In this first episode of a two-part series, Lisa Oldham, the President and CEO of New Canaan Library, and Miki Porta, the Environmental Social Governance (ESG) Coordinator for the New Canaan Library, discuss the design and construction process for their new library, which opened in February 2023. From fundraising 75% of the total project cost to participating as a pilot with Grace Farms’ Design for Freedom initiative, their project involved some rare and unique circumstances and elements. Learn more about the intentional decisions made to foster a holistic approach to sustainability and the impact of the built environment on people. For photos of the library, visit the ALA Library Design Showcase, for which New Canaan Library was selected as an exemplary climate-conscious project.
In this first episode of a two-part series, Lisa Oldham, the President and CEO of New Canaan Library, and Miki Porta, the Environmental Social Governance (ESG) Coordinator for the New Canaan Library, discuss the design and construction process for their new library, which opened in February 2023. From fundraising 75% of the total project cost to participating as a pilot with Grace Farms’ Design for Freedom initiative, their project involved some rare and unique circumstances and elements. Learn more about the intentional decisions made to foster a holistic approach to sustainability and the impact of the built environment on people. For photos of the library, visit the ALA Library Design Showcase, for which New Canaan Library was selected as an exemplary climate-conscious project.
Thank you for tuning in to Building
Literacy:Public Library Construction. My name is Andrea Bono-Bunker and together with my colleague Lauren Stara, we administer the Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program for the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. While most of the content on this podcast has a Massachusetts focus, there is something for every stakeholder in a public library construction project. To ask us follow up questions or suggest episode ideas, please contact me at andrea.bunker@mass.gov We hope you find this episode inspiring and informative. We are veering from our norm and featuring a library and another New England state. New Canaan Public Library in Connecticut opened its new building to the public in February of 2023. Their process involves some unique elements and in order to capture the experience well, this is the first of two episodes on their project. We are pleased to be joined by Lisa Oldham and Miki Porta. Thank you both for being here and for sharing your journey with us.
Lisa Oldham:Hi, my name is Lisa Oldham, I am the president and CEO of New Canaan library in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Miki Porta:And I'm Miki Porta. I am the ESG coordinator at New Canaan library. That stands for environmental social governance.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:And we're so excited to have you both here today to discuss your library, your process, and really all of the intentional decisions that have been made throughout your design, your construction, and then in a later episode, your services in those very intentional spaces that you created through this process. So starting off, we thought we would give our listeners an idea of the library that you inhabited before this project was completed, so they know where you are coming from, how you moved away from that, and where you are now with this intentional design and construction project.
Lisa Oldham:Sure. Our former building, the site became available to the then library in the early 20th century. And it was a small constrained site on which they built a about 2500 square foot stone building. By the 30s, it needed expanding and they put a small addition on to the north. By the 50s, it was entirely not big enough, and they put a major addition to the west. By then they had acquired a neighboring property, which allowed them to expand in that direction, and they more than doubled the size. And then by the 70s. Again, the building was not big enough, and they put another large addition to the south, having acquired property in that direction by then. And that more than doubled again, the size of the building. So what we were working in was about 37,000/38,000 square feet of space, but it had been cobbled together over 100 years. It had three separate HVAC systems working within it. It had something in excess of 25% of the square footage was given over to mechanical type activities. And then, in addition, there were all of these empty unusable spaces under the building that were a consequence of the mashing up of these different additions. So we were operating in a little bit more than half of that 38,000 square feet, but it wasn't designed for modern purposes at all, and the bits didn't work together either. So while we were trying to get everything moving on this new building, we were also trying to be as thoughtful as we could be about the use of space in the old building. And the expression you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear is apt here. We did our best to adapt to that old building for modern library purposes, but it was really difficult.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:Can you tell us a little bit about the community you serve? Just basic demographics within New Canaan?
Lisa Oldham:We're about 20,000 people, very heavily with family units, so young families move here. The typical story of New Canaan is a young family moves out of the city or elsewhere in the country and moves up here where they can have a larger section and a house rather than apartment and take advantage of the good schools here in the community. So it's a very family-oriented community. It's a very close-knit community. It's a very affluent community. And with that come really high expectations on all of the services delivered in town including the library.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:I think that context of where you're coming from in terms of the building, which I think many of our listeners can probably relate to that piecemeal bandaid approach of addition after addition, trying to add more space. But it doesn't always end up in usable space for your community and understanding the community that you're serving. And that helps us understand better the goals that you had for this new library that you inhabit and bring to life through your services. What kind of spaces were desired to meet community and staffing needs, what kind of goals did you have for this library building before and during design?
