The two-block move down Friend Street has been a long and winding one for the county library. But that move is completed Sunday, and should be a cause for celebration far beyond the confines of that downtown block.

For starters, the space. The new building takes the county library from 7,000 square feet to 22,000 square feet in capacity. This expansion is about more than physical parameters. This expansion represents a commitment to information and learning for and by our community. Even without knowing the back story of the struggle to provide a new state-of-the-art library, visitors can take one look at the new building sitting at the new deadend of McKibben Street and know—this county is serious about their library. That is better advertisement than any billboard.

One thing that was never at question for the majority of citizens was whether or not the county wanted and needed an expanded library. The question was not “if,” but “where” and “how.” County voters made it clear when they voted in the latest penny sales tax levy for capital improvements—with the library as the star project—that they wanted more.

For the first eight months of 2005, citizens, businesspeople and officials argued the merits of many different sites for the library. The city offered help of many sorts for the building to be built within its limits. And many offered opinions on saving historic buildings, making the facility convenient and safe for everyone and what was the priority for the site—good for the county’s pocketbook, good for the taxpayers’ convenience, or good for the cityscape. Quite often it seemed the project would get bogged down forever in this morass of opinions. Thankfully, it did not. The legal demands of building a project through a penny sales tax referendum helped push the decision through to an endpoint. And in the end, county council attempted to pick a place that satisfied all three priorities to some extent. We are pleased, if only for this: it is done now, and it is fabulous, and of all the many projects we have done as a county in the last decade, this library is definitely someplace we all can enjoy.

Yes, there are some lingering questions. The more than $1 million privately donated to the project when it was at a standstill because of a shortfall between the penny proceeds and the estimated cost was in land, not money. The county still has to sell that land which it borrowed against to keep the project in motion. And yes, this is not a great time to sell property in the United States. But we have waited a long time to put a county library in a new, fabulous location. We may have to wait this out too. If time shows the building to be well-designed and well-used, it will seem a small price to pay. Expanding our opportunities for knowledge and for learning, not to mention free multimedia entertainment, that is something worth paying for, even in tight times. Dust off those old library cards, or go get one, and find your way to the new building on Friend Street, because the county library is back in business, big time.