Carver Branch Library

The George Washington Carver Branch Library (Carver Library), located in and owned by the City of Austin, Texas, is one of 20 branch libraries run by the City’s Library Department. Prior to its renovation, the existing Library, located adjacent to and south of the Carver Museum, was an approximately 10,000 square foot facility built in 1979. As part of the 1998 Bond election, the citizens of Austin voted to renovate the facility and add approximately 5,000 square feet to allow the Library to operate as a fully integrated 15,000 square foot branch Library.

The renovations and addition to the Carver Library were planned to augment the existing library’s space and services and better serve its neighborhood and community. The primary programmatic additions were to the multimedia collections and facilities of the Library. The Victory Tutorial and Wired for Youth Programs each had rooms designed specifically for them. In addition, a new mechanical system and a larger circulation desk were added to the existing facility.

From 2001 – 2006, Earthly Ideas served as sustainability and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) consultant and provided extensive materials and methods research, specification writing/editing, and design assistance to the team including coordination of LEED certification process. The Carver Library was one of the first City of Austin projects to work towards sustainable design and construction using the LEED framework and was one of the first 300 LEED-registered projects. It earned a LEED Certified rating in June 2006, the fourth facility to earn LEED certification for the City of Austin. The Central Texas - Balcones Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council developed a project profile highlighting the library’s achievements in 2010.