest meeting room | 299 | 105 |
| Number of chairs | 1652 | 310 |
| Collection available for browsing | 100% | 50% |
| Sq. ft. of exterior window galss | 23,300 | Less than 8,000 |
| Window panes | More than 1,000 | 300 |
| Computers with internet access | 135 | 50 |
| Internet service | 1000 mb/s | 200 mb/s |
| Monitors and projectors | 33 | 1 |
| Steps in Central Staircase | 71 | 28 |
| Staff | 158 (including operations center) | 142 |
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