Nitty Gritty Moving-In Planning Begins

BCPL's Facilities department has been the lead contact department for the project. Since the new building will be owned by the County, not the library, the head of Facilities has been working closely with the Baltimore County Department of Public Works throughout the project. A work group composed of current Perry Hall branch staff, the head of Facilities, and staff from the library's Graphics Production, Collection Development, Purchasing, and Technology Support departments met intermittently to discuss various issues.

Once construction of the new library began, the work group had another rest until March or April of 2008. At that time, branch staff began making lists of tasks that needed to be done by the time we opened in the new building. We used the standard BCPL Planning chart to create a timeline of the tasks. The chart helped us to organize the tasks by the month in which they needed to be completed. It also helped us to remain alert to responses needed from Administrative Offices staff about various tasks.

In May 2008 our Collection Development department began negotiations with vendors about buying the opening day collection. The money for our materials wouldn't be released until July 1, 2008, but the department needed to have its processes in place so orders could go in immediately on that date.

Branch staff were encouraged to begin cleaning out personal and branch files so that only necessary files and belongings would be moved to the new building. Librarians were encouraged to weed aggressively for condition so that we won't need to weed as we are boxing the collection.