Megan Garrett recently took over as manager of the Westport Branch of the Kansas City Public Library.
The library in Westport, the first city public library built in 1898, has a new manager and plans for modern upgrades.
Manager Megan Garrett, 29, has painters at work and plans for more change.
A tiny version of the Westport Library sits in a library window.
Shifted there from the library in Sugar Creek about two months ago, she recently led a tour of her new digs.
Many adults sat at downstairs computers (they have 14 total) at the library that is smaller than many others.
She hopes by summer to take out some shelves downstairs and make larger and more comfortable seating areas, she said.
The downstairs section holds non-fiction, mysteries, large print books, westerns and what is called urban fiction, a kind of city core urban lifestyle genre.
Going upstairs, you pass a plaque that tells why the building still has the name of Arthur M. Allen above its outside doors.
He discovered a $7,500 tax surplus and used it to buy the land and build the library. The Westport School Board that Allen was on gave $2,000 to stock it with books.
Not long after that, Kansas City annexed Westport and the library became the first branch of the Kansas City Public Library system.
Electric lights replaced gas lights in 1912, the building was renovated in 1999 and the library has survived an unpopular past suggestion to close it.
Further upstairs is a large community meeting room. “I really think this space has lots of potential,” Garrett said. “They want to do an upgrade and give some audio and visual equipment.”
Non-profits can book the space for free and others can get it at reasonable rates, she said.
A mezzanine floor includes audio books and others but changes are in store, she said.
“I’d like to take the adult fiction collection from here to downstairs,” she said. “That’s prime real estate – that’s where it needs to be.”
Big changes are also coming to the Westport library and others in the city public library system on Feb. 15, when they start providing Hoopla digital service. It will provide the library users with free streaming access to movies and music. https://www.hoopladigital.com/home
When it comes to free stuff, Garrett said, librarians “are the bleeding hearts of everything – we don’t want to take your money if we don’t have to.”
Appropriately enough for a library with many homeless among its clients, they also do a yearly “food for fines” drive when they knock money off library fines for those who donate cans of food.
“That’s my favorite day,” she said.
I am affiliated with a non-profit org. called Kansas City Ragtime Revelry–I used to be on the board. We produce ragtime and early jazz concerts. We used to have them at the Community Christian Church until they became too expensive. Now we have them at Californos in Westport. BUT THE MEETING ROOM UPSTAIRS IN THE WESTPORT LIBRARY SOUNDS LIKE A POSSIBLE NEW VENUE FOR KCRR!!!!! I’ll be keeping posted on what’s going on at the Westport Library.