By Shelley Swift | Daily Reporter
NEW PALESTINE — Wednesday marked the first anniversary for the new home of the Sugar Creek Branch of the Hancock County Public Library.
For library director Dave Gray, it seems the past year flew by just as quickly as books have been flying off the shelves at the facility, 5731 W. U.S. 52 in New Palestine.
The 15,000-square-foot building has been a center of activity ever since it opened its doors on Feb. 11, 2019. The building was dedicated on April 7 during National Library Week.
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Since the move, overall traffic at the Sugar Creek Branch jumped 60% compared to the year before.
Roughly 75,000 people have visited the new branch, checking out more than 165,000 items in 2019, a 26% increase of more than 30,000 items over the previous year.
The branch is double the size of its previous location, a former pharmacy about a mile east from the new facility, which was home to the library from 2003 to early 2019.
Patrons love how well lit and open the space is, said branch manager Jeanette Sherfield.
As a 20-year employee, Sherfield has seen her share of growing pains at the branch, and she takes personal pride in showing off the new location.
Patron Gary Halliburton, who lives a quarter-mile from the branch and visits about once a week, was browsing a shelf on a recent day. He said the library has established itself as important community asset.
“I love it here,” Halliburton said. “It’s an amazing facility. “It’s so nice to see the investment the county has made here.”
The Sugar Creek branch includes a large children’s area including a youth programming room, reading nook, kids’ computers and a playhouse purchased by the Hancock County Friends of the Library.
A designated teen section features more study and lounging areas and more meeting and youth programming rooms than the former location.
In its first year, youth program attendance at the branch increased 23%, but it’s not just young people who are being drawn to new facility.
“System-wide, our attendance at events in 2019 increased by 5.87%. For events occurring at the Sugar Creek Branch, our attendance increased by 37.58%,” said Kyle Turpin, marketing manager for the Hancock County Public Library.
Turpin, who manages programming for the library, is especially impressed by how much the new branch’s meeting rooms are being used.
The small programming room at the previous branch was reserved 62 times in 2018, but the new branch’s meeting rooms were used 656 times in 2019, an increase of 958%, he said.
Turpin credits sponsors like Greenfield Banking Co. and Hancock Health for helping create such sizable meeting and programming spaces in the new library.
The 1,850-square-foot community room might be the crown jewel of the branch, providing space for everything from concerts to clubs to cooking classes.
“You have much more floor space here than in Greenfield,” said Dave Gray, surveying the wide open room.
A few programs in the youth room, like Amazon John’s Silly Safari shows, have drawn more people than the same programs at the Greenfield branch, which was previously unheard of.
Turpin said library officials were surprised at what a popular draw the Sugar Creek programming has been since the new library opened.
“We didn’t know how much demand there was for this building until we built it,” he said.
Library officials can’t say for sure how many people the Sugar Creek branch serves, but Gray points out more than 16,000 people live in Sugar Creek township.
The library even draws some patrons from Greenfield and Indianapolis, he said.
The Sugar Creek branch has undergone tremendous growth since it first opened in 1984.
The branch had outgrown its former location at 5087 W. U.S. 52.
From 2012 to 2016, nearly 20,000 more visitors walked through its doors each year, causing parking problems and overcrowded events, Gray said.
The new library, which sits on 5¼ acres, has room to grow, he said.
A sizable green space on the south side of the building can be utilized for concerts and other outdoor events. A paved walking path winds around the outskirts of the property, which connects to the Woodland Terrace senior housing complex.
When accessing the main entrance on the backside of the library, guests stroll by a cluster of bird feeders and book-shaped bike racks situated right outside a covered patio with picnic tables.
A decorative stone outside the entrance honors Dr. Ralph and Grace Rea, whose estate donated $3.5 million in 2017 to build the new branch.
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75,000: Number of visitors who came through the library’s doors in its first year.
165,000: Approximate number of items checked out, an increase of 26% over the previous year.
38%: Increase in attendance at events compared to the year before.
656: Number of times meeting spaces were used, an increase of nearly 1,000% compared to the year before.
Source: Hancock County Public Library
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“We didn’t know how much demand there was for this building until we built it.”
Kyle Turpin, marketing manager, Hancock County Public Library
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