Welcoming You to OPL’s Central Library | A Place for Finding Your Roots

Omaha Public Library continues its video series offering a closer look at the new Central Library, opening in Spring 2026.

In this third installment, we explore how the new library will become a hub for preserving and celebrating Omaha’s stories. The third floor will feature dedicated spaces for genealogy and local history, offering resources for anyone interested in discovering their roots or learning more about the city’s past.

Through interviews with OPL’s genealogy and local history librarians, you’ll get a glimpse into how the new space will enhance access to materials, encourage collaboration, and deepen our community’s connection to its history. With innovative features like the Automatic Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS), with the storage capacity to greatly expand OPL’s available collection, Central Library will strengthen our ability to preserve, share, and expand Omaha’s historical record for generations to come.

Read on for the full transcript of the video.

“That idea that anyone can come to the Central Library, and then find your roots and how your story comes about, I think that's one of the wonderful things,” said Tom Trenolone, with HDR. “We have all these wonderful people that are, maybe have come from either Indigenous people, or they were here, or they're wonderful immigrant stories of so many of us.

“The narrative of the citizens of their community becomes kind of a binding element,” Trenolone added.

“Genealogy and local history, and that third floor is really about giving our community a chance to tell its own story, its own stories,” said Matt Couch, future branch manager for Central Library. “And giving individuals the chance to investigate and learn about their families and tell their family stories.”

A Place to Explore

“That's what genealogy and local history is exploring,” explained Martha Grenzeback, genealogy and local history librarian. “We're going to have new resources, new spaces, new ways to present things, new displays. And so there's going to be a lot to explore.”

“I think a lot of people are going to come just out of curiosity, they've been hearing about this place, and they're going to want to see it at least once. And our job will be to make sure that it's not just once, but they come and they think, wow, this is wonderful and keep coming.”

“We wanted to create space that, again, still has that visual connectivity to the lower floors. But as you kind of make your way up to the third floor, we also wanted to feel unique in and of itself,” said Nancy Novak, with Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture.

“But the wood ceiling really gives you this sense of warmth and coziness that we don't... We have that on other floors, but it's handled in different ways.”

A Place to Collaborate

“We have a lot of work tables up there, and those that are specific to genealogy and historic research. So a couple of big feature tables where people can spill out and really, like, move materials around and gather together.”

“But the piece for me that's kind of exciting is, we have a huge table coming in. One of those giant tables that's going to sit in the middle of the space. Because what I have noticed about our genealogy and local history folks that come in,” said Stacy Lickteig, senior manager of community engagement for OPL. “It isn’t me in my own little world looking up. It's really people connecting together and saying, ‘hey, I found this’ or ‘I'm really struggling with this, could you help me?’ ‘I saw you did this.’ And people start to have conversations and build a community that they never did before, because everybody is connecting on this, curiosity on this. How do I figure this out? And once you get into that moment, it's such a community effort. And I love that piece of that.”

“We try our best to work together and just collaborate,” said Jess Vermeulen, genealogy and local history librarian. “And I mean, each person's story is different, and each records set's different. I mean, it's just a lot of digging and a lot of researching. And most of the time, even after people leave the room, we're still working on it. Just because that's the kind of interest we have is like, it's a puzzle that we want to solve.”

“The questions are so across the board that one thing I love about working here is you never know what you're going to get when somebody walks in, and you never know where their story is going to come from,” Vermeulen added.

“Our job here is to help people find the things they're looking for. We have a lot of people who are researching their family history,” explained Grenzeback. “Sometimes the history of their homes. They're all looking for something a little bit different. But we have the resources, and I think the knowledge to help them find just the resource they need.”

“We've got a lot of materials in our genealogy reference collection that is going to highlight different ways to access records that might be limited or might not exist,” said Vermeulen. “The same for each group of people. We've got Native American genealogy handbooks. We've got African American genealogy handbooks. We've got reference guides for all these different countries and heritages.”

“I always try to remind people that it's not a one-stop shop. It takes time. It takes digging and it takes a lot of teaching yourself where things exist. But if they exist, we will gladly help you find them,” she added.

A Place for Preserving History

“One of the things that you're going to notice when you walk into that building on the first and the second, I guess the mezzanine, too, you can see into this ASRS, right? And you're going to see these bins and think, ‘well, what in the world is in them?’” said Lickteig. “Well, there are books in there. But you know what? A lot of it is going to house our genealogy and local history collection. This is how we actually are able to hold on and safeguard a lot of the memories of our community.”

“The ASRS, which stands for Automatic Storage and Retrieval System, which will be the first one in the United States to be associated with a public library,” explained Trenolone. “But it's one where the ability to kind of, that's kind of where it gives Central its power, because that's where the efficiency of being able to store will be almost double the size of the of being able to double the size of the collection without the need to actually build any more buildings.”

“Think about the memories that we're preserving. Think about the access that is providing for our community,” added Lickteig. “It's a game changer in that it is a climate-controlled area.”

“That history actually belongs to you, not to us. We just get to safeguard it for you. So we are thrilled that not only are we going to have a whole floor that is dedicated to genealogy and local history. We actually have a storage retrieval system that takes up four floors, that can hold up to 700,000 items. Think about the history.”

A Place to Reflect

“I'm really excited about the third-floor genealogy and local history room. It's just going to have a beautiful view. I think it's going to be just a, really a place of calm in the middle of the city where you can come learn about, the origins of your family, the origins of this community,” said Jeff McWhorter, OPL’s senior manager of branches.

“Most of us know what 72nd feels like from street level because we drive it, you know, frequently. Most of us don't know what 72nd is like from these elevated viewpoints, because they're just, those buildings don't really exist at that intersection today. So, you know, as one comes in and works up, you know, the views kind of quiet down,” said Ryan Fisher, with Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture.

“And Central will be a place where people will be able to dream bigger. There are more possibilities. There's more engagement. There's more technology. There are new collections. There's genealogy. There is so much here for people. And I just want to know that this is the library that they really want to have in their community.” said Laura Marlane, executive director of Omaha Public Library.

“I think sometimes people have a sort of a hangover from bad experiences in school, book reports, stuff like that. My own daughter said ‘I love the stories, but all that paperwork you do looks like homework to me.’ So, I just want to try and convince people that it is about the stories that we're trying to find their stories,” said Grenzeback. “And that is what the library does. Stories. We preserve them, we tell them, and we try to extract them from people.”

“Like once you get started, I don't think you ever finish. You just learn more and more about your family and your community, and that's fun. And then you can really be around other folks who are doing the same thing, and you can learn from each other,” said Amy Mather, partnership manager for OPL. “That's one of the delights I have seen over the years, is people helping people on their quest to find out more about their families.”

OPL’s Central Library Opening Spring 2026

As OPL prepares to open its new Central Library, the voices featured in this series will offer a glimpse into the heart behind the building, a shared belief in the library as a space for everyone. The Central Library is more than a building, it’s a reflection of OPL’s commitment to strengthening our community by connecting people with ideas, information and innovative services.

On November 18, 2021, the Omaha Public Library Board of Trustees approved a resolution to work with Heritage Omaha to explore opportunities aligned with OPL’s 2017 facilities master plan, which recommended a new central library on Dodge Street between 72nd and 90th streets. On January 28, 2022, project partners confirmed that the library will be located at the southwest corner of 72nd and Dodge. Learn more about the vision, design, and progress at omahacentrallibrary.org.