Library projects delayed: ; Officials shifting focus to $30 million facility downtown, Marmet expansion

Citing fundraising challenges, Kanawha County Public Libraryofficials no longer expect to begin work by 2011 on all seven of the$50 million worth of modernization projects they have planned.

Because of the slowed pace of fundraising, getting all the moneytogether at once may no longer be possible. Instead, the focus is onbuilding as soon as possible a new $30 million Main Library indowntown Charleston and replacing the tiny Marmet Library with alarger facility.

Besides those two new libraries, library officials had hoped tobuild a new Elk Valley Library in Big Chimney and add on to thelibraries in Cross Lanes, Dunbar, St. Albans and Sissonville.

After three …