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| Placitas embarks on new chapter for library |
December 13, 2005 |
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By Ollie Reed Jr.
Tribune Reporter
 If you happen to be in Placitas on a Sunday and see the American flag flapping above the former mechanics garage that serves as the Placitas Community Library, drop in.
The flag means Don Clark, Placitas resident and library board member, is there with coffee and doughnuts and waiting for company.
"He`s been there almost every Sunday for the last couple of months," said Sue Strasia, president of Placitas Community Library Inc.
Placitas is an unincorporated area with about 6,000 people to the northeast of Albuquerque.
Clark`s Sunday coffee-and-doughnut hospitality is a move in the direction of Strasia`s hopes for a Placitas library like the one she grew up with in the Village of Corrales, a place where children and adults can come not only to find books but to find each other.
"I wanted a place to borrow books, not buy them, a place I could go to without having to fight traffic," said Strasia, who has lived in Placitas for more than 13 years. "But I also wanted a place where I could meet my neighbors. We`re kind of spread out here."
Strasia`s dream for a library that would provide a heart as well as books for her community got a huge boost this week when Rep. Heather Wilson, an Albuquerque Republican, announced she has secured $350,000 toward the design and construction of a permanent Placitas library building.
"Sometimes you embark on a mission like this and don`t quite know how it will work out," Strasia said in reaction to the news. "Rep. Wilson has delivered in a way we never imagined, and now this project is well on its way."
The $350,000 is included in this year`s Housing and Urban Development funding bill.
Strasia said the federal money, combined with $50,000 in state funds, garnered through the efforts of state Sen. Kent Cravens, an Albuquerque Republican, and state Rep. Kathy McCoy, a Cedar Crest Republican, is enough to design and construct the first stages of a permanent building.
"We are looking at a 3,600 square-foot facility with a design that will allow growth," she said.
She is hoping groundbreaking could happen as soon as September, but that`s contingent on the Sandoval County Commission finalizing the purchase of 16 acres on N.M. 165 west of the Placitas fire station. Four of those acres would be devoted to the library and its grounds.
Until then, the library will continue to occupy the old mechanics garage at 1 Tierra Madre Road in Placitas, its home since May 2004.
Books at the library are still listed in a card catalog and volunteer librarians stamp due dates on books by hand.
But Strasia said the library has made great strides since it opened.
"We are filled to the brim with books," she said. "We have a phone (867-3355). We have free high-speed Internet access, provided by a Placitas company. We have Web service provided by and hosted by another company. We have the only public copy machine in Placitas. And we now have a system to code books, so we should be able to catalog and check out books electronically soon."
The library is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays - or anytime the American flag is flying above it.
View KOB TV news story |
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