The Boonslick Regional Library’s Boonville branch closed Monday, July 6, and starts a monthlong move from its longtime home on Main Street to a very different kind of building: a three-story, 1906 red-brick landmark on the Historic Kemper Campus at 707 Third Street, ABC17 reports.
The branch is leaving a former neighborhood grocery it’s occupied for 65 years for more than double the space, the result of a $1,146,000 renovation. The new building will have dedicated children’s, young-adult, genealogy, and community-meeting areas. Online services continue during the closure, no overdue fines will be charged, and nothing borrowed is due back until the branch reopens.
Two programs already on the calendar are relocating rather than waiting out the move: the MU Raptor Rehabilitation Program (July 15, 3 p.m.) and a storytelling event (July 31, 2 p.m.) will both be held at the State Fair Community College conference room instead. The library’s other branches — Cole Camp, Sedalia, and Warsaw — are unaffected.
Why it matters here: a month without the Boonville branch is a real gap for anyone who uses it as their library, but a 65-year-old grocery-store building doubling into a restored 1906 landmark is the kind of trade worth a little patience for. Expect a grand opening sometime around early August.