Defenders of the quirky Buckhead library are marshaling their forces just days before the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System board is scheduled to discuss the library's future.

An online petition drive has garnered more than 1,000 signatures, and a protest is planned for 11 a.m. today.

Local developer Ben Carter is offering Fulton County $24 million for the 2-acre library site. He wants to demolish the building and relocate the library to a new mixed-use building. Carter is overseeing the $1.5 billion Streets of Buckhead project, which promises to transform several city blocks where rowdy partygoers used to usher in the morning.

The award-winning library building, 18 years old, is internationally known. It's been referred to as a "slate dragonfly" because of its unusual skin and airiness.

Under Carter's proposal, the library would move to two floors of a high-rise, sandwiched between a parking garage and condominiums. Patrons would ride an elevator to access it.

"The idea of something like that being destroyed seems monstrous to me," said Michael Riggall, a photographer who organized today's demonstration outside the branch on Buckhead Avenue. Riggall's 85-year-old mother, Frances Sottnek, is a regular library patron. She called her son after reading a Feb. 11 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about Carter's offer. Riggall grew up in Chastain Park, where his mother still lives, and visited the library as a child.

He contacted Fulton Commissioners John Eaves and Robb Pitts and the library system director, John Szabo, then decided to organize the protest. He's made signs and bought 100 buttons that say "Save our Library!"

Jason Andersen, an architect at Gensler, learned about the library proposal while lunching with co-workers. He read the article and saw that Commissioner Tom Lowe called the building "an abortion."

"I was mainly outraged by the language that was used," Andersen said. "I couldn't believe somebody would describe the building that way."

He started a petition drive on www.ipetitions.com to drum up support for saving the building. As of Friday afternoon, more than 1,070 people had signed; many included comments.

"Would you put the Margaret Mitchell House on a parking garage?" Kimberly Brannon wrote.

Eaves, chairman of the County Commission and a library system trustee, told other trustees at a meeting that Carter's offer might make sense. "This is an opportunity for the county to receive some money —- to profit," Eaves said. "But it's also an opportunity for the library to be brand new and relocated to the same immediate area."

Designed by Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam, the building sits on a crest and offers a view of downtown. It's also right in the middle of Carter's eight-block Streets of Buckhead redevelopment. Hotels, residences, restaurants, stores and office space are all part of his massive undertaking.

Buckhead Avenue is supposed to become a shopping mecca, so leaving the library there would be "a gap in the experience," Carter said, while incorporating it into a larger building fits in with central Buckhead's vertical growth. There's no room in the project for a new standalone library building, he added.

Thursday night, a group of architects and architecture fans gathered at Georgia Tech to discuss why they think the current building must be saved. One of the participants, architect David Hamilton, wrote to Carter and development partner Scott Higley on Feb. 13 and asked how razing the library jibes with the project's promise to promote outdoor art. Carter last summer purchased a $1 million Frank Stella sculpture for his development.

"The library could serve as a centerpiece in your new public art collection," Hamilton wrote. "Instead of creating acrimony and a considerable backlash against the destruction of one of the most significant buildings in the city, why not help to preserve this work of art and architecture?"

Hamilton said he has not yet received a response.

Another attendee was Elam, who with Scogin designed the building in the late 1980s. She described the look as "very emblematic of open book, open thinking, open-mindedness."

The library board meets Wednesday at 3 p.m. at the Central Library downtown.

COMMENTS FROM ONLINE PETITION DRIVE

"When I first arrived in Atlanta I found that people often gave me directions related to buildings that no longer existed, such as "Go down Peachtree to where the old Buckhead Sears used to be." Please don't let the Buckhead library become another one of the ghost landmarks!!"

Bobby Johnston

"I was 10 years old when it opened and I remember thinking what a fascinating structure it was —- particularly for Buckhead, an area not known for its daring architecture. Now they want to hand it over to the same developer who gave us the Mall of Georgia. What is happening to this city?!"

David Emory

"A lot of people thought that [the] Eiffel Tower is ugly."

Valentina Custer

"To replace this building with such watered-down urbanism —- a la Atlantic Station —- is a move in the wrong direction."

John Threadgill (formerly of the Atlanta Urban Design Commission)

"I still talk about this building to my students at the University of Pennsylvania where I am an associate professor. Atlanta is characterized by the most mediocre, bland, anonymous corporate architecture: Save a moment of difference."

Annette Fierro