Library ‘s Citizens Advisory Committee to present recommendations on library expansion to Library Trustee Board on April 14
A few weeks ago, representatives of the Orcas Island Public Library Board of Trustees wrote a guest opinion regarding the need for the Library Board to get community input on whether the Orcas Island Public Library (OIPL) building needs to be expanded.
A citizen’s advisory committee was formed that included two Library Board members, two members of the Friends of the Library, and five community members at large. The group has had four meetings, all publicly announced, and the minutes and all data analyzed by the committee have been made available to the entire community on the Website: www.orcaslibraryfuture.org. The Website offers a form to submit comments to the committee, and all submitted comments were reviewed by the committee at its meetings.
Members of the community can continue to use this site to submit comments or they can send email to orcaslibraryfuture@gmail.com.
The website contains a wide variety of data gathered during the last few months, including population trends for Orcas Island from the state of Washington and Orcas Research, massive amounts of statistical data on all public libraries in Washington (we actually focused on about 15 other libraries in the surrounding area), and descriptions of current fund raising efforts by other Washington state libraries.
In addition, the current and projected future space requirements for OIPL were analyzed using standardized software designed for libraries. Other options for providing space given projected growth were discussed by the committee.
During the last meeting of the Committee on March 27, the report to the Board was formulated; the report will be formally presented to the Board at its next meeting on April 14 in the Library Community Room at 9 a.m. The proposal will be published to the website and the community is invited and encouraged to attend the Board meeting on the 14th to hear Board discussion and to comment, according to Library Trustees Lois Cornell and John Ashenhurst.
