AUBURN – The empty rooms of the Auburn Public Library echoed Monday afternoon with chatter of longtime patrons, interested citizens and staff members. They were taking a final look at the interior of the historic 1904 building that is to be restored and enlarged in coming months.

“I can’t believe it’s so empty,” said one visitor at the one-hour open house. People who had visited the library many times through the past century were seeing wonderful details of architecture that had become hidden or overwhelmed by crowded stacks of books.

A beautiful and massive wooden balcony was now visible near the high ceiling of the former reference books room. That space will become “the grand reading room” of the remodeled library, said Rosemary Waltos, library director. It will be returning to its original use as a reading room.

At the entrance to the stacks, which were open to the public before the books were moved out to make way for construction, Waltos showed the eight-foot high original copper pocket doors which had not been seen for a long time. The doors, near the second floor reference desk, originally the circulation desk, once closed off the stacks from the public.

“We couldn’t get them to move until, finally, we were able to pull them out of those pockets,” she said.

Waltos described the new library’s community meetings rooms, space for 50 computers and a computer classroom for the public, and many other features of the project to open house visitors.

“There will be a lot more space for people to be social and for quiet study,” she said.

“Everyone is saying it’s great,” Waltos said. “I think people were really thrilled to come here today and see the great woodwork and to go to the third floor where they could look out on the grounds.”

The glass floors of the stack room were of particular interest to Alan and Roberta Elze of Auburn, who came to see the rooms before construction begins.

“There’s a lot of architectural value here,” he said. “Some of these arches are just great.” Pointing to the cleared-out reference room with the high balcony, he said, “As many times as I’ve been in that room, I had never seen that woodwork.”

“It seems so strange to see this wide open, but it’s really such a neat building,” said Debbie Cleveland, children’s department clerk. “I like that they’re keeping the design. We’re going to have a lot more space that we needed. I can’t wait to see it.”

“I suppose I should be nostalgic, but I’m not,” said John Kelley, a familiar face behind the library’s circulation desk for years. “I’m excited about what’s coming.”

Toni Ramsey, a library board member, also greeted open house visitors.

“We’re very happy with the response we’ve had to the open house,” she said. “We hope people will go up to library at the Auburn Mall and continue participating until the new building opens.”

Most of the library’s book collection was moved in recent weeks to space at the Auburn Mall, where circulation services, computers and audio/video loans will be offered.

The temporary library opened Monday and a lot of curious people stopped in to see how the operation will work over the next 18 months of construction at the Court and Spring streets site. Bus service from the Great Falls Plaza to Auburn Mall has been arranged to make access to the temporary location more convenient.