Lisa Oldham:I'll start with one really community driven one, which is meeting space and study space. Our old building had one 200 person auditorium, it was below ground, it had no windows. And as a consequence of the many additions, the air circulation actually was either on in the auditorium, and therefore off in the rest of the building, or vice versa. So we could only ever turn on the air in the auditorium at the last minute, because we took away the heating or cooling from the rest of the building. And then we had another small meeting room that you could put about 25 people in there for a meeting, we knew there was so much demand for more meeting space, so that was a big driver. Staff accommodation was really dire. I had an office in the original stone building, which was lovely and adequate, more than adequate, it was even too big. But so many of our team were working in spaces that had been closets or an old closed stack. We had six people in one small office space that had been designed for about three. We had people working in an attic space above the children's library. Our collections team worked in the basement in pretty dismal conditions. So getting really nice space for the back office work for all of our team was really important to us. And then space for the collections, obviously a really important consideration for any library. But as we are a small community library serving a very high level of readership public having really good shelving space, and ample room for the shelving, so that we don't have all of our books crammed in, spine out- lots of room to do face-out display, really taking from the retail industry, the retail book industry, in terms of our thinking for all of our new latest books. And then in our children's room, a really high priority was to get our entire picture book collection face-out so that all of our pre-literate readers could have real personal agency as they choose the books they want. We obviously all know how important it is that when our early readers or pr-readers have agency and wonderful experiences with reading that it helps with their entire reading and literacy development. So that was really important because we needed shelves that were low and that could handle the face out books, which takes up a lot more floor space. Then on to programming, there was originally a call for an auditorium with tiered seating and a flat-floored multipurpose room. We quickly decided that we could not afford both of those spaces, and instead went for a flat-floored auditorium that was really well designed so that if you were person 300 In the back of the room, you could see and hear just as well. So that put the pressure on design of the stage, design of the lighting, and the acoustics had to be really top notch so that we could maximize that space.
Miki Porta:I think one of the goals was sustainability over all the spaces. So those were the spaces, but then how do you build those spaces. And sustainability was always a big concern of Lisa's prior to arriving at you can library, and it's also a concern of many of us here. So that was just like baked in, you know, from the electrical, to the daylighting, to the choices of materials and even just the footprint. Like how much space do you really need, because you have to heat and cool that space. And you have to staff that space. I mean, sustainability also involves financial sustainability. So I would say that's a thread running through all of it.
Lisa Oldham:All of that. And an area of sustainability that maybe we don't think about all the time, but I alluded to it in the fact that we don't have both a tiered auditorium and a flat-floored multipurpose room. The goal was that every single space has to earn its keep just like every book has to earn its place on the shelf, and, you know, it gets weeded if it's not being used, so too the spaces. So we wanted the spaces to be designed in such a way that they get reconfigured and reused all day every day. We had a mantra as we went through this, that there should be no space that sits idle. Even our auditorium can be divided up so that we can make all sorts of different use of that space.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:And that flexibility is key, because you had really planned this project prior to the pandemic, and being able to shift and utilize spaces in different ways is really important when we find ourselves in unprecedented times. Before you joined the library, Lisa, there had already been movement within the design phase for this project, correct?
Lisa Oldham:Yes, probably about six months before I joined, the architects had come on board. And they worked with my predecessor to put together a group of about 40 people from across the community. And by design, that group was meant to have library supporters, library detractors, people from town government, people from across the community. The goal was to get a broad cross section of people to meet, and the architects led for full day sessions over the space of the month of September 2012. They did sort of Charette exercises, but they started with what is really important to you, the community, in a library, and help them think through all of that. So each time they remet, there would be a new iterative set of sketches based on what they had learned in the previous session. And then the participants would react to those. And then there would be another set of activities to try to glean more intel out of the collective on what we wanted with the library.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:So it wasn't necessarily a formal library building program, like we require in our particular Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program. But there was a lot of community engagement throughout the process to elicit that feedback from the community about the design and about the services that they were seeking. It sounds like it grew organically through that process.
Lisa Oldham:That's right. They landed on a final design for that phase. It was very, very large. And so one of the things Miki mentioned is being sensible about how much space we really need. So one of the first things that I did with the architect was to really refine the building program and looked at what can we take out. So, for instance, if we can design it really well, we don't need both an auditorium with tiered seating and a multipurpose room; we can make one space do both. Drawn into this was a drive-up checkout desk, and I really questioned how that would work, apart from all other things, practical reasons. So we quickly actually got rid of that. So we were able to pare back inessential items that we all then agreed were inessential. And the flexibility, yes. Living with a building that had evolved over time and really didn't suit the needs of a library in terms of being able to deliver services, in itself was a driver, because the lack of flexibility that we inherited, made it very compelling for me, but everyone else on the team to think about who's going to be working in the library in 100 years. We're here with a 100 year old building, and it's not working. How can we make sure we do our best for the future library? How can we design spaces that however library services evolve, it will still make sense or enable them future librarians to do their job.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:And that is part of that future-planning piece. And it was lucky that with the older building, there were parcels that were purchased or you got them through a bequest, as you went along, to give you more space. Now is the building that you currently inhabit, is that a building that can be added on to in the future if needed?
Lisa Oldham:That's an interesting question. I overheard someone saying the other day that this building will never have an addition. I don't know if it can, it doesn't look obvious to me how that could happen. We did buy an additional three parcels after the 70s edition went on. And our new building, primarily the bulk of the building, the main massing, sits on land that was only purchased in the last 15 years. And where our old building was is now a green. So while we actually now own almost an entire block in the town, we inhabit all of it with the building and the green. And the green is almost an acre of beautifully designed green space where we intend to continue to grow our programming and our services in the outdoor spaces.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:And that's definitely a lesson from the pandemic, being able to use your exterior spaces and outdoor spaces as much as your interior spaces for providing services. So even though it is seen as open land in some ways, it's an extension of your building. That's interesting. It's kind of acting as an addition to your current physical footprint of the building of that space.
