Residents got their first look at the expanded Jesup Memorial Library during a soft opening that celebrated accessibility, preservation, new spaces, and more than a century of community support.

Carrie Jones

Jun 04, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by the Bar Harbor Historical Society.

---

BAR HARBOR—The doors swung open without much fanfare on June 3, and people came in the way they often come into Bar Harbor’s historic library: a little curious, a little hopeful.

Some carried children. Some carried water bottles and questions. Some just carried a while lot of excitement for the soft-opening that made their local library more modern and accessible while also preserving the history and beauty of the original.

With tour guides stationed at a small table in the bright liminal space between the historic library’s brick facade and the new expansion’s modern feel, they paused to admire bright windows and Maine woodwork, looking around as if they were visiting an old friend who came back from vacation, even healthier than when they left.

The Jesup Memorial Library has never left though. A cornerstone of the Bar Harbor community at its location on Mount Desert Street, it has stayed solid and open.

June 3 was only a soft opening, a quiet first welcome before the larger celebrations to come with a grand opening party, July 19.

But for many of the people who stepped inside the library this week, it felt like something bigger—a return to a place where generations have gathered to read, learn, meet neighbors, escape the weather, dance, hear speakers, read poems, sing, vet political candidates, and occasionally find exactly what they didn’t know they were looking for.

Advancement and Community Relations Director Lila Miller gave a quiet, possibly satisfied smile as she started a tour through the spaces. She began at the library six years ago, during the COVID-19 pandemic and closures. It was when they were restoring the old building.

That’s a detail that sometimes gets forgotten in the glamor of opening the expansion. Before the $11.2 million that built the new building, $3 million was raised to repair the old building and purchase the land (once Dr. Brignull’s home and optometry office).

In 2019 the library began restoring its drainage. It installed foundation membranes. It repaired and repointed the masonry around the exterior of the building.

Before the library expanded, it had to be solidified, repaired, taken care of to support the new structure.

Communities can be like that, too.

And the library is a place for community. The town helps fund the library’s operating costs, with voters supporting 30% of that.

The expansion itself was not paid for with town money.

Federal grants and Congressional funding helped support the use of cross laminated timber (CLT) in the building. The expansion portion of the project began in 2023 and was paid for by over 650 donors, people who support the power of books, story, and community spaces.

“It feels like a gift from the community to the community,” Miller said.

The expansion adds 12 parking spaces accessible via a lot behind the library on School Street, which is where it’s accessible from after the town determined that Kavanaugh should not be a through road. Two of those are fully accessible.

The elevators, honoring Winnie Guerdon, a devoted library supporter, now allow people who cannot use stairs access to the nonfiction stacks in the main library.

That’s an important detail about how the historic building couldn’t be used and enjoyed by everyone before. The new addition doesn’t hurt the character of the main building, but via a new door and a new elevator it allows everyone to use all of it.

But it’s also a story.

On that first day, relatives wrote messages to each other, on a table in the children and teen area that’s especially meant for writing on.

The new teen and children’s sections also reflect a library and community that values its children and teens. The picture books are arranged by topics, facing out.

It was a big lift by staff to reorganize all those books that allow the youngest readers and pre-readers to visually explore by topic.

It was worth it, Youth Services Assistant Autumn Demaine said.

If your toddler is obsessed with dogs, they can toddle over to the low stacks that show dog book after dog book.

In the teen area there are spaces for study or for loud interactions, all facing the mountains of Acadia.

On the soft opening day, thanks to Island Readers and Writers, the Jesup hosted the National Ambassador for Children’s Literature, Mac Barnett, who has received backlash from portions of the children’s book community for a comment in his recent book where he riffed on an old quote by a science fiction writer by writing “94.7 percent of kids’ books are crud.”

Barnett spoke with Youth Services Librarian Abby Morrow in front of an enthralled group before engaging in a second event. The discussion in the library’s main room of its historic building exemplified the confines of the space and how events have had to coincide with circulation needs.

That will no longer be an issue.

