Chain gang
Cohocton students move 5,000 books to new library.Zoom Photos. Jeff Miller.Third-grader Deandra Green gets handed a book May 11 in Cohocton as he helps out the Cohocton Library move some 5,000 childrens books to its new location.





By Jeff Miller
Genesee Country Express
Posted May 11, 2011 @ 05:00 PM
Last update May 11, 2011 @ 05:10 PM
Cohocton — It was a perfect day to take the kids outdoors.

On May 11, roughly 220 Cohocton Pre-k through fourth graders did more than go outdoors and have some fun, they helped the Cohocton Public Library move its roughly 5,000 children’s books to its new location, and did so in less than two hours.

The students walked from the school to the library, then formed a line from there, through the Village Greens, and to the new library on Maple Avenue.

The students, teachers and other staff moved the children’s books down the line in a “bucket-brigade” fashion.

Cohocton Library director Hope Decker said the idea came from one of the library’s board members, Barb Sick, who remembers doing the same kind of thing when she was a student in the 1930s.

When the now-Cohocton Elementary School was built, the students took the contents of their desk and one library book from the former school, now the Village Greens, to the new site.

“We wanted to create a similar experience for the kids,” Decker said, one in which the kids will remember fondly.

The former Cohocton Library closed at the end of the business day on May 9. Plans are to open in the new location in June.

As for the library’s former building, the Village of Cohocton will begin moving in there later this month.

The move solves two problems for the Town and Village, who own the property jointly. First, it’s a rent-free building, and second, it solves the problem of keeping it occupied.

The Village has shared space with the Town in the Larrowe House since the 1950s. When the municipalities gave the Larrowe House to the Cohocton Historical Society in 2009, the Village moved into space adjacent to the Post Office on Maple Avenue.

The Town moved into the former bank in Atlanta.

As in the Maple Avenue office, the new Village office will include space for both the Town and Village clerks, as well as a mayor’s office.

The Village is slated to move into the former library May 27 and 28, with a tentative opening date of June 1.

With the exception of partitioning and moving furniture in, Mayor Tom Cox said there is little the Village needs to do to accommodate the building for its use.