Lisa Oldham:Yeah.
Miki Porta:Yeah. And I think it's part of, since the building itself is a teaching tool, there's so much learning happening inside the container. But the container itself is instructive, because of all the different decisions that we made about the sustainable features for this building. The green is the same thing. It's a model for people to come and see what's possible with rain gardens, what's possible with native plants, what's possible to become part of the pollinator pathway, you know. how to minimize your lawn. And you can use it for active learning, but also just passive learning. People just walk through it, and the space communicates the message.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:I think this is a really great segue into another area of sustainability that you undertook throughout this project, and that really was incorporated at a later stage in the design process. Because of your location, you have a nonprofit organization called Grace Farms. And they have this Design forFreedom initiative. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what that is, how they got involved in your project, and what the elements that became incorporated into your project were from that partnership.
Miki Porta:So Sharon France of Grace Farms has always been, Grace Farms has always been very involved in the issue of human trafficking. From the time that they opened their doors, they devoted a lot of attention to that. And, actually, were instrumental in passing legislation in Connecticut to make it more difficult for human traffickers to move people up and down I 95. So this was an early interest of theirs, and over time, since they have a very beautiful building themselves, Sharon got interested in the issue of human trafficking in the building process, because the construction industry is rife with forced labor, modern slavery. So it's very difficult to get at that problem, because building and design construction, it's very disaggregated. But that's what they're doing. They're basically trying to build a certification process, much like LEED certification is to sustainability, this design for freedom process will do the same for forced labor to build some transparency into the building supply chain. So Sharon contacts Lisa, you know, both of them very visionary, inspirational leaders, and said to Lisa, you know, "were you aware that this is an issue? We're trying to make progress on it? And would you agree to become a pilot project, our first pilot project in the United States?" And of course, I mean, Lisa, I don't even know how long that conversation took for you to say yes, you just immediately said yes. And what Lisa said to me was, how could I not say yes, I mean, once you hear that you can't unhear it. So we signed on, and nothing really existed yet. So when people say, "Oh, so you're a design for Freedom Project? What does that mean? Is your building slave free? Are all the materials, do they have some kind of special certification?" And the answer is we're the guinea pigs. We basically opened up our building process, so that design for freedom could try tracking 30 different components in a building of this size. So 30 is like a very small amount. But we worked with our construction company, Turner, to identify things that would be really hard. We didn't want to do just all the low hanging fruit that if we looked at it on a spreadsheet, we could pat ourselves on the back and say,"Oh, this is all like, totally kosher. You know, we know where this came from. It's clean, it's good." We made it intentionally difficult to track because the idea was, how do you go out there and say, this is a thing now this is a priority, we care. So Turner basically had to go to their subcontractors, whether it was a bolt, whether it was, you know, a lightning component, whether it was a material and say, "Okay, so can you trace this? How far back can you trace this?" And just really trial and error trying to design a process, design a system for how to move forward.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:And that work is still in progress, correct? The creation of that database and certification?
Miki Porta:Oh, absolutely. This is an uneducated guess, but I think it's going to be in progress for many, many years because it's so difficult. Once you're satisfied that the supply chain for this one component that you followed is clean, you know by the following week, that can be a completely different ballgame. Because those materials can be sourced or changed hands at so many different junctures. So it's complex. It's very complex. But one of the great takeaways for us and for Design for Freedom for all involved was that through our involvement with this movement, Turner Construction has signed on to the movement, and they are one of the, you know, largest, most respected construction firms in the world. So I think it's really about also like a reputational advantage. Like, do you want to be on this team? Or do you not want to be on this team and who wouldn't want to be on this team? So we're really proud to have linked arms with all these folks. And there were many who, you know, had already joined on. But I think that that movement is gaining speed.
Lisa Oldham:Last I heard there was a museum somewhere in India, that had signed up. So another bigger project, and I'm not at liberty to say who, but I was asked to speak at length to a university here in the US, that is planning some major construction and are hoping to sign on as well.
Miki Porta:Right.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:So that's wonderful that it's moving even beyond the borders of Connecticut to a more national scale, but also an international scale. And because it really is an international issue. You know, obviously, our manufacturing in the United States is not as robust, but the sourcing of all those raw materials, we don't have all of them at our disposal here. With a construction team signing on, you know, you have Turner Construction as a general contractor, what was it like with the subcontractors in that process?
Miki Porta:That's a good question. They had to kick a lot of tires, you know, they tried many different approaches. They would go to their sub and say, you know, at first, like just trying to have a conversation. And sometimes they were met with resistance to a conversation. So sometimes then it was like, alright, let's send a survey or something in writing that they can just fill in, you know, let's have two or three questions. And some responded more to the written, some responded more to the conversation, some didn't respond at all. Some responded, I think in good faith, saying, like, we really, you know, we've tried, and this is as far as we can go. And some were very skeptical, like, oh, no, you know, this is all good. It's all clean, it's good. It's from Canada, or whatever, you know, astock response. But I think based on what they were getting back, they would just try different approaches. And sometimes it meant even our lead architect writing a personal letter to the director of one of the companies, like it might have been the glass, it was for the glass, because he knew him personally from having worked on other projects. And we weren't getting anywhere with the sub, so we thought, alright, well, let's try it. Maybe if the top two people talk to each other, you know what will happen? So it was kind of like a let's try it all, let's not rule anything out.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:And obviously, those subs are going to go on to other jobs with other general contractors. And even if those jobs aren't requiring this level of detail from them, they still have this in the back of their minds as something to be thinking about so.
