Contact: Noreen Reagan, Library System, 479-4629 or

Betty Schuetzman, Planning & Construction, 479-8305

NEW REGIONAL LIBRARY WILL SERVE EAST COUNTY RESIDENTS

FORT MYERS, Fla. (January 21, 2000) – Lee County has begun construction on a new regional library in Lehigh Acres that will serve east county residents and house the library system’s processing center.

The East County Regional Library will be located at 881 Gunnery Road, just in front of Lehigh Senior High School. The 40,000-square-foot facility will cost $8.5 million and is scheduled to open in the spring of 2001. The state-of-the-art facility will offer advanced computer technology and an extensive collection of 100,000 books, with an emphasis on reference, children’s and young-adult materials. The library will have 40 Internet workstations, a 150-seat meeting room that will be open to the public (even after library hours) and a bookdrop accessible to both pedestrians and automobiles.

The facility will reflect the importance of children to our community. The Youth Services area will be open and bright, with window seating overlooking a natural environment. A story time activity center is planned with a built-in puppet stage surrounded by books, audiotapes and vidoes. And babies and toddlers can enjoy a special room with rocking chairs and board books. The neon-lit Young Adult area is being designed for conversation in small groups, with three study rooms and 10 carrels.

Many Lee County Library System offices will be located at the East County Regional Library, including Acquisitions, Collection Development and Youth Services. The facility also will house the system’s processing center – now located on Metro Parkway – where books and other materials are prepared for public use.

This will be the 12^th facility in the Lee County Library System. The system has its main library location in downtown Fort Myers, three regional libraries (Cape Coral, South County, and the newest, East County) and eight branch libraries. Regional libraries are designed to cover larger geographic areas, and offer more extensive collections, research and reference materials, and access to computer technology and Internet workstations than do branches.

The library system circulates more than 4 million materials and adds 100,000 books, tapes and videos to its collection each year. In the next several years the county also has plans to double the size of the Cape Coral Library from 20,000 square feet to 40,000 square feet and build another regional library to meet demand in the Cypress Lake area south of Fort Myers.