Blytheville Library faces lighting issue

The Mississippi County Library System board recently approved the spending of $30,000 for the creation of a piece of interior design to be hung above the lobby inside the Blytheville Public according to its Director, Lowell Walters.

The purpose of the piece is to act as a dimmer to decrease the amount of sunlight currently entering the lobby through the translucent ceiling.

On sunny days, the sunlight is so strong that employees place a blue umbrella at their workstation. The umbrella acts as a barrier between their eyes and the sunlight.

The Town Courier conducted its own testing of the intensity of the light coming through the ceiling. An iphone with the light-measuring app called Lux Light Meter Pro 4 was used. Testing was conducted on April 5 during a sunny portion of the day. Two staff members participated, each separately conducting their own tests. The phone was pointed at the sun while standing inside under the ceiling. Ten measurements of the lux levels of the light coming through the ceiling were taken. The average of all ten measurements was found. Then, the same thing was done outside. After each staff member completed their testing, the same results were found by both staff members: the intensity of the light coming through the ceiling inside the library was higher that the light coming directly from the sun outside.

The lobby did not originally offer this experience. When the building opened in 1976 (not 1974 as the wall plaque outside the building states), employees were located directly beneath the translucent ceiling inside a lobby-filling square-shaped circulation desk. As the years passed, the ceiling dimmed due to age and wear. The room became dark. At some point, someone chopped off three desk sides and removed them from the building completely. The remaining single side was shoved against a wall. Visitors can still see the chop marks present today in one section of the desk.

In 2019, a renovation of the translucent fiberglass ceiling took place. The amount of light coming into the lobby through the ceiling today is a direct result of that renovation. It cost the library $19,900, reduced the layers in the ceiling by 50%, and changed what those layers were made of. Instead of two layers of fiberglass, the ceiling contains one layer of a material called Krinkglas.

According to the subcontractor who did the labor on the ceiling, Pennsylvania-based Keever Construction, they were subcontracted by the project’s contractor, Sierra Group, to only remove and replace one layer of the ceiling: the exterior layer. The interior layer was always meant to remain inside the ceiling according to them. They told the Town Courier that after he completed the exterior layer, he was asked to continue working and remove the interior layer, saying “the manager” (Mississippi County Library System Director Lowell Walters) was unhappy with how the ceiling looked with just the exterior layer removed.

As soon as the interior layer was removed, the intensity of the light shining on the faces of the library employees behind the circulation desk was so intense, the blue umbrella popped up. That was 2019. The umbrella is still in use today.

An architect was not consulted prior to the renovation project.

The Town Courier spoke with Walters as well as Marcos Sierra, owner of Sierra Group. Sierra stated removing the interior layer was always part of the plan from day one. Walters said he never reached out to Sierra to fix the sunlight issue because the “effects of the brightness were not in the scope of work.” Sierra said the there is no city or state code dictating materials to be used on translucent ceilings, and that the topic of how much light the material let through had been left “up to the discretion of the (library) board.” Walters said the topic was never broached by Sierra.

While the library board chose the color, it was Marcos Sierra who chose to use the Krinklglas material. He said seven members of a “huge network of roofing contractors” recommended it. The Krinklglas company told him it was appropriate to use on ceilings, he said.

It is not known at this time what the $30,000 project will look like. An ongoing search for an interior designer has been tunderway for years according to Walters. He told the Town Courier he is currently in talks with Interiors By Design out of Jonesboro. The company and Walters talked about the project a few years prior, but nothing came from it.

Last year the board approved a design by a Memphis interior designer, the name of which Walters did not wish to share. They received a few thousand dollars in retainer fees while they worked on the project according to Walters. The designer told the board that companies in St. Louis, Nashville, and Little Rock were needed to make all the components of the design, and that they’d given the designer quotes that fit within the project’s budget. However, Walters said when it came time for the designer to get the pieces made, the designer was told by the companies that they could not do the work for the prices they’d quoted, and that they didn’t have enough employees to get the pieces produced. The project was begun during the COVID-19 epidemic.