Miki Porta:Absolutely, absolutely. It's awareness raising, you know, it's signaling, it's sending a signal like, Oh, our client, you know, really cares about this, and Turner cares about this, so this isn't the last you're going to hear about this. And actually, that was one of the pitches was join us. We weren't trying to catch them out. You know, we were saying, Look, don't be afraid, we're asking you to join us to get in on the ground floor of this much like where LEED was 30 years ago, this is your opportunity to be one of the trailblazers. So that was the tone.
Lisa Oldham:And you're right, the awareness raising is so important, because so many people, we haven't talked about this yet, but this project, were not a municipal library. And so at that time, as we were starting, we were anticipating fundraising the entire $40 million. In the end, our municipality did give us a grant for $10 million, but we fundraised $30 million. And so we would use the various group meetings where we would be speaking to community members during the fundraising, to talk about the Design for Freedom Project, one because we were very proud about it, and it was a point of difference. And we knew that there would be people in the community for whom hearing about the Design for Freedom Project might get them more interested in the project overall. And it was astonishing to discover, or maybe not that astonishing, so many people reacted by saying, "What do you In modern slavery? What do you mean forced labor?" It is not something that people are very aware of. And that was our promise to Grace Farms and Design for Freedom from the beginning was, whatever else becomes a design for freedom in this project, we absolutely commit to spreading the word, shining a light on the issue of forced labor around the world and forced labor in the supply chain, specifically around construction.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:And did you hear from donors that they, after understanding the issues at hand, that was something that they attached to within your project as something they wanted to support?
Lisa Oldham:There were definitely a lot of people who would really engage with me in a conversation about it. We had a large didactic panel in our old library where we had a model of the new building and where we would do the show and tells where we would talk about the new building. And I would always point out this one didactic panel and talk to people about it. And many, many people didn't really get engaged and interested. I cannot say, to what extent Design for Freedom, as an element, impacted people's decisions to become donors. But I have to believe that as part of the overall package, the commitment to sustainability at every level, the commitment to try to have as little as few materials as possible that had forced labor in their supply chain, and the other things we were doing, certainly it was part of the package. But I just can't say if any of the donors were motivated, especially or particularly by this element.
Miki Porta:Yeah, it's hard to break it out. I think it goes to leadership. So I think in that regard, people, you know, to your point about it being a point of difference, I think people were like, oh, whoa, that's really interesting that you're doing that and you're getting press about it in professional and general publications. People were talking about it around town. And, actually, I've since heard had mentioned this to you, but there are some other construction projects happening in New Canaan that I believe Turner is involved with. And I've heard some talk, somebody said, "Oh, are they going to be part of Design for Freedom as well?" It's like, that's just sidewalk talk. Yeah, it just creates an expectation. And I feel like for an institution devoted to lifelong learning, we ourselves are learning as we also, it's just ongoing. It's like we're shining that light. We're committing to walk that walk, and other people are now joining in on that.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:And really honing in on that social sustainability, which is something that I don't think many of us thought about. I know that I didn't think about it prior to coming across something about Grace Farms and then coming across your library project and thinking, Wait a minute, we don't really discuss this at all in Massachusetts in our various agencies, and even the ones that are fully state-funded, those construction projects. And so just that awareness raising piece. Now we're talking about it with various projects, and stakeholders, and it's opening up that dialogue more. So the more people that discuss it and talk about it, the further it spreads. And hopefully it becomes just like LEED, the next attainable level of sustainability for our construction projects.
Miki Porta:Another thing that it did, I mean, it's interesting, because it is a global problem. But one of the kind of curious benefits also of being in Design for Freedom is that we like to talk about how the library offers windows and mirrors. So a window for you to look out into the world, but also a mirror into which you can see yourself reflected. And so I think by participating in Design for Freedom, like obviously, this was something we could all feel good about doing. But most of the places affected are not close to home. But then that also begged the question like, well, what are we doing close to home? So we care about fair labor practices abroad, how does that translate into what we do here in our own building? Or how we serve our community, equitably, accessibly? It took on a life that was larger than just being a pilot project in Designed for Freedom.
Lisa Oldham:And as a for instance, in Miki's work, she has developed for us a- I forget what the name of the document is. But basically
Miki Porta:Oh, a climate and equity pledge?
Lisa Oldham:Well, that but also, no, when we go out to source any sort of materials or products, we now have a
Miki Porta:Oh, a purchasing policy.
