State Library Completes Move

This is a portion of the Stqte Library's temporary home on West Hargett Street. In Temporary Quarters ~ -yi-i-6 СП' 2.2 State Library Completes Move ry\. C - /61 aJ^ bLvinasL^ Carina State libriil § Raleion — — — / By GENE MARLOWE The State Library staff has completed a five-week trek from Capitol Square to West Hargett Street — about a block. "Work?” said State Li¬ brarian Phillip Ogilvie in¬ credulously. “It nearly worked us to death.” His staff took along 160,000 books, 200,000 documents and 8,000 bound newspapers in the moving job completed last Friday. For the first time in half a century, the old State Li¬ brary building— home of the State’s book collection since 1913— hasn’t got a library book in it. The books are in shelves and boxes at tempor¬ ary headquarters in the Green Building, 118 W, Har¬ gett St. The Hargett Street location is being rented for 10 months while the old Library Build¬ ing is renovated to accom¬ modate the Utilities Commis¬ sion and the new Interme¬ diate Court of Appeals and new quarters for the library, archives and history depart¬ ments are constructed near the State House. Ogilvie considers it “some¬ thing of a miracle” that it took only five weeks to move the books, papers and maga¬ zines to West Hargett Street. All 160,000 books are already back in order on the shelves. Several hundred boxes of newspapers and magazines remain stacked up in the aisles, waiting to be un¬ packed. “Give us a few more weeks and we'll have everything right where wc can put our hands on it,” said Ogilvie. The State Library serves as a clearing house for informa¬ tion, reference material and books Cor every school and public library in North Caro¬ lina. Prior to the big move, the State Library warned its cus¬ tomers to expect a delay in service in the anticipated con- lusion. “However, the libraries at the University of North Car¬ olina and N. C. State, and in other metropolitan centers— such as Mecklenburg— were generous enough to readily give what help we might need so that service was al¬ most continuous,” said Ogil¬ vie. Prisoners Helped While it was up to the li¬ brary staff to keep track of the books and make sure they went into the right boxes and back up on the right shelves during the moving interim, the actual physical labor of moving was done by 17 honor grade inmates from Central Prison. “It was a chore,” said Ogil¬ vie. “There were shelves that had to be taken down and moved from that old building that had been standing 50 years. Some of the screws holding them up were not only rusty but put there to stay."