For approximately 150 years, the Lloyd Library, nestled on Plum Street in downtown’s northwest corner, has fulfilled its founders’ vision of helping doctors, pharmacists, scientists, environmentalists, artists and other curious souls disseminate information about the natural world through its repository of books, photographs, and various exhibits and collections.
The Lloyd has gradually expanded through four locations downtown, and it’s poised to make a quantum leap forward with a substantial expansion within its current footprint that will unfold over the next several years. The timeline to advance this vision is fluid, but the overarching goal is making it an inviting destination for learning.
Executive Director Patricia Van Skaik has served in the role for eight years after migrating from roles managing genealogy and rare-book departments and community-engagement at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton Library. She had long admired the Lloyd for its rich collection of information about the plant kingdom, but acknowledged that it was largely unknown throughout the Queen City.
“For most of its history, the Lloyd Library was better known by scholars across the country and internationally than it has been in Cincinnati,” she said. “From the outside, our library looks like a bunker and not very inviting. We have been known as a ‘hidden treasure,’ and our goal is to become less hidden to our community.”
To that end, the Lloyd Library’s leadership team embraced an architectural makeover that would expand its footprint while providing an inviting front porch that would raise its profile to Cincinnatians. In 2021, as public spaces emerged from COVID-19 lockdowns, it began soliciting proposals for the renovation. Lloyd Library leadership settled on
De Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop (DPAW), a Louisville-based firm with a portfolio that includes a combination of parks and botanical gardens and historical and research-oriented facilities that resonated with Lloyd’s team.
“Their preliminary drawings showed that they understand our goals for a revitalized space,” Van Skaik said. “I was particularly impressed with their work on the Filson Historical Society [in Louisville]. It’s a very different institution than ours, but its modern and inviting concept aligned well with what we’re trying to do.”
The Lloyd Library’s surging foot traffic clearly indicates it’s no longer such a secret and underscores the need for more breathing room. Van Skaik said that, despite restrictions in public-space access in 2021, its number of visitors exceeded the 2019 pre-COVID tally. In 2024, the number increased to more than 4,000 visitors.
“We’re happy to have more visitors, but success comes with challenges,” Van Skaik said. “We were having so many people showing up for events that we had to turn people away.”
DPAW convened focus groups to glean what the Lloyd’s patrons wanted from the library, and evaluated trends in the evolving ways users are engaging libraries. Using its findings, the firm’s revamp included a number of key amenities: an additional 3,000 square feet of space for resource storage; an event space that accommodates 120 to 150 attendees; and improving its outdoor utility with two outdoor event spaces and a recreational reading and exhibition area. The plans include terra cotta Rookwood Pottery tiles as an homage to the local artistic icon.
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Rendering by De Leon & Primmer Architecture WorkshopFocus groups gleaned what the Lloyd’s patrons wanted from the library including an event space that accommodates 120 to 150 attendees.
Van Skaik said that achieving LEED certification (LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and gauges a number of criteria that address material choices, processes, and construction logistics that measure a project’s environmental impact) for the building’s construction is a cornerstone objective. Two members of the library’s facilities committee are architects, and many of its staff and board members have received LEED certification training.
Even as the Lloyd Library grows into better engaging the public, it will retain and enhance its commitment to providing resources to study what Van Skaik referred to as “eclectic medicine,” an umbrella term for many forms of scholarly work that run counter to “Western medicine.” Those terms may carry certain connotations, but they can be summarized as natural and preventive measures in lieu of traditional treatments that conventional medicine provides that often deal with the reactive treatment of symptoms. Van Skaik said the Lloyd brothers instrumental in founding the library believed in plant-based remedies, noting that they touted echinacea as an effective immune booster even in the late 19
th century, putting them a century ahead of their time. She also pointed to the burgeoning interest in self-care and natural remedies among broad swaths of the population as a factor in the library’s growing popularity.
Van Skaik hesitated to name a concrete date for when the grand reimagining of the Lloyd Library will materialize; she estimated that “a ribbon cutting will be three to five years out.” Also, numerous, perpetually in flux economic factors provide a substantial hurdle for realizing the vision. She noted that, at the outset of seeking proposals, the estimated price tag for the renovation was roughly $10 million.
Now, against the backdrop of a still-tight labor market and the uncertaint outcomes of newly introduced tariffs, with the threat of larger ones in the future, could bring the final cost to $17 million. A formally launched capital campaign is still in the future; Van Skaik said initial conversations have been held with would-be library backers, but that it’s premature to make any announcements.
“We want the Lloyd to remain a valuable resource to scholars, but it’s been in my marching orders all along to make the library accessible,” Van Skaik said. “We have a very creative and talented staff and dedicated stakeholders ready to bring this vision to life.”