community meeting rooms draw crowds and spark discourse

Portsmouth Listens, the city’s grassroots public hearing facilitator, recently used Portsmouth Public Library’s Levenson Room for a large public presentation. Equipped with Internet access and a projection screen for PowerPoint presentations, the room provided an ideal location for the group’s needs. “Once we saw it, we thought, ‘this is a great room,’” said Jim Noucas, co-chair of Portsmouth Listens.

Noucas isn’t the only one pleased with the library’s three public meeting rooms. New Hampshire Public Radio, the Rockingham Planning Commission, book groups, the Piscatiqua Garden Club, Friends of the South End, the UNH Alumni Association and the African American Burial Ground Committee have all used at least one of the rooms since the new library opened in December. From January 1 to May 29, the rooms were used about 95 times per month.

Library directors couldn’t be happier. “We’re shocked. We’re just shocked,” said library director Mary Ann List. “And delighted,” added assistant director Susan McCann.

“The community was just waiting. Probably starting in October, as the building started to look like it was nearing completion, we started getting calls. We thought that there was a role we could fulfill in the community, but we had no clue how broad that role would be.” List said.

As designers drew up plans for the new library on Parrot Avenue, they decided it would have to fulfill three main functions. It had to be a traditional library with a large collection of materials. It also needed to be an electronic library with access to the Internet and an extensive online catalog. Finally, it had to be an accessible community gathering place. A number of public meeting rooms in the new facility provide space for people to congregate. As Portsmouth continues to experience rapid growth and development, it could be within these rooms that information is exchanged and important decisions are made.

“Libraries used to be real lyceums and the idea was, you came to learn from other people and not just to learn from the books,” List said. Creating these rooms was an attempt to restore the library’s place as a center for people to come together. “That was definitely a need in this community,” McCann said.

Several schools in the Portsmouth area have rooms the public can use, but many charge fees. The same goes for many of the churches around town, and the meeting rooms at City Hall are not available for public use. “As far as city buildings, the library is the only one,” said Deputy City Clerk Dianne Kirby.

There was a large meeting room in the old library, located at the corner of Islington and Middle streets, but it later housed an expanding collection of materials, and public access to the room suffered. As a result, the city lacked a central meeting place for many years. Library staff hope the new facility will lend the Port City a new sense of community.

“I think we’re beginning to realize that community is an important thing. The opportunity to come together is as important as it ever was, but we went through this 10-year period, where we were so excited about all the things that we could do electronically,” List said. “A lot of the ways that people used to be in contact with each other are gone now. If you wanted to do all your shopping and all your communication with your computer, you could do that these days. The chance for there to be a place where you don’t have to buy anything, you don’t have to drink anything, you don’t have to eat anything, necessarily, but you can still be in a community, is a real gift.” 

Of the six rooms interspersed throughout the new library on Parrott Avenue, three are smaller study rooms that can be reserved for two-hour slots. The building’s three meeting rooms are more spacious and formal. The MacLeod Board Room is long and narrow with a large oval shaped table that seats 12. It looks out over the baseball field of neighboring Portsmouth Middle School. The library’s nine-member board of trustees uses this room for its monthly meetings.

Adjacent to the MacLeod Room is the Hilton Gardens Inn Meeting Room, which can hold up to 45 people. Several rows of two-person tables make the space resemble a high school science classroom. It can be re-arranged to suit any number of needs. 

The Russell and Shura Levenson Community Meeting Room is the largest of the three. Located in the northeast corner of library’s bottom floor, an alternative entrance offers direct access after hours. A small kitchen is located behind a wooden door in the main hallway leading into the room. When groups reserve the space, they can also use the kitchen to warm coffee, chill ice cream or prepare snacks.

Inside the room, which still has that new carpet smell, a large tower ringed with glass windows rises up into the second floor, and natural light spills into the room. The shades are raised and lowered with sailboat rigging installed during construction. Although the room has a flexible design, allowing it to be easily rearranged, the focal point is in the corner, which has a large roll-down projection screen and a wireless microphone stand. Several triangular shades lower at the push of a button, dimming the room for DVD or PowerPoint presentations. The entire library, including the meeting rooms, has wireless Internet access.

The room’s easily accessible bottom-floor location is what appeals most to Eric Steltzer, assistant planner for the Rockingham Planning Commission. “You don’t have to go searching for which room you need to be in. You can find it really easily,” he said.

All three of the meeting rooms are used for library programs and presentations by civic, cultural or educational groups. There is no charge to use the rooms, although the MacLeod and Levenson rooms require deposits, which are returned after the group “breaks down the room” by cleaning and resetting the chairs. Organizations without the means to place a deposit can use the Hilton Gardens Inn Room. 

Groups must fill out an application form, verifying their connection to Portsmouth and non-profit status. Lately there has been an increase in for-profit groups wanting to use the space, but commercial uses are restricted. “We have rules that say you can’t collect money in here, because that’s just not what we’re about,” List said.

Although you can check availability on the library’s website at www.cityofportsmouth.com/library, you cannot reserve a room online. List recommends reserving rooms far in advance, as they sometimes fill up quickly. “If you wanted to meet this morning, you could pretty much walk right in, but probably if you wanted to meet tonight, you would have had to know that a couple of weeks ahead of time,” she said. “People are booking a couple of months ahead of time if they know they have something coming up.”   

The Rockingham Planning Commission has held a series of meetings and public hearings at the library, according to Scott Bogle, senior transportation planner for the RPC. “They’re great facilities. There is good, flexible room design. The AV system is great. It’s an easy location to get to. And it’s a nice opportunity to show off a great new facility that the city has invested in.”

McCann believes part of the reason the meeting rooms have been so successful is because of the library’s convenient location close to downtown, City Hall, the middle school, several neighborhoods and the park.

The rooms’ green design has also generated a buzz. “The whole library was built to be healthy to occupy,” List said, noting all the carpets, paint and other materials are free of toxic chemicals or harmful fibers. There’s very little artificial light, and a double heating system with a radiator near the doors keeps the temperature evenly distributed throughout each room.

When the New Hampshire Planning Association met in Portsmouth three weeks ago, a tour of the new library was scheduled so that planners could learn about LEED certification and environmental design. List gave a presentation, touching on the green features of the new facility.

One of those features is a CO2 monitor, which measures the level of carbon dioxide in the Levenson Community Meeting Room. A large group of people constantly exhaling in a confined space produces lots of CO2, causing oxygen levels to drop and making people sleepy. When this happens in the Levenson room, a venting system brings in oxygen and helps keep people alert during long meetings.

The meeting rooms represent only a small fraction of the library’s offerings, but they help bring in people who often stay to explore the rest of the facility. People can lounge in the foyer, snack in the café, wander the stacks or meet with friends.