Lisa Oldham:Purchasing policy that reflects not only environmental sustainability, but also labor practice. So when anyone on our team needs to buy a thing, we ask that they try to find a supplier that aligns with our values, especially on equity and sustainability.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:I wonder if you would have have that conversation with the LEED folks, because that is a LEED point, right? That you're purchasing products that are environmentally sound. And if they incorporate that into their larger scheme.
Miki Porta:Sure, because social equity, social equity is a matter of environmental justice. Like that's what we know now. This intersectional, interdependent nature of all things is not something that just sounds nice. You know, it actually is how it is. You can't pull on one thread without it tugging somewhere else, so it is all of a piece.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:Absolutely. How did the architects relay that to LEED, because I'm assuming you have a LEED certification for your building, correct?
Miki Porta:No, we don't.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:You don't.
Miki Porta:We worked with, we worked with our architects who are LEED APS, but we, and basically their philosophy is they'll do the LEED building, or they'll do the building without LEED, but still make a LEED building.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:Right, and just don't pay for the certification process.
Miki Porta:Just don't pay for the certification.
Lisa Oldham:So to be super clear, we couldn't go through the certification process right now and immediately get certified because we don't necessarily tick all the boxes. We went longer and further in some places than LEED would have you go. And we maybe didn't go as far as we needed to in another area. I can't speak with any intelligence about what the gaps might look like, or what the excesses might look like. But as a consequence of this particular project, I learned just the other day that our architects, Centerbrook Architects, have actually developed a new framework for working with people like us who are very committed to sustainable principles and practices, but for an economic or another reason, maybe don't go down the LEED pathway. And they wanted to put some real rigor around well, how can we still do sustainable buildings that have credibility, and that matter, and that are doing the right thing, if you're not working within the LEED framework. And as I think in Massachusetts and Connecticut, I think LEED Green is now code, right? And maybe even LEED Silver is code. So it's not as though we're not doing all those base level things. But in terms of where we chose to go really long, versus some of the things that were harder for us to achieve in budget, it didn't sit within the LEED framework, per se.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:And when you're talking about the budget and sustainable initiatives within the project, or elements within the project, you know, oftentimes we will hear if you do not prioritize sustainability, it becomes one of the first items to be on the chopping block when you go through value engineering. And I'm wondering how you safeguarded those elements of sustainability, but also, were there elements that you did have to say no to because either you were fundraising for the majority of your funding, or you couldn't possibly achieve the level of adherence to Design for Freedom with the materials that were available to you?
Lisa Oldham:It's an excellent question. And I think it's a real challenge. And I think in our case, my personal commitment to all of these principles is what ensured that we didn't sacrifice anything sustainable along the way. In fact, two big
things that happened:we were looking at the potential for a cogen/ trigen heating and cooling system. And I said, we're designing a building for 100 years, we have got to be an all electric building. And we moved completely away from the idea of using any sort of natural gas in the heating of the building. Then close to the end, we have a teaching kitchen in the library, and somehow- it's a really big project, but maybe my oversight- I came to realize quite close to the end that the stove in the kitchen was planned to be gas. I said,"It's impossible, we will not have gas coming into this building." And so our kitchen was late in coming on stream because I fought very hard.
Miki Porta:Lisa was literally kept awake at night, you know, over this stove and people telling her "Chefs don't like induction stoves. They like gas, and nobody knows how to cook on induction." And Lisa just kind of kept coming back saying,"Well, in Europe, they use induction and you can eat well there, I mean, I don't understand." And it just went back and forth and back and forth, until finally she said,"There will not be a gas line coming into this building. Period. So whatever needs to happen to ditch the plans for the gas stove, and incorporate and induction range, do it. Just do it."
Lisa Oldham:And so because of the fundraising, I had developed strong relationships with a lot of donors. And when they finally got the change order down to a level that I thought I could manage, I phoned a donor on the West Coast, somebody who had lived here and had left but was very committed to the principles of sustainability as well, and I said "Look, here's the story. It's just an anathema to bring in any fossil fuel into the building. And because I discovered this late in the piece, there's a change order, and I need money." And she said,"Oh, right, I 100% will help you with that." And by the time we got off the call, she had done the needful on her computer and had issued the payment. And that came into our fundraising account so that we could move forward with that. And she said to me over the phone, she lives in Colorado, she said, "You know, it's not just belief for me, it's really personal." She said, "I'm looking out my kitchen window, as I talked to you. And I'm looking towards a town nearby, where we lost 80 homes to wildfires this year. And as a direct consequence of climate change. And so I am so happy to make sure that there's one gas line fewer happening."
Andrea Bono-Bunker:That's a great story. As we're also learning now, and Lauren can probably speak more to this as a WELL professional, but we're learning that gas stoves leak toxins into the air. So the wellbeing of those who inhabit the buildings with them is also a paramount concern as well. So twofold for climate change and for the health and wellbeing of our staff, our patrons, residents of homes that have them. Those studies, I think, are starting to come out more now. And we're seeing bills in Massachusetts that are looking to ban gas stoves altogether, using that research and evidence.
Lauren Stara:So like induction stoves, the United States is lagging far behind Europe in terms of measuring and improving indoor air quality. That's a statistical fact. And COVID was a reason we're finally getting on board with that. And yes, gas is a huge toxin in buildings.
