By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Renovations are nearing the end as the Lewiston Public Library closes Monday for the next two weeks.

That gives library workers time to move the entire fiction collection and the new circulation department to the first floor. “We’re actually handling more than 69,000 volumes, moving them to a new location in the building,” said Director Rick Speer. That’s more than half of the city’s collection, he said.

The entire adult fiction section will move to the first floor from a small second-floor space behind the reference section.

The library will reopen on Aug. 29. A makeshift tunnel that connected Lisbon Street to the elevator will be gone. A new entrance, at the corner of Lisbon and Pine streets, will take patrons in to the circulation desk, and a new stairway will lead to upper floors.

The renovation also gives the library a second-floor historical records archive and a third-floor meeting and performance space with room for 150 people. The city hopes to store historical records from the Franklin Co. and Bates Mill in a new archive there.

The library will be taking phone calls at the 784-0135 number. Patrons may have books set aside and held for pick-up at the human resources office on the basement floor of Lewiston City Hall. Patrons may also borrow books at the Auburn Public Library.

Books may be dropped at the drive-through book drop in the alley behind the library and at the Pine Street book drop.

The library will have new banners decorating the entrances along Lisbon and Pine streets, Speer said. Four gold cloth banners, 23 feet tall and 2 feet wide, will hang from the top floors.

“They’ve been delivered, and we just need the brackets for them to go up,” Speer said. They should be in place in early September, he said.

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