Major news for the Ector County Library

ODESSA, Texas (KOSA) - Since 1983 the Ector County Library has been at its current location on 5th st in downtown Odessa. But the current location was never meant to be a library and it was originally a medical office. With their last update, back in the ‘90s.

After years of conversations between the Ector County Library and the commissioner’s court. Instead of deciding to make repairs to the current library. The Ector County Commissioners Court agreed to allow the Ector County Library to go out and find a new location to build a more up-to-date library.

“The whole physical plant of this building is outdated. And rather than throw good money after bad. Let’s just start from the ground up and design something that will benefit the entire county into the 21st century” said Randy Ham of the Ector County Library Advisory Committee.

Some of the new features ham wants in the building are makerspaces, 3d printers, art exhibits, print, and electronic material and so much more for the community, something the library advisory committee is looking forward to.

“Oh, we were elated. We were just thrilled because we were ready to have to fight to get this and what was great was seeing how supportive the commissioner’s court was and that they recognized the need for a new library as well. So, it’s not just the community coming up and saying that we need a new library, it’s the commissioner understanding what we have is not acceptable in the community right now” said Ham.

Ham has been with the library for a long time and says this change has been a long time coming.

“It’s been at least 10 years probably longer than that because I know conversations were ongoing even before I was involved but I can count the 10 years since I worked here that we’ve been wanting a new building,” said Ham.

Ham did want to make this clear. This isn’t something the county should expect in the next year or two. It will take time to build a state-of-the-art library for the community.

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