Lisa Oldham:But back to your original question about how do you adhere to the principles if you decide not to go LEED it was definitely something I talked about quite a lot with the architects in the beginning, because exactly what you said, they said to me. And I think if it had been a different set of people, that could have been a real risk. Or if it had been different people and the funding had started to- I don't know how much a funding challenge could have impacted it, because so many of the things if you're thinking really long term, most of the sustainability issues actually are economically sustainable as well, as long as you're taking a very long view.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:That's what we always say. The upfront cost can be more but the lifecycle cost actually shows savings in the long run.
Lisa Oldham:Yes, I can see it could be a real risk, especially if people are motivated to do LEED to get the plaque rather than a true belief in the principles.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:Exactly. Since we're talking about money, and how that can affect a project. If we could go back to your fundraising piece a little bit, because I think our listeners would be really interested in this. You know, we have one project that's currently in the pipeline that is looking to fundraise its entire local portion of the project cost. What did you find to be the most successful in that fundraising drive? Who did it? How did you achieve such success in raising $30 million toward your project?
Lisa Oldham:We have a woman on our team who was our Director of Development. She and I, for about 17 months had the beautiful designs, and we had a pretty brief PowerPoint and a cardboard model. And our board president had an outbuilding on his property that he said we could take over and have it be our sort of HQ for fundraising. And because we're an association library, we're always doing fundraising all year, every year for ordinary operations, we had an existing database of donors and a lot of donors with whom we had relationships. And so we for 18 months would meet with individuals, couples, families, and we would meet them at this little barn, and we would show them the PowerPoint. And I would stand up, and I would give the presentation about why we were building this new building, and what we were hoping to achieve with the new library, and what the library would do for the community. And she came to the library work from a previous career in international banking and selling financial products. And so she was the one that really made sure the money came in. I would paint the vision and the story, and then she would work with people to get them to commit. And so the early days are in some ways the hardest when you've got $40 million in front of you to raise and $0 in. That doesn't look that appealing to a sophisticated philanthropist. So working with our nearest and dearest existing philanthropists and fundraisers was really important. Getting them, a group of probably five or six of our existing really supportive donors, to commit, so that we could then say, to the next round, "We've already got X dollars, won't you join us?" And so going to more donors that we felt confident would want to support us. And so we just kept going like that. And then, about at the 17, month mark, 18 month mark, we had approximately $17 million pledged, and the municipality suddenly invited us to share the project with them and said, "Since you've got to about the 50% mark, come and talk to us. We think we would like to make a grant to you to help." And of course, there had been conversations in the background about town perhaps being a participant in the project. And we had been signaling that if they could come in at $10 million, that would be really helpful. But there was no commitment whatsoever at that stage, so we kind of got outed. Because the advice you get from fundraising professionals is, you don't want to appear to be in a fundraising mode for years and years and years, because people get fatigued and people think it's never going to happen. So we had been trying to do it fairly quietly, although it was the worst kept secret in town. And suddenly we were in public on this. It was two months before COVID happened. And it was televised, and there were hundreds of people in the town hall that came to see us do our presentation. The really positive consequence was that the town about eight months later did commit to giving us a$10 million grant for the project, which really, really helped. And of course, then that had the consequence of making other people feel really confident. "Yeah, this project is going to happen. They raised$17 million, then they got $10 from town. So they're almost at the 75% mark. So now it's a sure bet. I'll give my money." So it really helped us once town came in. We stopped fundraising through the first year of COVID. Quite frankly, it just felt unseemly to be fundraising, even for something as worthy as a library at a time when there was so much uncertainty and death. I would say COVID set us back about 12 to 18 months. Does that answer your question?
Andrea Bono-Bunker:It does. And I know that you have been a public private partnership type of library for a very long time. And was the reason why they gave it as a grant so that you're- I'm assuming it's a 501 C 3, your trustees- they continue to own the entire building and property? And it's just a grant with no ownership.
Lisa Oldham:That's right. And so about 70- depends on the year- 70 to 75% of our annual operating costs we get a grant from the town, and the language of grant is the language they always use even for that. We have no written or verbal contract that says at what level they will fund us. But by custom, it's about that 70 to 75% mark. And they already were in the habit of using that grant language. And yes, we own the building. We own the entire property. The five different parcels of land and been united into one deed in the last two years as part of all this process. And the library does own itself entirely.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:And with that municipal granting structure in place, so you have to raise a certain amount then every year to meet your operational costs. And how do you do that? I believe you mentioned that you have a fundraising team that continues to work.
