The “We Need Everything” Quote in the Herald News

In Lauren Leone-Cross’s Herald News story on March 15, she quotes me:

“We need everything. We need study rooms. Community meeting spaces. More technology support,” Milavec said. “We just can’t house everything that we need on a daily basis.”

Some comments have been made about “we need everything”, as if I stated that Plainfield needs every bell, whistle, gimmick and feature possible for a public library - the “Taj Mahal” of libraries. That cannot be further from the truth. I said “we need everything” in response to the question “what kinds of space does the Library need? Meeting rooms? Study rooms? More for books?” The answer is yes, yes and yes. All of the above. An expanded library doesn’t need to be fancy or gimmicky or expensive. But our Plainfield community needs more than one study room for more than 75,000 people. Plainfield needs tables and chairs and rooms with doors and quiet reading spaces and shelving and computer classrooms and meeting rooms and desks and computers and program rooms and the list goes on. The Library building is the same size it was 1991 when 15,329 people lived in the library district. Over 60,000 more people have moved in since then. So, yes, the Plainfield community needs more library than it did in 1991 – and with 60,000 more people, that’s more of everything library.