GRAND REOPENING: Ferriday library completes remodel

FERRIDAY, La. — Around 200 people attended the grand reopening of the Concordia Parish Library’s Ferriday branch on Wednesday, Aug. 28.

The event follows a slow but extensive renovation of the entire library over the past two years, said Library Director Amanda Taylor.

“We started looking to do this when COVID started but our board tabled the project because of the pandemic,” she said. “We started back two years ago and it took a while. It took time to get things in that had been ordered and also because I would not close. We just moved from section to section while keeping the library open … gradually finishing each section until it all came together.”

Taylor said all of the parish libraries were designed by the same library architect firm in Dallas, Texas and Wilmar Construction beautifully executed the remodel.

The Ferriday library opened in its present location in 1952. The Concordia Parish Library is the second oldest Parish Library in Louisiana and the first to be tax-supported.

Taylor said the library operated within its budget and saved enough to fully fund the renovation project.

“I’ve been here a long time and I saved the money and it’s all paid for,” she said. “Construction is expensive. We get a millage and I’ve had the same millage for 30 years. It’s a matter of just managing the money. We have a conservative board.”

The first major change to the library was the addition of a new garage and program room, which hosts summer programming for as many as 175 to 200 parish children at one time.

“Sometimes in the summer we would have almost 200 children for the summer program and that’s a lot of warm little bodies in one room and our air conditioning couldn’t cool them down,” Taylor said. “The program room was a top priority. The garage is designed so that the artist can pull in up the ramp and they’re in the program room,” ready to stage their puppet show or magic show or live reptile exhibition.

Another thing the library needed, Taylor said, was more seating areas as well as private meeting rooms a classroom and a conference room. The small meeting rooms allow citizens privacy for private discussions such as their income or social security numbers when applying for SNAP program benefits, she said.

A new conference room seats eight people and there is also a new lab for the free technology classes that the library offers to adults with “an 82-inch television to display PowerPoint presentations that everyone can clearly see,” Taylor said.

New tables and chairs with outlets were added and the stacks were “weeded” and lowered to allow more natural light into the library, “so it’s easy to see what you would like to check out,” she said.

New, comfortable furniture was also added to the children’s book area, what Taylor likes to call “the mom chairs” for children’s reading time.

The entrance had also been finished with new floor tile and the ceiling raised to greet library patrons with the new look.

“The entire building got a redo,” Taylor said.

The library is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 8:30 to 12. On Saturdays, the adult technology classes are free to the public. The library also houses many other community functions like concerts, lectures and other special programs.

For those who can’t partake in live programming, there are also month-long virtual programs on the library website, concordialibrary.org.

“We’re about to start one on Ronald Regan,” Taylor said of the virtual program. “Everything we do is free and open to the public. We work with the public and that is our job. The nice thing about public libraries is you don’t really have to have a reason to come. People just come in, read the newspaper, use our free WiFi and just enjoy the environment. We have a great library staff on board and everyone is very caring of the public.”

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