Lisa Oldham:We do, we do. Had we not had that to start with, I'm sure it would have taken much longer to raise the money for the building. But because we already have that structure, we had a team at the library. We had the habit, and it is a habit, of philanthropy towards the library existing that were all key to us getting off the ground early on with the fundraising for the library. I will segue slightly to say even in this affluent town, it is by far the largest philanthropic project ever undertaken in town by a longshot. And so we do enjoy a real level of support from our community. So yes, on an annual basis, we raise- well, currently we're raising just over $800,000 a year from 7,000 families. So 7,000 families, that's the population, that's the number of households in town. It's not the number of donors. We have about probably 1,000 to 1,500 families that are annual supporters. And we do that in two big ways. The majority of the money comes in in response to our annual fund appeal, which runs every autumn. We send out a letter, typically from me and our board president, painting a picture of what it is we do and why and asking for their support. And then we additionally every November we have a very large event, which is kind of the biggest fundraising event on the calendar each year for town, and we call it the Literary Luncheon. And we get an author who is well known to come and speak, and we hire a space in town. And typically, it gets decorated like a Broadway set to look like the setting of whatever book we're celebrating. And we have armies of volunteers who come and make that happen and magically turn this ballroom space into whatever book we are doing that year. And it's sort of completely immersive. And people come out. We usually don't have enough tickets for all the people that want to come. And we are unapologetic. It's a fundraiser. It costs a lot of money, because this then supports programs and collections for the rest of the year.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:And in a subsequent podcast episode, we're going to get into a little bit more about those programs and collections and your service model. But with this type of funding, with the goals that you had, and the process that you had for your building project, what do you think that our librarians who are listening, or stakeholders in library building projects who are listening, what could they replicate? What can be scalable for their projects from your process? This might be a hard one to answer.
Lisa Oldham:Yeah.
Miki Porta:I mean, I just jotted down while you think about that Lisa, I jotted the first things that came to mind were the flexible spaces and the sustainability that runs through all of it. And I think that that has to do with what we're going to talk about later for the second portion, but you really have to start with the work. So what are we doing? What is happening in this building that is really excellent? And what is not happening in this building that the building is preventing from happening? And I think we had a lot of ideas about both of those things. And then it kind of all was off and running from there. And that's something that when I talk to other people from other libraries, they all kind of like nod their heads like they can see it, you can just, you can see it. So when we say things like okay, so our auditorium, we couldn't have like a theater-style auditorium. But what we do have is a flat-floored space, that can be divided, essentially into three separate volumes, or it can be one open volume. It looks out onto sidewalks, so you can see the community you see green space, you see people walking by and biking by. Everybody kind of nods. I feel like that's something that other people can apply. In our children's room. Again, when you look through the window, what do you see? So in our children's room, maybe like a library of the past, if you looked in through a window, if there even was a window, you might see stacks. Well, in this one, the corner is completely taken over by babies and toddlers hanging out on a carpeted floor with their caregivers, their loved ones, and they're just kind of, you know, reading books or playing, because you can check out toys and do that, too. Or games. They're just enjoying the sunshine. So that's something that you know, when we talk to people about those spaces, they nod their heads and go oh, yeah, yeah, like we could do that, too.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:That concept of biophilia.
Miki Porta:Exactly.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:That connection to the outdoors and to nature.
Miki Porta:Exactly. Exactly. Like, wouldn't that be nice if our young people, little babies and those who care for them can look outside. And for the people outside to look inside and have that create an energy, a dynamic It doesn't have to be exactly like how we did it. But the principles, the concepts, you know, are the same.
Lisa Oldham:I would say that one of the things that people say when they come in here, "It feels very good in this building." When you walk in, it feels very pleasant to be in here, and people want to stay. And I think that's a direct consequence of all the natural light and the fact that from almost any position on any floor of the building, you can look out most places in the four cardinal directions, and you can see outdoors. And so soon the green will be finished, and, for two directions, that'll be the green space. In libraries, often we want to have wall hung shelving because it's space efficient. And we couldn't say we wanted a transparent building and we wanted a building that reflected our value of transparency, and not be okay with a glass building. And that meant we had to give up the idea of lots of wall hung shelving. And that means of course more square footage needed, especially if you're going to have low shelving and face out shelving, and then no wall hung shelving. Wow, that's a lot more square footage for collections. And yet we very much felt that these were trade offs we were willing to make. And you can't know until you inhabit the building, but I have zero regrets of doing that. Because the way we get around that is we have a really well weeded collection, and we should anyway, right? So I talked earlier about books needing to earn their keep, and they really do. We have maximized our collections budget. And we are very thoughtful about what the role of collections are in a small community library. We're not a library of last resort. We make extensive use of either interlibrary loan or our local loan system, etc, etc, to make sure that all the shelf space is maximized with best practice. And we have probably less linear footage of shelf space than people listening might think would be appropriate to the size of the community and the space. But I feel we can defend that really easily because it's a heavily used, really well used collection. And we have policies in place to make sure that we get books into people's hands. If they want to book and we don't have it, we preserve collection budget to make sure we can get that one way or another. That may be would be seen as the trade off for having a largely glass building. We think it's been completely worth it, because the door traffic proves it. People just want to be here all day, every day.
Lauren Stara:I was just gonna ask if you have had any pushback from the community about your collection leanness, let's call it.
Lisa Oldham:No, not really. We started years before we ever moved on what, you know, I would call was right sizing the collection. I professionally just believe that collection should be driven by the size of the community and the use, and not be ever expanding. And that they should be fresh and dynamic and that they shouldn't be moribund. So we had already been doing that for years. We probably in my first two years got some pushback, because we started heavily weeding in my first couple of years, because it hadn't been done as frequently and thoroughly before that. But by the time we came, you know, eight years later to this building, we had been working towards a lean and extremely dynamic collection. But in saying that, it's not small, we still have plenty of books, we just don't have idling books sitting on shelves not being used.
