Library Branch Named in Honor of MLK Preparing to Close, Reopen Down the Street

COLUMBUS (WCMH) -- Back in 2008, the Columbus Metropolitan Library Board set in motion a master plan to update its facilities in the face of population growth in central Ohio.

The tenth facility to get an upgrade will be the Martin Luther King branch on East Long Street.

The building the library uses right now will be closed and its resources moved to a brand new building about a block away.

The new facility will be twice as large and set up to accommodate the needs of people that libraries are evolving to meet.

Monday, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty visited the branch to sign a panel as part of tradition.

The panel will be installed at the new facility once its surface is covered with signatures from the public.

Beatty was the first to sign the panel followed by several others.

The move is set to begin October 10th with the new facility opening its doors to the public on October 18th.

It has been announced that Martin Luther King III will be in attendance. The branch will be keeping its name through the move.

"In November 1968, our library board was the first in the nation to dedicate a public library in remembrance of Martin Luther King," said Library Board CEO, Patrick Losinski. "Almost all of these buildings were built before computers, before the internet, before the types of services that we‘re providing in the libraries today, so it's really just modernizing a good portion of the stock of our libraries."

Losinski says the new facility will have much more space for after-school homework help, meeting rooms for the public, and an expanded children's area which in the current facility is quite small.

This article was originally published by WCMH-NBC4 on September 10, 2018.