Curtains!

Published 8:30 am Thursday, May 1, 2014

Photo by Brandon Hicks

Joyce Manuel holds one of the library’s tattered draperies.

It’s curtains for a longtime fixture at the Elizabethton Carter County Public Library.
But it isn’t a character in a work of fiction sitting on the library’s shelves … although you could say it’s made up out of whole cloth.
Lots of cloth.
In conjunction with the library’s 85th anniversary, the Friends of the Library organization is raising money for new curtains for the library.
Friends member Lilo Duncan said the organization received an anonymous $5,000 donation to be used to replace old curtains in the library’s public meeting room and the law library room.
Duncan said the donor also agreed to match up to $5,000 more in additional donations – which could mean a total of $15,000 for improvements at the ECCPL.
The improvements will begin with the curtains in the law library room. The law library is located in the old post office portion of the library, with windows facing the intersection of Sycamore and E streets.
“The drapes are in very poor condition,” Duncan said. “The law library drapes are in worse shape than the meeting room, so we are going to start there.”
Duncan said the law library room’s curtains were badly damaged when the roof in that room leaked. Both sets of curtains, those in the law library and those in the meeting room, are soiled, damaged and out-dated.
“It has been 20 years since those curtains were installed,” she said.
Because the curtains are so large, they have to be specially made.
Duncan said Kaleidoscope Interiors would be working to design new curtains for both spaces. She said the plan was to use bright multi-colored fabric for both sets.
“It will bring color into the law library,” Duncan said. “The meeting room is used mostly by children in Storytime. The multi-colored curtains will go well in that room too.”
Anyone wishing to contribute to the new curtain fundraiser can drop off donations at the ECCPL.

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