Miki Porta:And one thing that I like to point out to patrons a lot- and I think this is something that, you know, all libraries should do- is you can use our neighboring community libraries as well. Wherever you live in Connecticut, you can use any library in Connecticut, as long as you register your town library card with our library. So like if you live in Stamford, come on over to New Canaan will register your Stamford card in our system. And then you can just use your Stamford card, whenever you come here. You can even take a book out of your Stanford library and return it in New Canaan, because CCAR will return it. I mean, give them a week or so to get it back. But it's like basically, we're not the only library. We're the library in New Canaan, but we try to uplift and link arms, with other libraries here and even out of state. When we have ILL, if we're not going to purchase that resource for you, because maybe it's kind of a rarefied thing, and you know, you need it, but no one else is really ever going to read it, so we can't justify spending money on it and space in our collection, we'll do an interlibrary loan. And those come from academic libraries. Those come from, you know, municipal libraries. Those come from far and wide
Lisa Oldham:True resource sharing.
Miki Porta:Yeah, true resource sharing.
Lisa Oldham:I think, importantly, and again, I don't want to jump ahead to the next episode that we do, but because we completely don't see ourselves as a warehouse for books, we see ourselves as a platform for community learning. And so contextualizing collections in that framework of being a place for community learning. Collections are one of many ways that we serve the intellectual and curiosity driven needs of the community. And so I think that helps, too.
Miki Porta:Yeah, definitely.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:And having intentional collections is connected to having intentional design for your building. So you have to have intention with every area of your library in order to create something that's successful. And Lisa, before you were talking about visitors reaction to the building patrons reaction customers, however you want to phrase the nomenclature for those who enter your space, which is really their space, their community space, what are some other things that visitors are saying about it?
Lisa Oldham:So I carve out two hours a week to be on our front welcome desk. So I get the weekly boasts of joy of talking to people coming in through the front doors. And invariably, every week, there's at least one person that says, "Oh, it's my first time here." Oftentimes, they are people that haven't been to a public library in decades, sometimes they maybe just moved to town, but often it's people that never used our old library. Or sometimes it's just people that haven't gotten around to it till now, people from out of town, and then a steady stream of just regular users. And both the regular users who've been in here already 50 times and those for whom it's the first time, the immediate reaction on walking through the doors is just this sort of joyful look on their face, this smile to be in this space. And for people who have been many times, if they see it's me, because, for better or worse, I'm really well known around town, and they'll come up to me and just say, "You know, wow, this is so great. We love coming here," or "I love coming here with my grandchildren, or my husband, and I come once a week to attend programs," or"I'm on my way to the maker lab to do a fun workshop thing" etc, etc. And it's really wonderful and affirming, but just joyful to be hearing people's experiences day in and day out. That is not to say, and I'm aware our audience is an audience of librarians. Of course, there are the grumpies. I mean, there are some people that are determined to be miserable, in spite of everything good, but we see so few of those. Every once in a while, I'll encounter one that translates not being able to find the exact book they came in for into woe is me and it's all a misery. But really, as we all know, from public librarianship, that misery is centered in them. And, you know, it's hard to really see a connection to the library, because it's so different from everybody else's experience. People seem just super, super happy with everything.
Miki Porta:Well, and I think we want to take those grumpy seriously. But to wallow in that is to really miss the forest for the trees. I think, you know, when people walk through our doors, literally open mouth, you know, looking up, looking around, the thing that I find really, really important is that the design of the building communicates the importance of the mission. So that people walk in and are kind of like, "Wow, this is what a library can be? This is what it is?" And we're like, "Yeah, yeah, this is what it is." Libraries are cornerstones of their communities. They uphold democracy. They launch, literally launch people into lives that maybe without the library they could never have imagined living. So it's a big mission. And I think that it is not well understood or misunderstood, especially over the last, you know, five or so years as we've been ensnared in some of these cultural war battles. You know, people walk through the door, and they get it, they suddenly get it, like, this is a place for me, this is a place where good things can happen, and I can be a part of it. So that's what I love, like the building communicates the message.
Lisa Oldham:And I think it also communicates the message that you, the person who crosses the threshold, you are important. This is not only really functional, but also beautiful, because you deserve to have a place to come that is this noncommercial space for learning that is also really pleasant, a pleasant place to be with a decent chair to sit on and lovely views looking out to the greenery, a place where your well being is enhanced.
Miki Porta:Yeah.
Lisa Oldham:It says all of those things.
Miki Porta:Yeah.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:We always say that the building is a service in itself.
Miki Porta:Yes.
Andrea Bono-Bunker:So it provides that ability for people to just be. Also, we always say that space equals service. So before there may not have been the services offered, because there weren't the spaces that you could utilize to offer those services. And also your staff and the customer service that they provide brings people back, too, so it all works in concert with each other. And it's really a beautiful thing when there's that synergy, and it all comes together. And I can't wait to get into your services and how you've curated them within these intentional spaces in our next episode. Thank you so much for all of this information, for sharing so candidly with our listeners, and we hope that our listeners tune in to the next episode as well to learn a little bit more about how your building is functioning.