There’s a makers’ space on the lower level; a community room that can seat up to 172 when that makers’ space isn’t being used, a common area where you can see the original granite foundation.

That’s a big deal for a library that has hosted event after event in the original building’s center space.

Another big deal? Bathrooms. The only bathroom before had been down a narrow flight of stairs.

Now?

Miller laughed. “We increased the number of bathrooms by 900%.”

Up on the addition’s top level is the archive and special collection rooms. Through a window, you can see those copper fittings that were taken care of on the old building’s roof.

All the old copper was replaced. Where the gutters were attached, workers had to twist them to fit properly, to fit perfectly.

“It was me and the builders,” Miller said during the time of social distancing when the repairs were done. “They were my first co-workers. It was amazing watching them do the fabrications of the twists. I am delighted that now we get to show that off. They were taking such care of it then with no idea that anyone would actually see it.”

For over 100 years, people have been taking care of the Jesup Library. The expansion is a part of that, Jesup Memorial Library Director Megan Brooks said, made possible by the campaign, the library directors before her, the volunteers, the staff, the patrons, and the donors.

“This spot and the other spaces on this level where you can see the historic building and the roof, I get goose bumps thinking about the old and the new and the care that was taken so that this could happen in the right order? The planning was so thoughtful,” Brooks said.

It doesn’t always happen in that same way.

“The Jesup did this right,” Brooks said.

“Generations of creative leadership and decision making by different parties,” were responsible for that, Miller said, calling out Ruth Eveland and Matt Delaney, as well as the board and campaign committee.

“They worked so hard for so long,” Miller said.

It’s a big story.

The biggest story of all isn’t the mass timber that reduced the carbon footprint by 37% during construction, the eastern Maine hemlock in the ceilings, or the innovated use of cross laminated timber.

The biggest story is the people who made the library happen, bolt by dream by gift, little and big.

Miller and Brooks both enthused about the crew of E.L. Shea and the quality of their work on a building designed by Simons Architects.

“We’ll miss them,” Miller said of the crew when the work is done.

Both women also spoke to the work, problem-solving skills, and kindness of Millard Dority, the owner’s representative on the project. They know his dog. They know his bag. They know his empathy.

“Oh, there’s Millard’s bag,” Megan said, pointing at the half-empty bag on a wooden table.

They’ll miss him when the project is truly over, too.

On a bright June morning, the doors of the Jesup Memorial Library opened once again, and people drifted inside with the cautious excitement of neighbors returning to a beloved house after a long absence. They paused beneath fresh woodwork and newly painted walls, ran their hands along shelves waiting to be filled, and looked around as if taking inventory not of books, but of memories. The soft opening on June 3 was not a grand celebration. It was quieter than that—a community reacquainting itself with one of its oldest gathering places.

Before the speeches, before the official ribbon cuttings still to come, there was the simple act of opening a door.

Opening doors has always been one of the purposes of a community library.

Now, the community gets to step through a few more of them, not just now, but for a long time.

“Here’s to 100 years in this addition,” Brooks said.

“Or more,” Miller said.

On June 3, residents stepped into the renovated Jesup Memorial Library for its soft opening, and they’ll be doing so day after day for years, wandering through sunlit rooms and new spaces.

Some will come to see the changes. Others will come because libraries, like old friends, have a way of drawing people back again and again, for story and for community.

---

RECENT PRESS RELEASES AND BRIEFS

To see all the press releases, click here. To see our news, click here. For the full archive, click here. All of these are on our dedicated website.

Follow us on Facebook or BlueSky or Instagram. And as a reminder, you can easily view all our past stories and press releases here.

Bar Harbor Story is a mostly reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thanks for being here with us and being part of our community too!

Thanks for reading Bar Harbor Story! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Share

If you’d like to donate to help support us, you can, but no pressure! Just click here (about how you can give) or here (a direct link), which is the same as the button below.

To support The Story

If you’d like to sponsor the Bar Harbor Story, you can! Learn more here.

Leave a comment

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR COMMITMENT TO YOUR COMMUNITY