GREENFIELD — It was out with the old and in with the new on Saturday, as the Greenfield Public Library community bid farewell to the Leavitt-Hovey House during a goodbye party marking the building’s closure.

For the next month — from Monday, June 19, through Wednesday, July 12 — the library will be closed as its staff prepare for the grand opening of the new building, located next door on Main Street.

In 2019, seven years after the vision for a new Greenfield Public Library was first discussed, voters approved building a new library with a 61% positive vote. A $9.4 million grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and $2 million raised by the Greenfield Public Library Foundation cover more than half the cost of the new building, which was estimated at $19.5 million.

Construction of a new library came in the wake of the Leavitt-Hovey House’s basement, which includes all the library’s community rooms, being closed to the public in 2019 over mold and capacity issues. With the basement closure and the COVID-19 pandemic less than a year later, the library’s community programming has been largely minimal or virtual since then, with some activities for teens and children offered on the front lawn during warmer months. Library staff are excited to create a full list of programming that can be offered in the new space.

Patrons and staff gathered at the Leavitt-Hovey House on Saturday to reminisce about the memories the space holds for them, as well as to celebrate the long-awaited move. The Leavitt-Hovey House became the city’s library in 1909 and has seen many changes in its time.

Paulette Billiel, who moved to Greenfield from the outskirts of Keene, New Hampshire in the 1950s when she was 8 years old, remembers being able to walk to the library. The first book she ever checked out was a children’s cookbook. When she got home, her mother helped her make peanut butter cookies from a recipe in the book to bring to the librarians the next day.

Emily Clarke, now a college student, also grew up at the library. She volunteered there as a teen, and fondly remembers the movie nights the library hosted in the basement.

Lisa Prolman, the Greenfield Public Library’s assistant director, said that in her 26 years as a librarian, she watched people who grew up going to the Children’s Room now bring their own kids there.

One of her favorite memories, though, was finding out that Greenfield received the grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners for the new building.

“I love this building. It is gorgeous,” Prolman said. “But it is not set up to be a library. It is not handicap accessible; it has too many nooks and crannies. We have done everything we can to make this flow. But in the end, it is a house.”

Certainly, loads of volunteers and staff tried their best to turn the house into a library over the years. Doris McLeod, who served on the Friends of the Greenfield Public Library’s board of directors, remembers spending countless hours in the basement sorting donated books for book sales.

“We would sort through boxes to find hidden gems,” she said.

McLeod said the sales would make tens of thousands of dollars to support library programming. However, the book sales stopped in 2019 with the basement closure.

Joannah Whitney recalled how after she moved to Greenfield from Northfield, she had trouble meeting people in her new community. She came to the library to volunteer and make friends. After brainstorming with the staff, she started a writing group where she was able to establish herself in Greenfield.

“The library was the linchpin for me,” she said. However, Whitney, who started using a wheelchair in 2013, said the Leavitt-Hovey House celebration marked the first time she had returned to the library since the 2019 basement closure.

Another well-loved program that brought people together at the library was the “Experience the Book” parties. Pointing to a display case at the circulation desk showing memorabilia from those parties, Lori Tyler, who transitioned from patron to library volunteer to paid staff member, recalled memories of having adult and child actors reenact the “Harry Potter” books, “Mary Poppins” and the local “Hector Fox” series.

“We would fill this room and there would be spillover outside,” Tyler said, referring to the main lobby.

Shutesbury resident Karen Traub, who serves on the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, came to say goodbye to the building as well. Traub would immerse herself in gardening books or cookbooks, or any other book that would teach her a skill, during a short period of free time she had before picking her children up from school.

The last time she was in the library, Traub recounted, she sat down in a chair in the corner and was told she was sitting in the “Teen Corner.” She said she is excited to go to a new space where there will be an entire room dedicated to teens instead of one chair for the age group.

“What an asset,” she said.

There will be many new assets in the new building as library staff finalize the event schedule. Information Services Assistant Pamela McBride will be moving her fiction book group, which has met for the past two years over Zoom, in person with the opening of the new building.

The new library has two public meeting rooms available for reservation after hours, several meeting and study rooms, a laptop vending machine, two makerspace rooms for adult and children’s crafts, a cafe-like setup near the front entrance with a vending machine managed by the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, and a local history room.

Teen Librarian Francesca Passiglia is also scheduling a Barbie-themed party in advance of the release of the new “Barbie” movie. The first 20 teens to register will receive a free ticket to see “Barbie” at the Garden Cinemas. There will also be a Pop-Tart event, where teens will taste different flavors of Pop-Tarts and then go to the new makerspace to make their own Pop-Tart pillow.

For information about future events at the new library, which will have a grand opening on Thursday, July 13, visit greenfieldpubliclibrary.org.

Reach Bella Levavi at 413-930-4579 or blevavi@recorder.com.

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