Edgartown School students joined town and library officials Monday to celebrate the first visible marker of Edgartown’s new library: a sign announcing the beginning of the project. A group of students from kindergarten, first grade and third grade at the school posed for a picture in front of a sign that says: “Watch your new library being built here.” The sign is in front of the old brick Edgartown School, which will be demolished this summer to make way for the new library. “We’re really trying to get the youth involved in the project,” said library trustee Carl Watt, noting that students are the “next generation of library users.”

Three cheers for the new library! — Ray Ewing

The sign will “let everyone know we’re well underway,” selectman and library building committee member Michael Donorama told the group, adding that they’d soon see a hole where the old Edgartown school now sits. “It’s a beautiful day and we’re ready to go.”

“I’m excited about the new library because I’ll be able to walk there from my house and the school,” Camden Townes, seven, told the crowd.

The new library is expected to cost $11 million, with about half the funding coming from the state. Construction on the library is expected to take two and a half years.