OTHELLO — The Othello Library is attracting a lot of attention in its new space.

“Everybody comments on how beautiful it is, and how fresh it is, and that it looks great, and that they’re really happy,” Othello Head Librarian Georgia Reitmire said. “One of our customers came in this morning, and she said, ‘Everybody in town is talking about the new library.’ And I thought, ‘That is amazing.’”

The library moved to its new location, 125 E. Hemlock St., in December. While the new and old libraries are about the same size, the new library adds meeting rooms and updated spaces that students can reserve to study.

“We’re way busier than we used to be. Way busier,” said Jenny Nayala, library customer service specialist.

The Othello library is operated through a contract between the Adams County Library District and the Mid-Columbia Libraries system. Designers from MCL took advantage of a new space to redesign the collection.

“We’ve increased the size of the children’s collection, specifically junior graphic novels and junior fiction,” Reitmire said.

She cited the library’s weekly children’s story time as an indication that the library is getting more use.

“We had 55 at story time this last Wednesday, and it was (about) 53 the week before, with lots of new faces,” she said.

Promoting reading for children is one of the focus areas of the Mid-Columbia Libraries system.

“Our focus for our strategic plan is early literacy, and we do a lot of incorporating early literacy strategies into our programs, especially those for preschoolers,” Reitmire said.

Some things haven’t changed – the library still offers plenty of books, large print books, books in Spanish, audiobooks, 10 computers for public use and curbside book pickup. The move hasn’t changed the library program of what Reitmire called the “fun stuff” in an earlier interview.

“We are keeping with our current program schedule with probably some minor adjustments in the future, and of course, we will be adding some extra things,” she said. “We’ll have our preschool program and our elementary program and Lego club and Storytime and crochet club. We will continue with all of our outreach Storytimes, but we’ll do other things, like adding some evening programs for grownups, for families.”

Some are already on the schedule.

“We’ve got speed puzzling coming up on Saturday (Jan.) 24, and in April, there will be a sort of a grown-up crafting program that the programming department is putting on. There will be some other things that we’ll be planning, too,” she said.

The computer area was updated, with more room and study tables. A wall of windows provides daylight without the noise of street traffic that plagued the previous location, a converted bank building.

“Sometimes it was so loud we couldn’t even talk on the phone,” Reitmire said. “This is so much better.”

The new location is the former Columbia Basin Health Association building, which was purchased by Othello business owner Angel Garza and converted to retail spaces, including a gym. Reitmire said the increased foot traffic from gym patrons and people shopping at other businesses has helped the library, too.

“We’ve been making lots of new library accounts,” Reitmire said. “We’ve been updating old accounts. People are finding their way back to the library.”

    Othello Library customer service specialist Jenny Noyola shelves books in the new, updated and upgraded library.
  

    Librarian Georgia Reitmire, right, checks in books for Lutacaga Elementary School teacher Katelyn Daniel, left.