For months, thousands of Omaha residents have driven past the city’s new library on the southwest corner of 72nd and Dodge Streets. On Sunday, the public will finally get a look inside.
There’s nothing else quite like it in Omaha. Hundreds of horizontal windows offer a glimpse of the 96,000-square-foot building’s interior. With a three-story “book robot,” community event space, 3D printing lab and genealogy research hub, the city’s new Central Library is one of the largest investments in a public library system in the United States in recent years.
Here’s what to expect for opening day:
Doors will open at 12 p.m. followed by remarks and a ribbon cutting with Omaha Mayor John Ewing and Omaha Public Library Executive Director Laura Marlane. The mayor and his wife, Viv Ewing, will host a storytime at 2 p.m.
About 300 parking spots are available in the attached parking garage off Dodge Street
and in the adjacent parking lots south of the library. With large crowds expected during opening week, visitors are encouraged to carpool, use rideshare, and take advantage of the library’s location along Metro Transit’s ORBT bus route and Route 18.
To celebrate the opening, Metro Transit is providing free fares on ORBT on Sunday. Free parking is available for bus riders at the Westroads Transit Center, right next to the ORBT station.
The grand opening will be an event to remember, said Stacy Lickteig, senior manager of community engagement for Omaha Public Library
“We are a gathering space. We are a connector,” Lickteig said, “and so I think when people walk in, they’re going to say, oh, there’s a spot that I can sit down in this corner, I can read my book, I can observe the world, I can be part of community, or I can be slightly off and by myself, and it’s all okay here.”
On the main level, floor-to-ceiling windows offered a glimpse of the Automated Storage and Retrieval System. The three-story, secured, climate-controlled “book robot” can store more than 600,000 materials. Library leaders say it will be used to grow the Omaha Public Library’s collection without being limited by shelf space in branches.
The project was led by a partnership between the City of Omaha, Omaha Public Library (OPL), Omaha Public Library Foundation, Do Space and Heritage Omaha, which oversaw fundraising and construction of the building and will officially gift the building to the city this year.
Heritage Omaha also helped form the nation’s first technology library, Do Space, at 72nd and Dodge streets more than 10 years ago. Do Space was integrated with OPL earlier this year and has a large presence on the second floor of Central Library, including a podcast studio, textile lab and 3D printers.