A branch of the D.C. Public Library on Capitol Hill will close next month for a brief but comprehensive renovation project sponsored by a popular magazine for bibliophiles.
The makeover of the main floor of the Southeast Neighborhood Library, an 85-year-old Carnegie building at 403 Seventh St. near Eastern Market, will closethe facility from May 1 to June 23. It will reopen, the library system said, with a new open floor plan, book shelves, furniture, paint color and drywall ceiling, as well as renovated restrooms, updated books and media materials, and 20 public access computers.
The Eastern Market neighborhood will be served by a bookmobile during the closure.
The project is being undertaken by the library system and Library Journal, a magazine for librarians and library directors. Work is expected to be finished in time to showcase the renovated facility to 26,000 members of the American Library Association, which will hold its annual conference June 21 to June 27 at the Washington Convention Center.
The magazine is providing, through its vendors, architectural design services and furnishings. The remaining cost and materials will come from the library system. A library system spokeswoman was unable to say how much the overall projects costs.
“I think it’s wonderful that they’re renovating,” said Ken Jarboe, a Capitol Hill Advisory Neighborhood Commission member and library patron. “The structure is wonderful, but it’s small and it’s not necessarily laid out in the best way, and some of the equipment is antiquated.”
There has been talk in the community about possibly moving the Southeast neighborhood branch to a larger site — perhaps the soon-to-be-closed Hine Junior High School — but the library system has not planned to do so.
Previous Library Journal makeovers include the Queensboro Public Library in New York and the Alvar branch in New Orleans.
The seven-week renovation is a far cry from the five years of work planned at four other neighborhood branches: those in Shaw, Benning, Anacostia and Tenleytown. Those facilities closed in late 2004 and aren’t slated to reopen until early 2010.
