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From the Director, May 2024

From the Director, May 2024

This month, OCLS has some great news to share for those living in the Horizon West community. At our April meeting, the library’s Board of Trustees voted to approve the budget for the Horizon West Branch.

That means that we are now officially on the path toward opening our first new branch in nearly a decade. Just to give you a refresher on the details: The branch will be located on 11 acres inside the Horizon West Regional Park, which just broke ground this spring. It will be housed in a 20,000-square-foot, LEED-certified building that will be designed to take advantage of the beauty of the park’s natural features. The grounds will be landscaped with native Florida plants and trees, and the interior will feature décor inspired by nature.

Our plan includes meeting spaces, an outdoor performance area, a media lab and all of the features you can find in our other branches – a children’s area, public computers, classrooms and more.

We don’t have a date for our groundbreaking yet, but if you want to keep up with the project, follow us on social media or bookmark the Horizon West Updates page.

If you live in Lake Nona, don’t worry – we haven’t forgotten about you! We don’t have a lot of new information to report yet, but we are still working on a branch co-located with the City of Orlando’s government center and we’ll share the details as soon as we can.

In the meantime, please keep an eye out for pop-up library events at a park, community room or event near you – we’re doing our best to stay active in the communities around us that don’t yet have a library branch nearby.

Steve Powell Library Director/CEO Orange County Library System

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Independence Day Closing

Orange County Library System will be closed Thursday, July 4, in observance of Independence Day. The library system will resume normal business hours on Friday, July 5. View a complete list of holiday closures >