Tilton Library opening its doors with expansion project almost complete

SOUTH DEERFIELD — After nearly two decades of ideas, approvals, grants, fundraising, construction and the final touches of furniture, the Tilton Library expansion project is just a few strides from the finish line.

The library at 75 North Main St. is expected to open its doors in early January, with an open house to be scheduled. Details, once finalized, will be posted on the library’s website.

“It’s exciting,” Library Director Candace Bradbury-Carlin said, sitting on a turquoise chair in the new Children’s Room. “Whenever I give a tour of the building to a trustee or a donor, I get rejuvenated because it’s not just something I see every day, it’s something that I’m seeing through someone else’s eyes.”

Bradbury-Carlin said the call for a bigger space began with a five-year plan in 2006, before the board of trustees began hunting for grants in 2011. In 2022, voters approved appropriating $12.3 million for the project and contractors with D.A. Sullivan & Sons kicked off construction in April 2024. Now, 19 years after the idea first arose, the addition has nearly tripled the library’s footprint from 4,366 to 12,784 square feet.

Visitors step into the library through the downstairs, with a new Community Room for workshops, lectures and events to their left, and a Children’s Room to their right. Beyond the bookshelves, the space includes a Sensory Room, computers and a play space.

Upstairs, the original building is broken into a Makerspace and room featuring local history. A few steps up takes visitors to a new Teen Room, with reading or socializing nooks, tables for arts and crafts, and a gaming area. To tailor the new space to local teens’ needs, an advisory board of about five Frontier Regional School high schoolers and 10 middle schoolers met to brainstorm ideas for the space.

“We wanted to get their input, because especially teens, more than any age group, really like to have some agency over their space,” Bradbury-Carlin said.

Before the expansion, the last library director, Sara Woodbury, created a makeshift teen room in the janitor’s closet, and a young adult section limited to one visitor at a time.

“It feels like an honor to serve this population that’s basically in our backyard that we haven’t been able to cater to that much,” Bradbury-Carlin said.

Although the Frontier advisory boards and nearby elementary schools’ student surveys expressed different requests, they agreed on one thing: the right hue was blue.

“One of the main reasons was the idea of calm; coming to a calm space after school. They have busy days and they really want to feel like they can just center themselves,” Bradbury-Carlin said.

Also on the second floor are two study rooms, a large “casual quiet reading area” and another space for books.

Only the library’s first floor will be open to visitors until April, when the new elevator will be ready for use. With two and a half total floors in the library, installing the elevator proved to take longer than anticipated, Bradbury-Carlin said.

With more spaces for activities, reading nooks and books for patrons of all ages in the library, Bradbury-Carlin said the space will better reflect Deerfield.

“Every library is in some ways — a good library especially — a good reflection of the town and the area, because what libraries do is they welcome and they seek input and feedback from the community and what the community wants, what they need, what the tastes are,” she said.

Before Bradbury-Carlin’s career brought her to the bookshelves, she was already a “huge fan” of libraries. During every trip, she visits the local library.

“It’s different from a museum because most museums, unless it’s like a science museum, it’s hands-off, but with the library, you can touch everything,” she said, laughing.

In the Falmouth library on Cape Cod, she spotted books about the ocean. In agricultural communities, she has noticed books about farming fill the shelves. She compared small libraries in small towns to the towering library she stopped by in Montreal.

“No two are ever the same,” she said. “It’s a bit of a thrill to see, ‘Well, what’s this library going to be about?’ … You just never know what you’re going to get.”

Visitors often check out books about history and nature at Tilton Library, now a reflection of the town’s future, she said.

“Because of all the change that’s happening in Deerfield, which is really exciting, this is kind of a flagship building,” said Bradbury-Carlin, referring to the 1888 Building renovations next door and new businesses a few blocks down the road. “It’s the kickoff of what’s to come, which is right around the corner.”

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