RR Library moves to a new more spacious home: Service Ontario and NCDS move as well

By Ken Johnston
Editor

The Rainy River Public Library has a new home!
Last Wednesday they opened their doors at the corner of Fourth St. and Hwy. 11 in Rainy River. They had been closed for about a week to allow for the move from their long time home down the street next to CIBC.
With about 20 volunteers and help with the big stuff, like shelving units, from the Town Crew, they moved two blocks north to a newer and larger location in the former Lowes Furniture building.
Librarian Sheila McIntosh is very pleased with the new space which she feels will be more usable than their old location. “There people often came in the door and never went much farther. I think many were not even aware of how much space we actually had there.” She noted that the old building had many smaller chopped up rooms. The new library has an open air concept. When you walk in the door you can see just about the entire facility, which is very inviting.
There are now open areas for tables, something that McIntosh said they did not have before. They have also spread the computers throughout the library, whereas before they were packed into a corner like sardines. “I think that will allow people to work better on the computers,” said McIntosh.
The new library also is now a Wi-Fi hot-spot, which means people can bring in their laptop computers and access the internet for free.
They also have a great deal of usable storage space in the back and in the basement.
There is now a Young Adult section and the non-fiction books are readily accessible. “I don’t think some people even knew we had non-fiction before as they were beyond the front of the library.”
At the back of the new library there is also office space for the NCDS Skills Development people. They used to be located in the old duty-free building and had to move at the same time as the Service Ontario Office when the building was purchased by the Rainy River Playschool Inc.
Service Ontario is also in the old Lowes building, having moved there in July. Long time employee there, Sherri Pirkl said they were at the old location for 31 years. She does like the new location, which has about three times the space they used to have. Service Ontario offers access to all Ontario Government services as well as some federal ones. New to the new location, they now sell hunting and fishing licenses. Pirkl said the location has seen their traffic go up by about three times.
All three groups are planning to have an Open House/Grand Re-opening in the next few weeks. In the mean time the public is invited to stop by and see the facility.
Service Ont. is open normal business hours from Mon-Fri. The Library is open 12:30-5:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri, 12:30-7:30 p.m. on Thurs. and Sat. 11 a.m.-2 p.m. NCDS has office hours on Tuesdays.